Genesis 21:1-34
Numbers 29:1-6
I Samuel 1:1-2:10
by Rabbi Amy Eilberg
Evocative images of birth and newness abound in the Rosh Hashanah liturgy.
“Hayom harat olam” — “Today is the birthday of the world.” What a magnificent image. The world itself is celebrating a birthday, remembering when it was new, reviewing the year gone by and rededicating itself to the new challenges that may arise in the coming year. The planet is renewing itself, readying itself to greet the opportunities of the New Year.
“Hayom te’amtseyn” — “Today, strengthen us. Today, bless us. Today, seek the good in us. Today, inscribe us for life.” This prayer heightens our awareness that we can only pray in this day. This day is all we have, our only time to pray, to speak, to listen, to act. The Machzor assures us that this particular day has great spiritual power. It is a time when the gates of prayer are wide open, when the possibilities for transformation are particularly ripe. We are urged to receive this day as a unique gift, rich with possibility.
And the remarkable Torah reading, chosen for the first morning of Rosh Hashanah, brings us a story of miraculous birth. We read the story of Isaac, born to aged parents (Abraham is 100 and Sarah is 90). We read of Sarah’s utter surprise, expressed in her laugh of delight: “God has brought me laughter; everyone who hears will laugh with me…Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would suckle children! Yet I have borne a son in his old age” (Genesis 21:6-7).
This Torah reading is such an exquisite picture of the way life is, if we attend to it clearly and honestly. There are the moments of birth, of surprise, when the impossible happens and we are delighted. We must admit that we could not have done this with our own hands. We must recognize grace, the workings of powers larger than ourselves. And we know that the gift will be a source of unimaginable blessing.
And then, just like life, the Torah reading brings us conflict, jealousy, hatred and pain. Life moves on from the blessed moments of grace and unexpected blessing to all the other things we know so well. But if we do not receive the moments of birth and possibility, what will sustain us?
Rabbi Levi Yitzhak of Berditchev brings us a remarkable teaching about newness and birth, as he reflects on the verse, “Hashiveynu HaShem eylecha venashuva; hadesh yameynu kekedem” — “Return us, O God, to You, and we will return; renew our days as of old” (Eicha 5:21). He wonders about the meaning of “kekedem ” — renew our days, as of when? Before we sinned? Before we were born? Before we left Eden? To what primordial time are we asking to return?
Levi Yitzhak asks us to recognize that every day we are a new creation. The Psalmist says, “Kol haneshama tehallel Yah” — “Every living thing praises God” (Psalms 150:6). And the Midrash makes a tiny twist, yielding “Kol haneshima”– “With every breath one praises God.” In fact, says the Rebbe, God breathes new life into us at each moment. Were it not for the loving vitality of the Divine, we would not survive from moment to moment. Each breath, each moment of life, is a new blessing, a new creation. And if we consider this, then we see that each moment is a new opportunity, a new beginning, in fact, a new lifetime.
Thinking in this way, we recognize that our sins and mistakes, our harmful patterns and simmering resentments of the past, belong to another lifetime. If we choose to greet the new moment as a new creation, God will do the same, and lead us into a new life. Entering each moment in this way, we may see clearly what is ours to do: to deepen love, to heal a soul, to save a life, to make a difference, to change the world.
According to Levi Yitzhak, we need only turn our hearts in this direction, and our tshuvah (repentance), will be effective. Our life already will have been transformed.
And so our prayer, “Renew our days — kekedem ” means not “as of old.” We are asking God to help us make each day new, each day a new beginning, a new creation. May the new year be filled with new moments in which we may serve and love and grow, with full heart and soul and mind.