September 30, 2024|כ"ז אלול ה' אלפים תשפ"ד The Prayer of Rosh Hashanah By Rabbi Jonathan Muskat

In the silence of the soul, a child whispers, "God, speak to me." A bird sings, yet the child hears nothing. The child yells, "God, speak to me!" Thunder rumbles, but the child does not listen. Desperate, the child cries, "Show me a miracle!" A life is born, but the child remains oblivious. Finally, the child pleads, "Touch me, God, and let me know you are here!" A butterfly lands gently on the child's arm, yet it is brushed away unnoticed.

This story, like the call of the shofar, invites us to attune our hearts and minds to the spiritual whispers that surround us. The shofar is not merely a ritualistic blast; it is a clarion call that reverberates through the ages, from the momentous revelation at Sinai to the crumbling walls of Yericho. It is a reminder that we stand on the precipice of a new era, each year, with the potential to tear down the walls that separate us from our divine mission.

Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev once gathered his community in the shul, startling them with a midweek assembly. The people, anxious, feared the worst. But Rabbi Levi Yitzchak simply ascended the pulpit, grasped the bimah, and cried out, "Jews! Do not forget that there is a God!" We often forget, don’t we? We forget that God sings to us, speaks to us, and sends us signs of His presence. And so, we brush the butterfly away, missing the chance to connect, to feel, to truly experience the divine in our lives.

We come to shul, open our siddurim, but too often, we go through the motions without the emotions. We miss the opportunity to truly rendezvous with the Almighty, to fill the void that aches within us, the yearning for a deeper connection to God and to the beauty of our world.

This theme is echoed in the Torah portions read on Rosh Hashanah. Both portions tell of things that are present but unseen—Hagar, desperate for water in the desert, suddenly sees a well that was there all along after God opens her eyes. Avraham, after being commanded not to sacrifice Yitzchak, sees a ram caught in the thicket, ready to be offered. The ram was always there; it was simply unseen.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning once wrote, “The earth is crammed with Heaven and every common bush afire with God. But only he who sees takes off his shoes; the rest sit around and pluck blackberries.” The miracle is all around us, but we must open our eyes to see it, our hearts to feel it.

A young boy once asked his father, “Dad, where is God?” The father responded, “God is wherever you let Him in.” The question we must ask ourselves is: How do we let Him in? How do we transform our prayers from mere words into a passionate rendezvous with God?

Rosh Hashanah provides us with a unique perspective. The Torah and Haftarah readings center on barren women—Sarah, Rachel, and Channah—who prayed fervently and were blessed with children. But the deeper message lies not just in their prayers, but in what their prayers signify.

The central prayer of Rosh Hashanah is not tashlich, the social event of the year, but the Musaf, with its themes of Malchiyot (kingship), Zichronot (remembrances), and Shofarot. The Gemara in Berachot asks why there are nine blessings in the Rosh Hashanah Musaf. The answer given is that they correspond to the nine times God's name is mentioned in Channah's prayer. But why Channah? Why not Sarah or Rachel?

The answer lies in the nature of Channah’s prayer. Unlike Sarah and Rachel, whose prayers focused on their personal needs, Channah’s prayer after the birth of Shmuel where God’s name is mentioned nine times was a prayer that God will bring about a savior, a king for the people who will raise her people from the spiritual doldrums and she dedicates her son to this purpose. As such, Channah’s prayer becomes a prayer for the collective, a prayer for the spiritual salvation of the Jewish people. Channah understood that the gift she received was not just for her own benefit but for the greater good of her people.

This is the message of Rosh Hashanah: our prayers should not only be about our own needs but about the greater mission we have as a people. The shofar’s blast is not just a call to God, but a call to ourselves—to tear down the walls that separate us from our divine mission, to embrace the spiritual potential within us, to truly consider how we can truly impact those around us, and to usher in a new era of meaningful tefillah, where our prayers are not just motions but emotions, where we let God in, and where every prayer becomes a passionate rendezvous with the Divine.