I find the High Holidays, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, to be overwhelming.
I dread their arrival every year - particularly Rosh HaShanah, the head of the Hebrew New Year.
The Jewish year is a circle, and every Aleph Tishrei, or the first of the Hebrew month of Tishrei, is our January 1st. The idea of Rosh Hashanah is to prepare ourselves for the Yom HaDin, the Day of Judgement - Yom Kippur. On Rosh Hashanah and on Yom Kippur, we chant Unetaneh Tokef, “On Rosh Hashanah it is inscribed and on Yom Kippur it is sealed” - “בְּרֹאשׁ הַשָּׁנָה יִכָּתֵבוּן, וּבְיוֹם צוֹם כִּפּוּר יֵחָתֵמוּן”
And what is inscribed / sealed are the events of the coming year - who will live, who will die, who will accrue wealth, who will lose it, who shall rest, and who shall wander, who will be peaceful and who will be tormented. So, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are big days. And in the same way we’d prepare ourselves for actually standing in a secular court, we prepare ourselves for the High Holidays.
But the high holidays stress me out exactly because of this — they feel like a rapidly approaching exam that I can never be prepared enough for. I’ve never been one for cumulative final exams, but I’m always here for a unit test. They’re so much more manageable.
I bring up the unit test because, while they are definitely not as important or life-altering as the final test, they still do contribute to your comprehension of the total topic and definitely count for something.
Rosh Hashanah is at the tail end of the 12 months and is what I am equating to the Final Exam. Each Hebrew month, then, is the Unit Test — an opportunity to work on a specific unit within the Final Exam (RH 5783). My goal for myself, and for those of you on this journey with me, is that by working hard for the Unit Test every month, we’ll be SUPER prepared for the Final Exam, in Rosh Hashanah 5783 (next year)!
Enter my new podcast idea - Iggeret HaLevana.
Don’t be stressed about the Final Exam, when you can focus on the Unit Test for now.
Each new month, each new moon has the energy of renewal. Month (חודש / Chodesh) comes from the word for “new” (חדש / Chadesh), and just like we have Rosh HaShanah, the head of the new year, we also have Rosh Chodesh, the head of the new month.
Join me on this Moon-centric journey!
First we will begin with a refresher on the significance of the New Moon - Rosh Chodesh was the first mitzvah, commandment, we were given as a people, as Bnei Yisrael (the Children of Israel) officially — right after our Yetziat Mitzrayim (Exodus from Egypt). Our sages give us many interpretations as to why this is the first and why it’s important , but one I will share is that without Rosh Chodesh, we have no structure. Without Rosh Chodesh, we have no calendar. Time has felt so indistinguishable during this difficult past year, but every month, every Rosh Chodesh we have a new energy to tap into, something to break the monotony.
There is a magical, mystical piece of Kabbalistic writing called Sefer Yetzirah, the book of creation / formation. Kabbalah, as a refresher, is the ancient Jewish tradition of mystical interpretation of the Torah. Kabbalah is also 100% over my head, beyond me by 100000000 miles, but I like the idea of tapping into ~mystical magical energy~ so I will use the interpretations of people EXPONENTIALLY more learned than me, to understand the meaning of Sefer Yetzirah. Sefer Yetzirah, as well as its author, are equally mysterious. There have been many attempts to understand or at least categorize its contents.
Cont’d…
For full text, email me at shirajkaplan@gmail.com or join my email list here.