The Moon Will Wax

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Rosh Hashanah is unique - not just the theme of Rosh Hashanah, but also its placement in the month. Most Jewish holidays appear in the middle of the month when the moon is full.

In the full light of the moon, we have the power of Pesach, of Passover.

By the light of the moon, we have holidays like Tu b'Av, the festival of love.

The book of Psalms reads:

Tiku va-chodesh shofar ba-keseh le-yom chageinu. In the month in which we celebrate and coronate creation - the seventh month of the Jewish calendar, in the month of Tishrei - we have kisui ha-levana. Ba-keseh le-yom chageinu. This strange verse from the book of Psalms invites us into a renewal of the year that takes place in the renewal of the moon, but whose light - the moon's light - is hidden. The light of the moon is hidden on Rosh Hashanah when we invoke the blowing of the shofar.

According the the holy Zohar, the 13th century mystical work, ba-keseh le-yom chageinu means that we cover over our sins like the covering of the moon because on this day, as the book of Nehemiah says:

On this day, the joy of Yah, the joy of spirit, the joy of our purity - the renewal of our own belief in ourselves is required. So, we sometimes have to cover over some of the things we'd list as our shortcomings and the natural enervation that creates in our soul when looking at all the ways in which we have missed the mark and fallen short, all of the ways in our prayer for the future that has not yet been manifest in the present moment, and the heaviness - the keveidut - the overwhelming nature of that on the soul. It can be a bit much, so the 13th century Zohar tells us that we get a gift on Rosh Hashanah, and that gift is that we renew the year in darkness - the darkness of the moon's light.

We know that the moon can offer us light, but at this moment - ba-keseh le-yom chageinu - we allow ourselves to have a bit of cover, so that we might reconstitute our strength. We might revitalize, reenergize, and reinvigorate our sense of what is possible, because what is can sometimes feel overwhelming.

Ba-keseh le-yom chageinu. In the covering of the moon. The covering of the moon speaks to another profound truth that gives us oz (strength), that gives us a sense of power. As we spoke yesterday about radical hope - the hope that Jonathan Lear spoke about yesterday, the hope that is rooted in faith, that as concepts and frames erode - a sense of courage is that even without those frames and concepts that have held us and defined what courage and heroism mean, we still reach out. We still risk and are vulnerable for the sake of hope - in that we also see the power of the moon. Because we know the moon will wax. We know the moon will get stronger. We know that as we make our way from today towards Yom Kippur, we will gain strength and introspection and reflection, and the power the will be generated by looking at where we need to improve will, too, wax if we tun our attention to it. The moon's return, its power, is also invoked today.

One last moment, which connects to the moon and its renewal, and to the word oz (strength). If you want to know something about a word or an idea, we have a tradition from the great Reb Tzadok ha-Cohen from Lublin, who we've been studying at Romemu for the last 90 days. The great Reb Tzadok Rabinowitz from the town of Lublin, who lived through two cholera epidemics. He taught us that if we want to know meaning of a word or idea, go to the first place it appears in the Torah and see its context, and that might give us insight in to the nature of a word.

If you look at the first place in Torah that the word oz appears - as in the song, ozi (my strength), or the Wizard of Oz from yesterday, the power that we have from hope - it first appears in Genesis 49:3-4. When Jacob came to the end of his life, he brought all of his children around him and invited them into a blessing he could imagine for them. He gave them words, he gave them a charge. He said to them, "this is what I see in you, and this is what I give to you." Th first of Jacob's children was Reuven (Reuben) whose name means, "Look! There's a child!" There's life. There's a future. Reuven was first fruit of Jacob and Jacob. He says to Reuven:

In Reuven is the story of a leader who might have been. If one looks in the Torah, Reuven is the first born with all the rank an privilege and possibility of a first born. His father tells him, "You could have been something, Reuven. You had everything you could have been given. You were elevated. You had such power."

And as Jacob then blesses him, or describes a moment in Reuven's life amongst other moment, he says, "But something happened. You didn't maximize your potential, Reuven. At moments of critical leadership and junctures where you might have completely fulfilled the promise that you had been born with, you missed the mark."

The blessing given to Reuven by Jacob is a blessing that has the word Oz in it - capacity, strength, potential. And it's used in the context of longing. A sense of lament. "Look what you could have done, Reuven."

If one looks honestly at Reuven's life, his intentions were good. Hs impact may not have been great, but his intentions were terrific. He wanted to help his father and he wanted to help Joseph. Reuven's life is replete with good intentions - great intentions, but his impact was not always great. There is a sense of something being taken away - something lost.

What is remarkable about that story is that in 19th century, there was a great Chasidic Rebbe named Yaakov of Ishbitz. When Yaakov of Ishbitz came to this story, he wrote something remarkable about the blessing give to Reuven by his father, Jacob, and about that word, Oz:

Hinei beshaah she-amar lo.

In the moment when Jacob said to Reuven, you are powerful and have all of these gifts, he then took the gifts away in the very next verse when he called him unstable - all of those gifts of strength. The tradition says Reuven would have been both king and priest. The tradition says when Jacob says he was unstable, he took those away.

But the Ishibitzer says, but wait, the moment they were given to him and taken away, the Ishbitzer says kinyan nishar la-ad. Those gifts, though taken away, were only taken away temporarily. They will be given back to Reuven. And in the moment they were taken away, it creates a longing, and prayer comes when gifts we have received are taken away. Prayer comes from a place of lack. The removal of these gifts became the cry of Reuven: I want it back. I want it back.

The moon will wax. The circles of our stories are not closed, but spirals that loop and bring us back to places we've been before.

In the story of the Wizard of Oz, there is a sense that something we've taken for granted is being taken away. And we yearn to have it back. We try to bring with us what we learned when it wasn't there and we hope it comes back again. "Theres not place like home."

That's the deeper meaning of teshuva. Hashavat Aveidah. When something we've lost comes back into our possession again and we hold it again and say, "I missed you."

"Reuven, you had potential!" And Yaakov of Ishbitz says, "You will have it again!"

But what do you do in between? The moon will wax again and we will have a new normal, but in the interim, the cry, "I want it back. I want it back. I want it back."

The power of the Shofar is that its music begins with Tekiah - the solidity and stability of that beautiful, simple note.

But then we lose Tekiah and in its wake we find brokenness and trembling and instability. Shevarim. Teruah.

Then the shofar says, "No. Tekiah." It comes back. It comes back.

The power of Rosh Hashanah - the power of the masked moon. We will see her face again. We will see each other's faces again.

The tradition says, "Will we really see each other? Will we know the blessing of what it is to see a brother, a sister, another human being - whose face, as Levinas has taught us, in its naked simplicity and vulnerability, speaks to our obligation. Levinas said the face obligates. In every face, a trace. The moon is covered. We are covered. But the moon will wax again. It will return in her fullness.

The Tekiah comes again, but will we hear it this time? Will we appreciate it this time? Will it be different this time?

Reu-ven - see the future, see the power before us.

Ani ashir uzecha, Reuven. I sing your song of stregnth, Reuven, - having lost something, longed for it, and received it again.

As we rise together for the shofar, I invite you to see its spiral looping up and to see and hear the cry for what is missing, for what you want to return again, as we shatter the heavens with our cries.