Jewish Holidays… Connecting us with our Creator

This Rosh HaShannah marked the 23rd year that I have been sounding ths Shofar for the early morning minyan at the Cave of Machpela in Hebron. Once again the G-d of Israel blessed my lips and enabled me to sound the notes. Although I tried to relax and just let the sounds come out, when I finished the first series of blasts and placed the Shofar on the table my hands were shaking. It was as if my body and soul were drained of energy. It is hard to fathom the intense physical and emotional strain involved while performing what should be an easy task. Yet this Commandment transforms a simple object into a tool of the Almighty. Not only is the Shofar a tool, but he who sounds that Shofar also becomes a tool which connects all those who hear those holy sounds to our Creator.Rosh HaShannah is the birthday of the universe. It is a prelude to Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, which, more than any other day of the year, causes us to recognize that we have a Creator to whom we owe our very existence. It is a day of awe and thanksgiving where we dedicate ourselves to self improvement and seek to come closer to our Creator. Very soon after Yom Kippur comes the joyous week- long holiday of Succot.

On this holiday we are actually commanded to rejoice! We build little huts in which we live during this week. Like the Shofar on Rosh HaShannah and our fasting on Yom Kippur, dwelling in the Succah enables us to physically connect to our Creator.

The fact is that all of our holidays and all of the Commandments of our Torah were designed to connect us to our Creator all of our lives. This is what has held us together over the thousands of years of our Exile. We are reminded of our history as a people and also of our Divine Destiny. Our holidays and Commandments were designed to keep both the memory of our past and the Promise for our future close to us throughout our lives.

Yet, the reality is that over long periods of time we learn to adjust to our environment. We Jews learned to live under the most impossible circumstances… in ghettos and even in death camps. The greater the threat the more we clung to our Judaism as best we could. Yet in times and places when the threat diminished so did our passion for our heritage. In the United States, where we found acceptance and relative equality, we placed our Judaism on a back burner and dedicated ourselves to become Americans first and foremost. Such was also the case in our Exiles in Spain, England and Germany as well as other European nations.

The lessons of our ancient observance were intended to give us the tools to stand up to the challenges which have faced us in every generation… but most especially for the climax of Jewish Destiny which lies before us. We have had somewhat of a respite from persecution in the past few decades as our Creator was giving us ample opportunity to open our eyes the reality of the reestablishment of Jewish sovereignty in at least part of our destined homeland. It has always been His Will that we choose to come home. This has been a Jewish dream for thousands of years which our forebears yearned to see come true. Yet, in our time, when the dream is clearly beginning to come true, most of us fail to take notice. It is more than ironic. It is tragic. For if the entire Jewish Nation were to demonstrate our faith in our G-d by simply coming home we could hasten Redemption and bring genuine peace to the entire world.

By closing our eyes to our obligations and our destiny we prolong our Exile and invite needless tragedy. As we recite the slichos prayers early in the morning before the regular prayers as Yom Kippur approaches, we beg G-d to have mercy upon us and forgive our sins. We recount in sorrow how we are forced to endure a difficult Exile and pray for the time when we will be restored to our ancient homeland. Yet that time has already begun and most of us choose to pretend that it hasn’t. If we take our prayers seriously and truly seek the mercy of our G-d, we would be making plans to come home.

Our G-d is patient and compassionate with us and is waiting for us to open up our eyes and just be good Jews. But there is a Divine Plan which does have a time limit even if we do not know what it is. As the Jewish State continues to grow under circumstances which would see any normal country disappear; and as anti Semitism grows all over the world; and as nation after nation seeks to weaken and destroy the Jewish State, the days of our Exile are swiftly coming to a close.

If you prefer logic to Judaism then clearly it makes no sense to move to a tiny country which has hapless leaders and is hated by the nations. But if you truly do believe in G-d and His Torah… Jewish history and Jewish Destiny… then you have no choice but to come home as soon as you can. Exile and Redemption cannot coexist, By definition the Exile must be destroyed in order that Redemption take place. I believe that this process is already taking place. There is no way for us to know how long the process will take until it is actually completed. But it is foolish, reckless and irresponsible to ignore it and hope that it will take a very long time. Now is the time to secure our future and cling to our destiny with a tenacity that our grandparents once had.

When you recite kiddush in your succah in Exile try to feel the connection to our Creator; to our ancient past, and to our destined future. Our holidays are not children’s games or quaint religious customs. They are very real tools given to us by our Creator to help us relate to our identity as Jews. They have held us together as a people, kept our connection with our Creator, and, hopefully, will help us connect with our destiny as well.