Rabbi Walter Homolka on Rosh Hashana, the treshold of a New Year, and the concept of good livelihood in Jewish thought. In this context Homolka also discusses the dangers Jews face today.
Rosh Hashanah is the threshold of a New Year, a day on which we celebrate both the creation of the world as well as reflect on God’s jurisdiction over humans. We reflect on the past year’s events and on our own inner life. It is said that we learn from the mistakes of the past year to make the coming year more positive.
According to our traditional conception, God is sitting, during the ‘days of awe’ the yamim nora’im, from Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur, as a judge of the court over people to decide, with regard to the coming year, on life and death, health and illness.
Celebrating our humanity
In the last section of the Torah chapter on Rosh Hashanah, in Deuteronomy 30, it says: “I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day: I have put before you life and death, blessing and curse. Choose life – if you and your offspring would live – by loving the Lord your God, heeding his commands, and holding fast to him. For thereby you shall have life and shall long endure upon the soil that the Lord your God swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to give to them.”
Girls celebrating Rosh Hashanah
A certain expression of hope and joy
Along with all the seriousness, on Rosh Hashanah there is a certain expression of hope and of joy. To the traditions of the New Year belongs the wish for a good New Year: le’shana tova tikatev v’techatem. Behind this desire is the idea that Rosh Hashanah relates to people’s lives, and even to the future of mankind.
The greeting goes back to a Rosh Hashanah prayer: “In the book of life, blessing, and peace, and good livelihood, may we be remembered and inscribed before You, we and Your entire people of the Family of Israel, for a good life and for peace, for Your sake, God of life.” It is striking that in this relatively short sentence the word chayim, life, appears four times. The reason too is remarkable: “for your sake”, God wishes that man lives.
God needs man
We must do our part to ensure that the relationship between us and Him is put in order. But this “for your sake” means even more: Apparently God needs man. Not only is God searching for him, as in the title of the book by the major Jewish religious philosopher Abraham Joshua Heschel, God in Search of Man. This “for your sake” means, for God’s sake, let man create the conditions inscribed in the Book of Life. God wants man to live, and man should make the world so that it leads to life, and so that he remains alive.
With such thoughts we are addressing the issues of today. There is no real requirement to list all the dangers to which mankind is exposed.
With regard to the New Year, we also think of the dangers we Jews face concretely. The debates about banning circumcision in Germany and the attack on a rabbi in Berlin are still fresh. Such examples of utter intolerance are an assault on the body and the soul of Judaism in Germany and beyond.
We are a community of solidarity and destiny. Therefore, the issue of peace in and with Israel is an issue for our own peace: anachnu we’chol amcha beit Jisrael. This question moves us especially in this Rosh Hashanah, because the state of Israel urgently needs external peace, including inner peace in social, economic, religious and political terms.
The right of self-defense
Israel continues to be exposed to the dangers of a nuclear attack from Iran. How do we deal with this security threat? We take the primacy of life for granted, but we can no longer pretend to believe that the value we Jews place on life is shared equally by all peoples and all faiths. Judaism implies commitment to a culture of nonviolence and reverence for all life.
To save life, the Halacha allows the suspension of virtually all the Mitzvot of the Torah; exceptions are idolatry, fornication and murder – unless in self-defense against a potential murderer (Hebrew: rodef, literally “the pursuer.”). With regard to acting in self-defense, the Talmud says in the Sanhedrin Tractate 72a: “If it is as clear to thee as the sun that his intentions are not peaceable, slay him; if not, do not slay him.”
That may be justification for some Israeli politicians who think of a first strike in case quiet diplomacy and international solidarity fail. Our sages also knew that attacking is not the best defense, and discussed the legitimations and limits of a just war.
“Holy War”
My colleague Reuven Firestone explains in his recent book “Holy War in Judaism” (Oxford University Press, 2012) how the concept of “holy war” disappeared from Jewish thought for almost 2,000 years, only to reemerge with renewed vigor in modern times. Rabbinic Judaism largely avoided discussion of holy war in the Talmud and related literatures for the simple reason that it became extremely dangerous and self-destructive.
The Talmudic sages had virtually eliminated divine authorization for Jews to fight in Jewish armies. The first stage of the revival of this concept was sanction for Jews to fight in defense; this includes defense of the State of Israel.
The Abraham Geiger College’s Website
Shun evil and do good
Rosh Hashanah and our Machzor are about life. Just as God desires life, we too must embrace life. The psalmist enunciated the formula for expressing that wish: “Who is the man who desires life, who desires years of good fortune? Guard your tongue from evil, and your lips from deceitful speech. Shun evil and do good, seek peace and pursue it“ (Psalms 34:13-15).
Or in the words of H.G. Wells: “If the universe is non-ethical by our present standards, we must reconsider those standards and reconstruct our ethics”.
Rabbi Walter Homolka is rector of the Abraham Geiger College at the University of Potsdam