It’s literally returning to a right path. Isn’t the, that word in Hebrew quite visual, like stopping in your tracks and turning around the other direction or something like that? At least, the Hebrew, you know that you don’t know it, and so there’s some kind of air of mystery to it. I mean, one for - as alienated as people are by the Hebrew in the prayer book, often the English is far worse than the Hebrew, because using words like that that don’t resonate for many of us. How does she understand the meaning of the word teshuvah, often translated as “repentance,” which is a watchword for the entire High Holy Day experience? And as she approaches the High Holy Days, I wondered how does she bring words like judgment and atonement alive in herself and for her 21st-century urban congregation. At the core of Jewish faith, for Sharon Brous, spiritual engagement and social justice converge. It is named IKAR, after the Hebrew word for essence or core. And she leads a Los Angeles community she helped to found in 2004. Today, she’s a rabbi in the Conservative school of Judaism.
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She saw synagogue as a familial obligation and experienced the High Holy Days, in particular, as a trial to be endured. TIPPETT: Growing up in New Jersey, my guest, Sharon Brous, never dreamt that she would one day be making such ideas fresh and powerful for a new generation. But to take that and to leave with a commitment to live a life in which they’re able to transform themselves and their relationships and the world, knowing that every day they have might be their last. SHARON BROUS: I think part of the challenge of High Holy Days is to, at some point during the hours and hours and hours that we spend really trying to focus our hearts and our minds over High Holy Days, to bring people to one momentary understanding of the fragility of life. How many shall pass away? And how many shall be born? Who shall live and who shall die? Who shall perish by water and who by fire? Who by earthquake and who by plague? Who shall be at peace? And who shall be pursued? Who shall be exalted? And who shall be brought low?” It includes the lines, “On Rosh Hashanah, it is inscribed, and on Yom Kippur, it is sealed. TIPPETT: This is a traditional setting of Unetane Tokef, a seminal prayer/poem recited during Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur services. Yom Kippur entails long and complex communal prayer, ritual, and fasting, and is accompanied by the long blast of the shofar, the ram’s horn of ancient Israel, and High Holy Day melodies composed across the centuries.
This culminates in the holiest day of the Jewish calendar, Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. Rosh Hashanah initiates 10 days of repentance, an attempt to clean the slate for a new year, a renewed life. And in them, the faithful stand before divine judgment of their deeds and omissions in the year ending. The two days of Rosh Hashanah are a commemoration, not only of a new year, but of the creation of the world. For some, it follows a month of ritual soul-searching. Today, “Days of Awe.”įor observant Jews all over the world, Rosh Hashanah is more than a New Year’s celebration. And they, she says, are making life-giving connections between ritual, personal transformation, and relevance in the world.įrom American Public Media, this is On Being, public radio’s conversation about religion, meaning, ethics, and ideas. The vast majority of her Los Angeles congregation is in their 20s and 30s. My guest, Sharon Brous, is an energetic young rabbi and one passionate voice in a Jewish spiritual renaissance that is taking many forms across the U.S. This hour, we’ll delve into the world and meaning of the upcoming Jewish High Holy Days, from the New Year celebration of Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur’s rituals of atonement, a span of 10 days known as Days of Awe. KRISTA TIPPETT, HOST: I’m Krista Tippett.
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