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It’s unfortunately too easy to put leagues between ourselves and the somber days that stretch from Rosh HaShanah to Yom Kippur. Our God is depicted in so many High Holiday prayers and piyutim (accompanying poems) as infinitely removed and vastly more powerful than us. The intimidating appelation for this period, “Days of Awe,” causes even more trembling when one knows that in modern Hebrew, the word for Awe (nora) is tossed around casually to describe terrible activities.
Rhetoric, mere rhetoric. The High Holidays were not handed down from Mt. Sinai like the Sabbath and the festivals. They are the collective project of the Jewish people, and we are still building and shaping this project to our needs.
Certainly, a few familiar traits of Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur are described (by the month and day of their observation, not by the names we now use for them) in passages scattered throughout the five books of Moses, along with various prophets. We still rely on these sacred books for some details of our current-day rituals, such as blowing the shofar and afflicting ourselves through fasting. But the Torah commandments don’t contribute anything near the totality of what we do now.
The overarching concepts that stand out for us in current High Holiday practices are renewal and return. Both of these concepts were invented by Jews themselves, rather than coming from the Torah.
Renewal is tied both to Rosh haShanah as the birthday of the universe (or the human race, depending on the tradition) and to the personal hope of becoming better versions of ourselves. One can find calculations in the Talmud about the beginning of the universe, but they are not tied to Bibical notions. And self-improvement comes even later in Jewish history.
Return also takes several forms. We no longer cleanse ourselves of sin by placing it on goats (although some place it on chickens), but we do a cleansing by renounce vows. Many talk of casting off accrued hindrances and finding within themselves a purer being during High Holidays. Throughout the prayerbook, repentance for bad behavior looms as a goal. But return and repentance are post-Bibical concepts.
The human origins of our High Holidays are underscored by the many piyutim written in the post-Talmudic period, the crowning example being Unetanah Tokef. Although the verses of Unetanah Tokef and many other piyutim claim that we are passive objects of God’s actions, the very tradition of ongoing piyutim composition emphasizes our right and our responsibility to continue evolving the High Holidays to meet the needs of individuals and communities.
Recent years have witnessed an expansion of High Holiday concerns to take into account our obligations to the people around the world affected by our economic, military, and environmental choices. We look to our kinship with animals and plants, to our stewardship of the oceans, atmosphere, and soil. The Days of Awe move along with us. Remake the High Holidays this year, as every year.
Andy Oram
October 3, 2022
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.