Celebrating on the Day of Judgment?? Dr. Michael Kagan
How is it that on the Day of Judgment we have the audacity to be celebrating? Food, drink, guests, special dishes, new fruits, songs, laughter, family, friends. This behaviour, while eminently Jewish, is somewhat paradoxical considering the book that is supposedly open, the pen that is hovering, our reluctance to change our heads (lit. Rosh Hashanah), to face the truth, with the sound of the shofar desperately trying to turn the judgment. Celebrate?
A classic way to explain this tension is that the Torah doesn’t associate Rosh Hashannah with tshuva (repentance) but as Yom Teruah – the day of sounding the Shofar which is symbolic of Kingship. Therefore, we are celebrating the acceptance of our God as our King and none else. Coronation – Celebration!
Here is another explanation. It is inspired by the film City of Angels (the remake of the original Wings of Desire) with Nicolas Cage and Meg Ryan. There is a midrash that describes how the Angels protested when the Divine was about to pass over to Moshe the secret of the 13 Attributes – the key to arousing the Divine Mercy. They argued that this formula would be misused, that the humans deserve to be punished, that the Divine would be too compassionate and too easily withhold the rod of correction. In the film the Angel Seth (Cage) falls in love with Maggie (Meg Ryan – and who wouldn’t?) and decides to literally fall into our material plane of existence only to lose her in a tragic accident. At the end of the film he meets his former Angelic colleague: (Seth) - Am I being punished?
(Friend) - You know better than that. That's life. You're living now. And one day you'll be dying. What's it like?
(Seth) - What?
(Friend) - Warmth.
(Seth) - It's wonderful.
(Friend) - If you'd known this was going to happen...would you have done it?
(Seth) - I would rather have had...
...one breath of her hair...
...one kiss of her mouth...
...one touch of her hand...
...than an eternity without it.
One.
In other words, Rosh Hashannah is a celebration of LIFE, a celebration of living, of being human, of being able to choose, of loving, and failing, and touching and feeling, and pain, and tears, and turning, and turning again. This (and so much more) is being human and these (and so many more) are the reasons to celebrate this year and every year.
May we all be blessed to be written into the Book of More Life.
