Rosh Hashanah is considered to be the Birthday of the World; a day on which we acknowledge and celebrate the wonderful world that has been created for us to live in. The symbols and rituals of Rosh Hashanah — apples and honey, blasts of the Shofar, the head of a fish — open all of our senses to the wonder of the world that has been created. This week, we read Parshat Ha’azinu– which literally means “Give Ear..” listen, with your ears wide open. In his final speech to the people of Israel, Moshe describes how God’s speech will “flow like the dew.” We can attune our ears to the voice of God when we realize that God’s speech comes to us like the blast of a shofar, but also like the delicate, barely imperceptible sound of the dew in the grass. Rosh Hashanah is a birthday party in which the sounds are not those of fireworks and loud music, but the sounds of God in the world — in nature, in the voices of prayer, in family conversation.
As we enter into the New Jewish Year of תשס”ח, I wish all of you a year in which the voice of God resonates in your lives, loudly and softly, awakening and comforting.
ְלשָׁנָה טוֹבָה תִּכָּתֵבו וְתֵחַתֵמוּ
“May you be inscribed and sealed for a good year.”
Moreh Greg
