The Shofar Calls to Us

Written and delivered by Matt Kowitt, Physicist and Engineer, and member of the Board of Directors of Keddem Congregation, for the first day of Rosh haShanah, at morning services.

L’Shana Tovah.

I would like to speak on this Rosh Hashanah about the Shofar.

The Torah itself doesn’t tell us very much about Rosh Hashanah. In Leviticus 23, we read that Moses is instructed by God to tell the Children of Israel: In the seventh month, on the first of the month, there shall be a day of rest for you, a remembrance with shofar blasts, a holy convocation. Later, in Numbers 29, a similar instruction calls this day Yom Teruah, the day of shofar blasts, and then spells out the ritual offerings for the festival. That’s pretty much it for Rosh Hashanah and the Torah.

One of my most lasting memories of going to temple with my parents as a young child for High Holy Days is certainly the thrill of hearing the Shofar blasts. Most of the service, to my young self, was a somewhat boring chain of standing and sitting, songs and readings that seemed to go on for much longer than ordinary Friday night services. But I knew, somewhere in there, we were going to hear the Shofar. The anticipation would get me fidgeting, leafing forward in the prayer book, trying to figure out when they would happen. When it finally came, it was like fireworks! When I really try to put myself back there, I can still get goose bumps from the thrill. That was serious stuff!

What is this all about? In Numbers (15:37) we are commanded to wear tzitzit, “that you may see it and remember all the commandments of God and perform them.” Like a string around your finger, a gentle, constant reminder, to live the kind of lives that we should. Now, hearing the Shofar is different. Not a gentle, constant reminder...more like a biblical version of what modern-day sages Tom and Ray Magliozzi call the “dope slap.” For those who might not be familiar with this bit of Car Talk wisdom, Tom and Ray explain it as:

a light “whappp” to the back of the head, done with an open palm in an upward motion.

They go on, saying “We should point out that the dope slap is not meant to inflict pain. It is used strictly as an attention-getting device.”

The Shofar definitely works for me as an attention-getting device.

One of the central prayers for today is the Unetaneh Tokef, which tells us “On Rosh Hashanah it is written, and on Yom Kippur it is sealed...” Near the beginning of the prayer it reads:

A great shofar is sounded and a still small voice is heard
The angels in heaven scurry about
and are seized with fear and trembling
They say: "Behold, the Day of Judgment!"

I admit that as a Reconstructionist, I don’t read this prayer with the literalism that was nearly universal a few hundred years ago. And still, the poetic imagery of the heavenly hosts trembling at the Shofar blast gets me every time.

So now we hear the Shofar, and it has our attention: what now? The Torah tells us this is a day of zichron, remembrance. But of what?

Writing almost a thousand years ago, Rashi sees “remembrance” as calling upon God to remember Israel for good, with the Shofar symbolizing the ram that Abraham offered in place of Isaac. There is even a tradition, ascribed to Rabbi Eliezer of the 9th century CE, that holds that the mighty Shofar blasts that were heard at the Revelation at Sinai, amid the thunder and lightning, as the mountain trembled, came from the shofar made from the left horn of the very ram offered by Abraham.

Maybe 800 years before Rashi, the Mishna records Rabbi Aqiba teaching that three themes shall accompany the Shofar blasts: Malchuyot, God as King; Zichronot, God’s remembrances of creation; and Shofarot, the Shofar itself. Today, we find these three themes woven into the biblical passages read during the Shofar service.

Maimonides comes in fairly close with the Magliozzi brothers. In the Shofar blast, the Rambam hears: “Awake, you sleepers, from your sleep! Arise, you slumberers, from your slumber! Repent with contrition! Remember your Creator! ... Peer into your souls, improve your ways and your deeds.”

For me, my understanding of the Shofar’s call is back in the Unetaneh Tokef, which, after listing the grim fates that hang over humanity, reminds us that

Tshuvah, Tefillah and Tzedakah, Repentance, Prayer and Just Action,
Have the power to change The character of our lives

It is the “dope slap” that tries to tell me: Hey! Wake up! Pay Attention! Do some soul searching and turn back with tshuvah, get your head and heart in the right place with tefillah. And realize that there’s work to be done that won’t do itself—it takes tzedakah!

Of course, life comes barging in almost as soon as I’m crossing the parking lot after leaving shul. I try to keep a little of that focus during the week, but work and school and carpools and soccer and... well, I suspect you get the picture. I get one more good try at Yom Kippur, and then I’m back to the tzitzit. Gentle reminders, when I remember to pay attention to them.

That’s one of the reasons I love hearing the Shofar. It always cuts through, always gets my attention, at least for a still, small moment.

May we all be inscribed in the book of life for a good, healthy, and peaceful year. L’shana Tovah.

President's Drash 5769

It is the custom at Keddem Congregation for the president to give the drash on Erev Rosh Hashanah. I did that this year as the new president. It was my first time ever giving a drash but not speaking before a large audience. I was asked to share this here. Picture if you will, it being spoken by a short, round, late-middle-aged woman with some purple in her hair. Esther A. Heller

L’shana Tovah! It is with a great deal of joy that I stand here as President of Keddem Congregation to welcome all of our members and guests who have come to worship and be a Jewish community together.

We are living in a time where there is much discussion of change in the air. Or should I say, on the airwaves? We, too, at Keddem are looking at change and transition. Our current Board took office in July and our wonderful, new, rabbi Elisheva Salamo, whom you’ve heard tonight, officially joined us in August. We have begun our work as a leadership team, work which requires balancing the needs of the present with our goals for the future.

As the new President, I have already shared with the congregation the three themes which will influence our work this year. I call them the three Ms so that we can all remember them: Membership, Money and Message. You will hear others speak throughout these services about membership and money. For now I just ask that you listen to them with open minds, open hearts and after the holy days, open checkbooks.

Tonight, I’m going to elaborate on message because it is a topic that is bigger than our congregation and all of us here tonight. We live in a society that has developed what linguist Deborah Tannen refers to as "the Argument Culture." It results in our elected officials paying more attention to beating the opposition and laying blame than to running the government in collaboration and joint responsibility. The media fuels this culture by looking for areas of disagreement, which produces lots of negatives. I recommend Tannen’s book which goes into depth on this topic. As technology advances, it seems that if anybody says anything controversial or that someone else just doesn’t like, it is immediately torn apart on blogs or posted on Youtube and linked to Myspace or Facebook or other internet sites. The dialogue gets lost, the positive gets lost, hope gets lost.

Now, we are here, come together, away for a while from the argument culture, to reflect on our past year, individually and collectively and resolve to do better in the next year. We’re resolving to be more true to our intentions, more positive in our actions, more hopeful for our futures. The work I’ve done over the past decade has taught me to emphasize positive messages. I believe you can better affect change with positives than with negatives. Keddem’s five guiding values easily reflect and support that belief.

We at Keddem often refer, usually together, to our first two values - being Inclusive and Egalitarian. As it happens, reading about them on our website was one of the things that drew me to this congregation. We are inclusive in that everyone who supports our goals is welcome as a member, regardless of background, family, household structure or Jewish education. We strive to be inclusive in our activities and our policies, wanting all members to feel comfortable as members. As you will see throughout these services, we are egalitarian in our liturgy and leadership roles believing that God transcends gender. But we are also egalitarian socio-economically in our approach to dues and donations and fees. You will see during Torah services that we are given the first aliyah all together because we are a community where everyone is important.

Our third value is being Participatory. These services are led by three technology professionals, a professional artist and a professional rabbi, all of them members. Our events are organized by volunteer members of the congregation. Now, here’s where we can get a positive message challenge! Because our membership is made up of creative, people who like to think and act for themselves, we don’t always have consensus on how events should be run. So sometimes, we forget to allow our organizers to enjoy the fruits of their labor before offering feedback. Sometimes, we have to train ourselves to make that feedback use the three Ps: Positive, Polite and Pertinent. After all, we are a community and as such, we have responsibility for each other. That includes encouraging and allowing each other to take on new challenges within the community in, yes, a positive environment.

Keddem’s fourth value is being Questioning. That means we are dedicated to continuing Jewish education through study of Torah and text, by reading books or by viewing movies, always discussing. We know that our members possess an amazing depth of knowledge and a diverse range of experiences. We sometimes have to work harder at listening to and respecting each other’s opinions but we are a community and know we are stronger for that diversity and that listening.

Finally Keddem Congregation is Reconstructionist. We are affiliated with the Jewish Reconstructionist Federation (JRF.) As you’ll see again in our liturgy, we honor Jewish traditions while adapting them to modern life. At Keddem, we say “infusing tradition with new meaning” Now, how is that for a positive message? Engaging in the work of deciding how to actually adapt our Jewish traditions and what meaning we want to infuse can be challenging. So Reconstructionists have developed a saying that guides us: "the past has a vote, not a veto." But think how powerful a guide that can be for our own personal lives as well. We are all products of our backgrounds. As we begin these Days of Awe and the New Year, our personal pasts should inform, not veto, our future actions. We can foster that by delivering positive messages to ourselves and each other.

A quick review of President Esther’s mnemonics. We start with the three Ms: growing and nurturing our members, raising and managing our money and delivering our messages. Our messages are most effective using the three Ps: positive, polite and pertinent. Hmm, I’m missing something. Oh, yes - what makes it all worthwhile? The three F’s of course: good food, caring friends and having fun. I’ll tell you about opportunities for them during the announcements.

I’m a pragmatic optimist. I know what I’ve been talking about requires hard work. But I believe we can as individuals and as a community make the changes we seek.

L’shana Tova Tikateivu! May you and yours all be written for a good New Year!

Welcome!!

Welcome to the Keddem Congregation blog!

As the current president, I have the honor of making the first post. It's an honor and it's a challenge as it is also my first public blog. I've linked this to our congregational website for those of you who would like to learn more.

Here's a short summary from our home page:

Keddem Congregation is a community-led, Reconstructionist Jewish congregation, passionately committed to infusing tradition with new meaning. Keddem is based in Palo Alto, California, on the San Francisco Peninsula.

Worship, study, community and governance at Keddem are based on the following principles—Keddem is: inclusive, egalitarian, participatory, questioning, and Reconstructionist.

And now, I will move onto my second post, which will be the President's 5769 Erev Rosh Hashanah drash. Thanks for reading and I look forward to seeing your comments.

Esther A. Heller, President, Keddem Congregation