Given at Society Hill Synagogue by Hazzan Jessi Roemer
Friday, Sept 23, 2022
Shabbat Shalom – thank you for being here.
It’s an auspicious time, the turning of the year. No matter when Rosh Hashanah lands in the Gregorian calendar, as we approach the Jewish New Year, everything always seems to change a little more palpably than usual. Like the weather today, for example (which on the East Coast, changed pretty dramatically).
We mark time in circles. This makes sense: We live on a rock made round by its constant circling of itself and the sun; everything on this planet, by nature, is always turning. And so, for Rosh Hashanah we make everything round - round apples, round challot, round cakes - reminding ourselves that we exist in circles and cycles.
In a true circle, though, change would be almost imperceptible; one season would slip into another practically without our noticing. And sometimes change does seem to happen that way; I could swear my high school senior was just five years old yesterday!
But there are other times when we’re distinctly aware of a shift – in season, in age, in understanding. Sometimes we even manage to mark these moments: A graduation, B’nai Mitzvah, a harvest holiday. We might sometimes describe such a marked experience of change as “turning a corner” – even though our lives are defined by circles, and circles have no corners! Or we might say change is like climbing a hill and coming down the other side – like the long arc of history, which we pray bends towards justice. I like to think of these shifts and corners and hills like the mountains and seas of the Earth: Great heights and depths on the surface of what is, nevertheless, a giant globe – always turning, always cycling.
And this constant turning also means constant returning: Everything eventually comes back to its Source.
This week in the Torah, the word shuv - the Hebrew root for turn / return - appears seven times in a span of just ten verses. Now, if you’ll geek out with me for a minute, what I think is especially cool - and what I love about Hebrew - is that this word, shuv, (or shav) - which, by the way, is also the root of the word teshuvah / repentance - is used seven different times with seven different meanings! Seven different times the word “shuv” appears, meaning, respectively: “internalize;” “turn towards;” “restore;” “bring together;” “heed,” “again,” and “return.”
So in these last moments before the New Year, the writers & redactors of Torah are letting us know that the central work of this season - lashuv - is not primarily to beat our breasts and pledge to do better. It’s to actively assemble; integrate; listen; turn toward; return to; restore; tune in. That is the work.
This Torah goes on to say, “Lo r’chokah hee,” and “lo bashamayim hee” – “This task is not beyond reach, nor is it in the Heavens;” rather, “Ki karov eileicha hadavar me’od, b’ficha uvil’vavcha la’asoto.” “No – it is very, very close to you – in your mouth and in your heart, to do it.”
We don’t need to be in any particular place to do this work; we can do it wherever we are, because the instructions are already in our bodies. Now, just because it isn’t far away doesn't mean it’s easy; sometimes the hardest work to do is the work that’s closest, with the people who are closest to us. But a key phrase here is “lo r’chokah hee” - this task is not beyond us; it is within our capability as human beings to tune in to the beating of our hearts, and to let the compassion of our hearts flow from our mouths.
Over the next month of holidays, many of us will assemble to chant, pray, read, sing, reflect. And I look forward to seeing many of you here at SHS to do that together. But wherever you are, whether in shul (synagogue) or not, I wish for you and for all of us that we are blessed with the time, focus, and space to do this holy work of lashuv – teshuvah - in all its meanings.
A propos of tuning in and turning towards, one last note: While we should tune into civic goings on only in doses that are healthy for us, I want to remind everyone how crucial it is to get registered to vote, and help now to get out the vote for November! We can collectively change our lives for the better by turning towards each other and staying engaged in our elections!
Shabbat Shalom, and Shanah Tovah!