Hayom Harat Olam- Rosh Hashanah Dvar, Day 1, 2017

Hayom Harat Olam
“This is the day of the world’s birth. This day all creatures stand before You, whether
as children or as servants. If we be children, show us a parent’s compassion; if we be
servants, we look to You for mercy, until you render our judgment as pure as light, O
awesome and Holy G-d.”
 
What does it mean when we say that today is the world’s birth?  Rosh Hashanah does not in fact commemorate the first day of Creation, of Bereshit Bara Elokim et Hashamayim v’et Ha’aretz, when G-d created heaven and earth.  No, Rosh Hashanah commemorates the sixth day of creation – when Adam and Eve were brought into existence, and G-d’s creative labour was done.  The stage was set for the world to unfold.
In the Talmud, it states that man was created alone in order to demonstrate that
"Whoever destroys a soul, it is considered as if they destroyed an entire world. And whoever saves a life, it is considered as if they saved an entire world."
If a single soul contains the potentiality for an entire universe, then perhaps to understand the world’s birth, we must think about the birth of a child.  A child’s birth represents a miracle, and opens our eyes and hearts to the unbounded, limitless potential of life.
Our Torah and Haftarah readings are indeed about miraculous births.  Rosh Hashanah was the day on which Hashem remembered Sarah and decreed the birth of Yitzhak Avinu, our forefather Isaac. Rosh Hashanah was also the day on which G-d answered Hannah’s call, as she became mother to the prophet Shmuel.  A newborn baby comes into the world innocent and helpless.  A baby depends entirely upon the power and benevolence of its parents and caregivers to provide the nourishment, protection and love it needs to survive and grow in this world. 
On Rosh Hashanah, we all become newborn.  Just as a baby is vulnerable, so too do we become vulnerable.  Just as a baby depends upon parental love, we too depend upon Hashem’s love, nourishment and sustanance in our lives.  We say in the prayer Avinu Malkeinu,
אבינו מלכנו חננו ועננו כי אין בנו מעשים
Our loving parent and sovereign, be gracious to us and answer our plea, for we are bereft of all deeds.  In other words, we have no powers or achievements to proffer before you, G-d, simply our selves.  Like a child.
Throughout our lives growing up and as adults, we seek mastery – mastery of our lives, relationships and careers; we seek control over our homes, our finances, our fitness, our daily ventures; we may even seek, in vain, to control the ones we love.
Rosh Hashanah is the time to delicately unwind that control and come at our world anew.  What would it be like if we had as little control over our day to day lives as an innocent newborn?  How would that change our perspective?  Would we look differently at the world around us and all the strange and marvelous things in it?  If we depended upon others for all our needs, with what wonder would we regard them?
It is a fearful thing to be helpless and vulnerable.  Yet that is what Rosh Hashanah asks of us – to recognize our utter deficit in the presence of G-d… to learn to be helpless.
 
And still – we are not newborns.   We are not innocent and pure.  We have lived lives, achieved significant things, built relationships, made decisions, made mistakes.  And we are asked with the arrival of the New Year, to recognize our merits and deficits honestly. 
This is why Rosh Hashana is also known as Yom Hadin – the day of True Judgment.  Our souls stand open before Heaven.  מה אנו?  מה חיינו? What are we?  What are our lives?  What are our merits?  What are our shortcomings?
 
These are enormous questions which may not be readily answered in one day.  That is why Rosh Hashana is in fact part of a process that extends until Yom Kippur, and even afterwards, to do “Cheshbon Nefesh” – an accounting of our active souls.  Yet to make this more than just an abstract exercise, I ask you to focus on ONE THING: Choose one aspect of you life that you wish to evaluate and improve. (PAUSE) Think about it.  Be conscious and honest with yourself about it.  What are you doing well?  Where do you struggle?  Where do you need the help of others?  Where do you need help, support, strengthening from Hashem?
We are on a journey of the soul.  Each of our souls has its own individual journey.  But on Rosh Hashanah, you do not stand alone.  You have the company of friends, community, loved ones, and simply fellow Jews around who are sharing in this process of atonement and transformation. We stand together as one, joining in a stream of spiritual consciousness extending back thousands of years of our history.
It is told in the Midrash of King David beseeching G-d.  He foresaw the day that the Beit Hamikdash would be destroyed.  David cried out to G-d saying, Hashem, how can you allows this to happen?  Your Temple will be demolished, and the people, G-d, the people will have nowhere to atone for their misdeeds!  And Hashem answered him – David, in times of trouble, let the people stand before Me as one.  They shall make confession and say Selichot – and I will answer them.
During our High Holiday prayers, we chant prayers that sometimes may seem distant and abstract to us.  The exquisite wording of the Piyyutim, the many liturgical poems recited on this day, may prove either inspiring to us or seem hard to relate to.  This is why I encourage you to reflect on your own life, on that which you wish to change or simply reframe perspective.  The words and melodies of the prayers are simply an avenue, and not the only one, to your own process of discovery.
Use the time of the Holidays, and the prayers, to help you.  When we pray, we call out for fulfilment, in full recognition of our humanity.  To be human is to be imperfect.  Our Rosh Hashanah prayer is intended as an expression of our incompleteness.   We come together to recognize our own humanity, our present and potential goodness, our longing to fulfill our own potential. 
I invite you today, and for the next ten days, to focus on perhaps just that one thing, that one aspect of your life which you wish to evaluate, improve or even transform...  Let us use this time together – this time of prayer, of reflection, of heartfelt honesty, to map our journeys.  We’ll let our hearts become a little more open to Heaven and to one another, a little bit more vulnerable, a little readier to achieve our true potential.
The Gates of Heaven are open.  Our destiny is being determined as we speak.  Let us use these High Holidays, this Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, to truly look at ourselves, recognize who we truly are – for better, for worse – and invite Hashem into our life to help transform it – to help us realize our human potential in this world.