Kapos, called Funktionshäftling by the SS, were prisoners who collaborated with the Nazis to serve in leadership or administrative roles over others interned in the same Nazi concentration camp.
How Nazis Used Kapos
The vast system of Nazi concentration camps in occupied Europe was under the control of the SS (Schutzstaffel). While there were many SS who staffed the camps, their ranks were supplemented with local auxiliary troops and prisoners. Prisoners that were chosen to be in these higher positions served in the role of Kapos.
The origin of the term “Kapo” is not definitive. Some historians believe it was directly transferred from the Italian word “capo” for “boss,” while others point to more indirect roots in both German and French. In the Nazi concentration camps, the term Kapo was first used at Dachau from which it spread to the other camps.
Regardless of the origin, Kapos played a vital role in the Nazi camp system as a large number of prisoners within the system required constant oversight. Most Kapos were put in charge of a prisoner work gang, called Kommando. It was the Kapos job to brutally force prisoners to do forced labor, despite the prisoners being sick and starving.
Facing prisoner against prisoner served two goals for the SS: it allowed them to meet a labor need while simultaneously furthering tensions between various groups of prisoners.
Cruelty
Kapos were, in many instances, even crueler than the SS themselves. Because their tenuous position depended on the satisfaction of the SS, many Kapos took extreme measures against their fellow prisoners to maintain their privileged positions.
Pulling most Kapos from the pool of prisoners interned for violent criminal behavior also allowed this cruelty to flourish. While there were Kapos whose original internment was for asocial, political, or racial purposes (such as Jews), the vast majority of Kapos were criminal internees.
Survivor memoirs and recollections relate varying experiences with Kapos. A select few, such as Primo Levi and Victor Frankl, credit a certain Kapo with ensuring their survival or helping them get slightly better treatment; while others, such as Elie Wiesel, share a far more common experience of cruelty.
Early in Wiesel’s camp experience at Auschwitz, he encounters, Idek, a cruel Kapo. Wiesel relates in Night:
One day when Idek was venting his fury, I happened to cross his path. He threw himself on me like a wild beast, beating me in the chest, on my head, throwing me to the ground and picking me up again, crushing me with ever more violent blows, until I was covered in blood. As I bit my lips in order not to howl with pain, he must have mistaken my silence for defiance and so he continued to hit me harder and harder. Abruptly, he calmed down and sent me back to work as if nothing had happened.
In his book, Man’s Search for Meaning, Frankl also tells of a Kapo known simply as “The Murderous Capo.”
Kapos Had Privileges
The privileges of being a Kapo varied from camp to camp but almost always resulted in better living conditions and a reduction in physical labor.
In the larger camps, such as Auschwitz, Kapos received separate rooms within the communal barracks, which they would often share with a self-selected assistant.
Kapos also received better clothing, better rations, and the ability to supervise labor rather than actively participate in it. Kapos were sometimes able to use their positions to also procure special items within the camp system such as cigarettes, special foods, and alcohol.
A prisoner’s ability to please the Kapo or establish a rare rapport with him/her could, in many instances, meant the difference between life and death.
Levels of Kapos
In the larger camps, there were several different levels within the “Kapo” designation. Some of the titles deemed as Kapos included:
Lagerältester (camp leader): Within the various sections of large camps such as Auschwitz-Birkenau, the Lagerältester oversaw the entire section and served largely in administrative roles. This was the highest of all prisoner positions and came with the most privileges.
Blockältester (block leader): A position that was common in most camps, the Blockältester was responsible for the administration and discipline of an entire barracks. This position customarily afforded its holder with a private room (or one shared with an assistant) and better rations.
Stubenälteste (section leader): Oversaw portions of large barracks such as those in Auschwitz I and reported to the Blockältester about specific needs related to the barrack’s prisoners.
At Liberation
At the time of liberation, some Kapos were beaten and killed by the fellow prisoners that they had spent months or years tormenting, but in most cases, Kapos moved on with their lives in a similar fashion to other victims of Nazi persecution.
A few found themselves on trial in post-war West Germany as part of the U.S. military trials held there, but this was the exception, not the norm. In one of the Auschwitz trials of the 1960s, two Kapos were found guilty of murder and cruelty and sentenced to life in prison.
Others were tried in East Germany and Poland but without much success. The only known court-sanctioned executions of Kapos occurred in immediate post-war trials in Poland, where five of seven men convicted for their roles as Kapos had their death sentences carried out.
Ultimately, historians and psychiatrists are still exploring the role of Kapos as more information becomes available through recently released archives from the East. Their role as prisoner functionaries within the Nazi concentration camp system was vital to its success but this role, like many in the Third Reich, is not without its complexities.
Kapos are viewed as both opportunists and survivalists, and their complete history may never be known.
Every year, for one full 25-hour day, Jews across the world reflect and pray. That day is called Yom Kippur.
On Yom Kippur, one’s fate for the coming year is sealed, and as part of our deference to the seriousness of this auspicious day, the Torah requires that we fast.
But Judaism, being the very practical religion that it is, prohibits us from fasting if doing so endangers life.
Seventy-five years ago, as Yom Kippur approached, the Jewish inmates of Auschwitz-Birkenau debated whether or not to fast. They were, after all, starving — each of them hovering close to death.
Among the inmates was a teenager named Elie Wiesel, just three days shy of his 16th birthday. He would later write of the debate he witnessed that day in Auschwitz:
The question was hotly debated … in this place, we were always fasting — it was Yom Kippur all year round. But there were those who said we should fast anyway, precisely because it was so dangerous to do so. They said that we needed to show God that even here, locked up in hell, we were capable of singing His praises.
What I find most striking about this passage by Wiesel is the purity of faith that it communicates — starving men debating about fasting on Yom Kippur — as if their life or death depended on the outcome of the discussion, while in real life they were dying from starvation in the pit of hell.
Wiesel tells us that he did not fast that Yom Kippur. In part, this was because his father forbade him from doing so.
But there was another reason, as he later recalled. He ate on that Yom Kippur as “a symbol of rebellion, of protest against God.” For the young teenager, eating that Yom Kippur was not an act of denial, rather it was an act of faith.
Ultimately, Yom Kippur demands of us that we engage in a relationship with God. The greatest threat to our existence as Jews is if we abandon God and deny His existence. Our purpose, our mission, is to include God in our lives and to nurture our relationship with Him, making it meaningful in every situation, good and bad.
With God at our side we will merit a good year ahead, whatever happens.
At the end of his life, having given the Israelites at God’s behest 612 commands, Moses gave them the final mitzvah: “Now therefore write down for yourselves this song and teach it to the people of Israel. Put it in their mouths, that this song may be My witness against the people of Israel” (Deut. 31:19).
According to the plain sense of the verse, God was speaking to Moses and Joshua and was referring to the song in the following chapter, “Listen, O heavens, and I will speak; hear, O earth, the words of my mouth” (Deut. 32:1). However, Oral Tradition gave it a different and much wider interpretation, understanding it as a command for every Jew to write, or at least take some part in writing, a Sefer Torah:
Said Rabbah: Even though our ancestors have left us a scroll of the Torah, it is our religious duty to write one for ourselves, as it is said: “Now therefore write down for yourselves this song and teach it to the people of Israel. Put it in their mouths, that this song may be My witness against the people of Israel.” (Sanhedrin 21b)
The logic of the interpretation seems to be, first, that the phrase “write down for yourselves” could be construed as referring to every Israelite (Ibn Ezra), not just Moses and Joshua. Second, the passage goes on to say (Deut. 31:24): “Moses finished writing in the book the words of this law from beginning to end.” The Talmud offers a third reason. The verse goes on to say: “That this song may be My witness against the people” – implying the Torah as a whole, not just the song in chapter 32 (Nedarim 38a).
Thus understood, Moses’ final message to the Israelites was: “It is not enough that you have received the Torah from me. You must make it new again in every generation.” The covenant was not to grow old. It had to be periodically renewed.
So it is to this day that Torah scrolls are still written as in ancient times, by hand, on parchment, using a quill – as were the Dead Sea Scrolls two thousand years ago. In a religion almost devoid of sacred objects (icons, relics), the Torah scroll is the nearest Judaism comes to endowing a physical entity with sanctity.
My earliest memories are of going to my late grandfather’s little beit midrash in North London and being given the privilege, as a two or three-year-old child, of putting the bells on the Torah scroll after it had been lifted, rolled, and rebound in its velvet cover. Even then, I had a sense of the awe in which the scroll was held by the worshippers in that little house of study and prayer. Many of them were refugees. They spoke with heavy accents redolent of worlds they had left, worlds that I later discovered had been destroyed in the Holocaust. There was an air of ineffable sadness about the tunes they sang – always in a minor key. But their love for the parchment scroll was palpable. I later defined it as their equivalent of the rabbinic tradition about the Ark in the wilderness: it carried those who carried it (Rashi to I Chr. 15:26). It was my first intimation that Judaism is the story of a love affair between a people and a book, the Book of books.
What, though – if we take the command to refer to the whole Torah and not just one chapter – is the significance of the word “song” (shira): “Now therefore write down for yourselves this song”? The word shira appears five times in this passage. It is clearly a key word. Why? On this, two nineteenth-century scholars offered striking explanations.
The Netziv (Rabbi Naftali Zvi Yehuda Berlin, 1816–1893, one of the great yeshiva heads of the nineteenth century) interprets it to mean that the whole Torah should be read as poetry, not prose; the word shira in Hebrew means both a song and a poem. To be sure, most of the Torah is written in prose, but the Netziv argued that it has two characteristics of poetry. First, it is allusive rather than explicit. It leaves unsaid more than is said. Secondly, like poetry, it hints at deeper reservoirs of meaning, sometimes by the use of an unusual word or sentence construction. Descriptive prose carries its meaning on the surface. The Torah, like poetry, does not.[1]
In this brilliant insight, the Netziv anticipates one of the great twentieth-century essays on biblical prose, Erich Auerbach’s “Odysseus’ Scar.”[2] Auerbach contrasts the narrative style of Genesis with that of Homer. Homer uses dazzlingly detailed descriptions so that each scene is set out pictorially as if bathed in sunlight. By contrast, biblical narrative is spare and understated. In the example Auerbach cites – the story of the binding of Isaac – we do not know what the main characters look like, what they are feeling, what they are wearing, what landscapes they are passing through.
The decisive points of the narrative alone are emphasised, what lies between is non-existent; time and place are undefined and call for interpretation; thoughts and feelings remain unexpressed, only suggested by the silence and the fragmentary speeches; the whole, permeated with the most unrelieved suspense and directed towards a single goal, remains mysterious and “fraught with background.”[3]
A completely different aspect is alluded to by Rabbi Yechiel Michel Epstein, author of the halachic code Aruch HaShulchan.[4] Epstein points out that the rabbinic literature is full of arguments, about which the Sages said: “These and those are the words of the living God.”[5] This, says Epstein, is one of the reasons the Torah is called “a song” – because a song becomes more beautiful when scored for many voices interwoven in complex harmonies.
I would suggest a third dimension. The 613th command is not simply about the Torah, but about the duty to make the Torah new in each generation. To make the Torah live anew, it is not enough to hand it on cognitively – as mere history and law. It must speak to us affectively, emotionally.
Judaism is a religion of words, and yet whenever the language of Judaism aspires to the spiritual it breaks into song, as if the words themselves sought escape from the gravitational pull of finite meanings. There is something about melody that intimates a reality beyond our grasp, what William Wordsworth called the sense sublime/Of something far more deeply interfused/Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns/And the round ocean and the living air.[6] Words are the language of the mind. Music is the language of the soul.
The 613th command, to make the Torah new in every generation, symbolises the fact that though the Torah was given once, it must be received many times, as each of us, through our study and practice, strives to recapture the pristine voice heard at Mount Sinai. That requires emotion, not just intellect. It means treating Torah not just as words read, but also as a melody sung. The Torah is God’s libretto, and we, the Jewish people, are His choir, the performers of His choral symphony. And though when Jews speak they often argue, when they sing, they sing in harmony, as the Israelites did at the Red Sea, because music is the language of the soul, and at the level of the soul Jews enter the unity of the Divine which transcends the oppositions of lower worlds.
The Torah is God’s song, and we collectively are its singers.
Shabbat Shalom
[1] “Kidmat Davar,” preface to Ha’amek Davar, 3.
[2] Erich Auerbach, Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2013), 3–23.
[6] Wordsworth, “Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey, On Revisiting the Banks of the Wye During a Tour, July 13, 1798” (Favourite Poems [Mineola, NY: Dover, 1992], 23).
Las bases filosóficas de esta festividad frecuentemente malentendida.
Antes de analizar los aspectos específicos de cualquier festividad en particular, es importante entender la singular perspectiva judía sobre el tiempo así como sobre las festividades en general. El mundo ve al tiempo esencialmente con una línea recta. El momento presente es un punto único a lo largo de esta línea, algo que nunca existió antes y nunca volverá a existir. El pasado terminó por completo y el futuro todavía no ha ocurrido.—
El modelo judío del tiempo es un espiral. Si bien el tiempo por cierto avanza hacia adelante, también progresa a través de un ciclo de estaciones. Cada año pasamos a través de las mismas coordinadas estacionales que están imbuidas con el potencial espiritual que inicialmente se estableció en ellas.
Este es el significado de las festividades judías. Ellas sirven como señales en el espiral del tiempo para enseñarnos qué cualidades específicas fueron embebidas en esa estación en particular. Por ejemplo, cuando el pueblo judío salió de Egipto en la época de Pésaj, esto nos enseña que cada primavera tanto la libertad física como espiritual están incorporadas dentro del tiempo. Cada vez que nuestro viaje cíclico a través del tiempo encuentra una festividad, volvemos a experimentar directamente la calidad de esa época. Además, aquello que originalmente ocurrió en esa época de hecho vuelve a ocurrir cada año. Por lo tanto, cada festividad es una ventana de oportunidad metafísica.
En consecuencia, la pregunta clave respecto a cada festividad es: ¿Cuál es la oportunidad particular que esta festividad nos presenta? Hay tres pistas que nos ayudan a descubrir el significado de cada festividad.
En primer lugar, ¿cuál fue el evento histórico que ocurrió la primera vez que este día fue significativo? ¿Cuál fue su impacto metafísico sobre el pueblo judío y sobre el mundo? Esta es la pregunta más obvia que debemos formularnos. Como explicamos, es específicamente este impacto metafísico lo que retorna cada año en la misma época. En verdad de eso se trata la festividad.
En segundo lugar, ¿cuáles son las diversas mitzvot, directivas rabínicas y costumbres de la festividad?
Si la Torá y los Sabios nos dicen hacer ciertas actividades o evitar otras durante la festividad, claramente estos “hacer” y “no hacer” están diseñados para ayudarnos a acceder a esta oportunidad. Incluso las costumbres, desarrolladas por el subconsciente del pueblo judío a lo largo de los siglos, están enraizadas en una consciencia del potencial singular de estos días. Mientras más entendemos las herramientas particulares que son apropiadas para cada festividad, más entenderemos las oportunidades mismas a las cuales nos permiten acceder estas herramientas.
Finalmente, ¿cuál es el nombre de la festividad?
El judaísmo considera que los nombres hebreos tienen enorme significado. Lejos de servir solamente como rótulos convenientes, los nombres hebreos identifican y expresan la esencia subyacente de aquello que describen.
Con estos tres puntos claves, ahora podemos comenzar a develar las diversas capas de significado de cada una de las festividades judías.
Rosh HaShaná
Comencemos pensando en algunos aspectos curiosos de las Altas Fiestas. Vamos a plantear tres preguntas y luego intentaremos resolverlas con la ayuda de nuestras tres pistas claves.
¿De qué se trata Rosh HaShaná? Además de su significado de ser “la cabeza del año”, también nos referimos a este día como el “Día de Juicio”. En Rosh HaShaná, cada persona del mundo es juzgada de forma individual.
De hecho, el Talmud nos dice que en Rosh HaShaná se abren tres libros: el Libro de la Vida, para quienes son juzgados como completamente rectos; el Libro de la Muerte, para quienes son juzgados y hallados completamente malvados; y el Libro de los Medianos, para quienes se encuentran en el medio.
Si Rosh HaShaná es realmente el día en que cada persona es evaluada para la vida o la muerte, ¿cómo debería comportarse la gente en este día? ¿No esperaríamos que pasen el día tratando de arreglar los errores del pasado, suplicando por su caso personal y rezando a Dios para que les otorgue un buen juicio?
¿Qué es en verdad lo que los Sabios nos dicen que debemos hacer en Rosh HaShaná? Curiosamente, en las plegarias de Rosh HaShaná virtualmente no se menciona nuestro juicio personal. En cambio, las plegarias son sobre la condición general del mundo. Rezamos pidiendo que el mundo reconozca a Dios como su Rey exclusivo, Quien tiene consciencia de todo lo que ocurre, y que el shofar del Monte Sinaí demuestre el amor y la preocupación de Dios por toda la humanidad. Sin duda estas plegarias son bellas y muy significativas. La dificultad es por qué nos centramos exclusivamente en la situación general del mundo en el momento en que juzgan nuestra vida. Esta es la primera dificultad.
Ahora pensemos sobre Iom Kipur. ¿Por qué es un día tan significativo? Es el “día de kapará”– el momento de limpieza espiritual. Es el día en que somos capaces de corregir el daño causado por todos nuestros errores del pasado. Siendo así, ¿no hubiera sido más lógico que Iom Kipur tuviera lugar antes que Rosh HaShaná? Es decir, ¿no sería más lógico que el “día de limpieza” precediera al “día de juicio”? Esta es nuestra segunda dificultad
La tercera pregunta surge de una discusión en el Talmud en el tratado de Rosh HaShaná sobre la naturaleza del juicio de Rosh HaShaná. La lectura de la Torá del primer día de Rosh HaShaná presenta la historia de Ishmael (el padre del pueblo árabe) cuando suplicó por su vida (en Rosh HaShaná). El versículo nos dice que: “Dios oyó la voz del joven donde estaba”. El Talmud explica que las palabras “donde estaba” no se refieren a la ubicación física de Ishmael. Eso hubiera sido completamente superfluo. ¿En qué otro lugar le iba a responder Dios, fuera del lugar en el que estaba? Más bien el versículo habla en términos temporales. Basado en esto, Rabí Itzjak (en el Talmud) dice: “(En Rosh HaShaná) la persona sólo es juzgada de acuerdo con sus actos en ese mismo momento”.
Los comentaristas explican que Ishmael se salvó en ese momento a pesar de que sus descendientes estaban destinados a dañar al pueblo judío más tarde en la historia. En otras palabras, los actos negativos de sus descendientes en el futuro no cambiaron su juicio en ese momento.
Sin embargo, en el Talmud de Jerusalem se cita una fuente diferente que parece ir todavía más lejos. Allí nos dicen que incluso si un individuo no fue puro y recto en el pasado, mientras sea puro y recto en el presente, en Rosh HaShaná mismo, tendrá un juicio favorable.
Estas dos fuentes juntas (es decir, el juicio positivo de Ishmael en Rosh HaShaná a pesar de que sus descendientes provocarían sufrimiento posteriormente al pueblo judío, e ignorar el hecho de que la persona juzgada no haya sido pura y recta en el pasado), nos enseñan algo destacable. Pareciera que el juicio de Rosh HaShaná no tiene que ver con el pasado ni con el futuro, sino exclusivamente con la situación particular en el día mismo de Rosh HaShaná. Esto significa que incluso si la persona juzgada fue malvada durante el año previo, mientras que sea recta en Rosh HaShaná será juzgada como una persona recta. Esto parece contrariar cualquier noción de lógica y justicia en la naturaleza del juicio. Esta es nuestra tercera dificultad.
Para resumir, las tres preguntas son:
Si todos somos juzgados en Rosh HaShaná para la vida o la muerte, ¿por qué no hacemos teshuvá ni defendemos nuestro caso personal?
¿Por qué Iom Kipur (el “día de limpieza”) no precede a Rosh HaShaná (el “día de juicio”)?
¿Cómo es posible que el juicio de Rosh HaShaná dependa exclusivamente del mismo día de Rosh HaShaná, sin ninguna relevancia del futuro ni del pasado?
Previamente mencionamos que cada festividad tiene tres pistas para ayudarnos a descubrir su significado oculto. Vamos a comenzar con la primera, su significado histórico, para tratar de resolver estas dificultades.
¿Qué fue lo que ocurrió en el primer Rosh HaShaná? Aunque en las plegarias de Rosh HaShaná nos referimos a este día como “iom harat olam” (el nacimiento del mundo), no fue de hecho el día de la creación del mundo sino el día de la creación de la humanidad. El primer Rosh HaShaná fue el sexto día de la creación, el día en el cual fue creado Adam, el primer ser humano.
El nacimiento del libre albedrío
Vamos a formular una pregunta que puede parecer extraña: ¿cuál es el gran significado de lacreación de la humanidad? Antes del sexto día, la Torá nos dice que Dios ya había creado todo el mundo físico, así como una vasta cantidad de diferentes formas de vida. ¿Qué fue entonces lo que la humanidad trajo al mundo que antes no existía?
Cuando la Torá describe la creación de la humanidad, nos dice que el hombre fue creado “betzelem Elokim”(a imagen de Dios). Uno de los principales significados de este concepto fundamental es que los seres humanos tienen la capacidad de ejercer libre albedrío respecto a las decisiones morales.
Para entender debidamente esto, necesitamos valorar la perspectiva judía sobre el ser humano. Cada persona tiene un cuerpo y un alma. El cuerpo desea lo material; el alma desea espiritualidad. El cuerpo está interesado en su propia gratificación a corto plazo, al alma le interesa la eternidad. ¿Qué es lo que decide qué parte prevalece?
El judaísmo entiende que en el sistema hay un tercer componente: el libre albedrío. El libre albedrío es lo que arbitra esta existencia en pugna entre el cuerpo y el alma. Específicamente, lo que celebramos y revivimos cada Rosh HaShaná es la creación del libre albedrío, que epitomiza nuestra misma humanidad. Como dijo mi maestro, Rav Berkowitz, Rosh HaShaná es el nacimiento del libre albedrío.
El libre albedrío sólo existe en el presente
Es significativo que de estos tres componentes diferentes del ser humano (el cuerpo, el alma y el libre albedrío), es específicamente el libre albedrío el que sólo existe en el momento presente. Por ejemplo, una persona puede vivir su vida de acuerdo con un grupo particular de lineamientos morales durante muchos años y de pronto, en un instante, decidir cambiar completamente de camino. Por definición, el estado del libre albedrío es aquello que uno decide en ese momento en particular.
En contraste con el libre albedrío, que existe sólo en el presente, el estado tanto del cuerpo como del alma es casi por completo una función del pasado. Por ejemplo, la salud física de una persona en determinado momento está prácticamente determinada por su dieta y los ejercicios que hizo en el pasado, incluso si eso es diferente de lo que hace en el presente. Asimismo para el alma, por lo general la acumulación de los comportamientos del pasado son los que determinan la salud espiritual y no los ocasionales cambios que tienen lugar posteriormente.
El foco en Rosh HaShaná
Si unimos este punto (que el libre albedrío existe exclusivamente en el presente) junto con la críptica descripción del Talmud respecto a que “la persona sólo es juzgada (en Rosh HaShaná) de acuerdo con sus actos en ese mismo momento”, entendemos algo remarcable: el juicio de Rosh HaShaná es específicamente sobre el estado de nuestro libre albedrío. Tratemos de entender qué es lo que esto significa.
Generalmente asumimos que el foco de Rosh HaShaná es el estado de nuestra mente, es decir el repositorio espiritual de nuestros actos durante el año previo, y no lo que nuestro libre albedrío elige en ese momento particular. Esto explicaría por qué parece tan obvio que el juicio de Rosh HaShaná sería una evaluación acumulativa basada en nuestros actos del año pasado.
La salud espiritual del alma como resultado del comportamiento pasado obviamente tiene critica importancia, pero no es el foco en Rosh HaShaná.
Todo lo que alguna vez hemos hecho, tanto positivo como negativo, afectó a nuestras almas. Si esto se deja de esta manera, esos diversos impactos nos acompañarán para siempre, tanto en este mundo como en el próximo. Afortunadamente, el judaísmo dice que hay una manera de minimizar e incluso eliminar el impacto negativo de nuestros errores del pasado para la eternidad. Este mecanismo es la teshuvá (retorno) y el resultado se llama kapará (limpieza espiritual). Este objetivo de kapará es tan importante que tenemos una festividad especialmente dedicada a lograrlo: Iom Kipur (el día de kapará). En Iom Kipur tratamos de revisar nuestros actos del año previo y de corregir todos nuestros errores.
Si específicamente en Iom Kipur revisamos nuestro comportamiento y situación del año previo, ¿cuál es entonces el propósito de Rosh HaShaná? Antes mencionamos que una de las pistas para descubrir la esencia de una festividad es examinar su nombre. Por la manera en que a menudo se entiende a Rosh HaShaná, hubiera sido más apropiado que se llamara “sof HaShaná” (el fin del año) y que tuviera lugar al finalizar el año previo. Sin embargo, se llama Rosh HaShaná (la “cabeza del año”), y, por supuesto, tiene lugar al comienzo de un nuevo año. Además de reforzar que el foco principal de Rosh HaShaná no son nuestros actos del año previo, ¿Qué más nos enseña el nombre?
Potencial en el presente para el futuro
La esencia de Rosh HaShaná es específicamente este punto: que es el comienzo mismo del nuevo año. Así como Dios originalmente creó a la humanidad como una pizarra completamente en blanco en el primer Rosh HaShaná, así también Él nos crea nuevamente a cada uno de nosotros como una pizarra en blanco al comienzo de cada nuevo año. Rosh HaShaná es una oportunidad anual para establecer una nueva dirección y una realidad fresca en nuestras vidas. No te quedas atascado en el pasado. Pregúntate a ti mismo: “Si naciera en este mismo instante, sin las limitaciones de mis hábitos y patrones del pasado, ¿qué haría? ¿Cómo viviría de forma ideal este nuevo año?”.
Esto es lo que significa que el juicio de Rosh HaShaná es un juicio sobre nuestro libre albedrío, o en otras palabras, sobre las elecciones y los valores que expresamos en el mismo día de Rosh HaShaná. Dado que el nuevo año es una pizarra completamente en blanco para cada uno, Dios nos presenta la oportunidad de establecer qué valores y parámetros nos gustaría que gobiernen nuestro nuevo año. Y entonces Dios nos da la clase de año que de hecho nosotros mismos elegimos. En otras palabras, Dios nos da para este nuevo año tanto como nosotros queremos hacer, no tanto como hemos hecho.
El temor y la aprensión que comúnmente se siente en Rosh HaShaná no es sólo temor a que Dios sea duro con nosotros, sino que también se debe a que la oportunidad del día es enorme. Imagina ganar un concurso que como premio te permite permanecer cinco minutos dentro de una gran tienda y quedarte con todo lo que puedas sacar afuera. El temor que probablemente sentirías justo antes de que comiencen esos cinco minutos es no poder obtener todo lo que podrías ganar ante semejante oportunidad.
Ahora regresemos a nuestras tres preguntas originales. Nuestra primera pregunta era: “¿Por qué no debemos pasar el día tratando de corregir nuestros errores del pasado para recibir el mejor juicio posible?”. Esto claramente se basa en nuestra asunción de que el juicio en Rosh HaShaná es un juicio sobre nuestros actos durante el año previo.
La clave para entender esto en verdad surge de la tercera pregunta, la sorprendente declaración del Talmud respecto a que el juicio de Rosh HaShaná es exclusivamente sobre el mismo día de Rosh HaShaná. Esto nos dice que el juicio de Rosh HaShaná no es sobre el estado de nuestras almas sino más bien sobre nuestras elecciones de libre albedrío. Una vez que entendemos que el juicio de Rosh HaShaná es básicamente una evaluación de lo que nosotros mismos queremos para el nuevo año, es obvio que nuestro comportamiento del pasado aquí no es el punto. Lo relevante es si apreciamos lo que realmente es valioso y si tomamos las elecciones adecuadas para el nuevo año. Esto también explica por qué nuestras plegarias en Rosh HaShaná son que todo el mundo llegue a una valoración profunda de la existencia de Dios, de Su consciencia y Su supervisión. Al establecer esto como las plegarias de Rosh HaShaná, los Sabios nos enseñan la siguiente lección: reconocer las necesidades de los demás, vernos a nosotros mismos como responsables por otros, y entender que la mayor necesidad de cualquiera es valorar con más profundidad la realidad. Estos son los valores más importantes sobre los que debemos basar nuestro nuevo año.
El cambio para el futuro debe preceder a la corrección del daño del pasado
Esto nos deja sólo con la segunda pregunta: ¿Por qué Iom Kipur, el día de purificación, no precede a Rosh HaShaná, el día de juicio? En un nivel simple, esta pregunta también se basa en la asunción errónea de que el juicio de Rosh HaShaná es un juicio sobre nuestros actos durante el año previo. En consecuencia, parece lógico que Dios nos permita una oportunidad de limpiarnos de nuestros errores previos antes de juzgarnos por ellos. Sin embargo, incluso ahora que reconocemos que el juicio de Rosh HaShaná es sobre las elecciones que tomaremos en este primer día del nuevo año, todavía sigue siendo necesario entender la lógica por la que Rosh HaShaná precede a Iom Kipur.
Todos somos capaces de elegir un nuevo camino en la vida, independientemente de nuestra situación hasta ese momento, en cualquier momento que deseemos hacerlo. Esto se puede hacer en cualquier momento a lo largo del año, y mucho más en Rosh HaShaná. Pero, ¿cuán probable es que ocurra? Todos cargamos con una vida completa de hábitos y patrones del pasado. En vista de esto, ¿cuántas personas serán suficientemente fuertes como para simplemente tomar la decisión de comenzar a marchar en una nueva dirección en sus vidas? Teniendo en cuenta esto, también tendría más sentido que la purificación de Iom Kipur ocurriera primero y de esta forma ayudara a que nuestras elecciones para el nuevo año en Rosh HaShaná se vieran menos impedidas por los errores del pasado.
Para explicar el error de esta forma de pensamiento utilizaremos una analogía. Imagina que conoces a alguien que es un alcohólico o un drogadicto. Esta adicción ha dañado cada aspecto de su vida: su familia, su situación laboral, sus amistades, etc. Un día viene y te dice que decidió corregir todo el daño que ha causado. Él compiló una lista extensiva de todos los errores que cometió durante los últimos años y planea acercarse a cada una de las personas que dañó con esos errores y pedirles disculpas. Tan admirable como puede ser esto, hay una circunstancia obvia en la que probablemente tratarías de disuadirlo con fuerza: si todavía no comenzó a trabajar sobre el alcoholismo o la adicción misma. Le dirías que primero dirija su energía a la situación y la dirección de su vida personal. No sólo porque esto es mucho más fundamental, sino también porque si no trabaja primero sobre eso, lo más probable es que termine lastimando nuevamente a muchas de esas personas en el futuro. Tan importante como es que vaya a pedirle perdón a todas esas personas, eso sólo tiene sentido una vez que primero corrigió su vida.
Veamos una segunda analogía para que quede todavía más claro. Imagina una persona que tiene un auto repleto de rayones y abolladuras porque es un pésimo conductor. Él va a un taller de chapa y pintura para que arreglen todo el auto. El dueño del taller le dice que no vale la pena hacerlo, que será una pérdida de dinero y le recomienda que primero aprenda a conducir mejor. Simplemente reparar los daños de su auto sin cambiar primero sus malos hábitos de conducción no tiene ningún sentido, porque es inevitable que vuelva a chocar. Sólo una vez que mejore la forma en que conduce, tendrá sentido que haga arreglar el auto.
Todos los seres humanos cometen errores. Por lo menos una vez al año necesitamos evaluarnos y trabajar para mejorar. Nuestro crecimiento espiritual debe ocurrir en dos partes diferentes de nuestro ser: en nuestro libre albedrío y en nuestra alma. Necesitamos examinar nuestro libre albedrío, lo cual implica nuestros valores y cómo esos valores se traducen a una visión y dirección para el futuro. Además, debemos evaluar el daño que nuestros valores y nuestra dirección previa causaron a nuestra alma y al alma de quienes nos rodean. Ambas tareas son críticas. Trabajar sobre nuestros valores y elecciones determinará la calidad de nuestro nuevo año, mientras que trabajar sobre el daño de nuestros errores del pasado determinará la naturaleza de nuestra alma. Al colocar a Rosh HaShaná antes que Iom Kipur, la Torá nos dice claramente que el primer paso debe ser trabajar sobre nuestros valores y nuestra visión. Sólo entonces podemos estar seguros de que el trabajo que hagamos para corregir el daño de nuestros errores del pasado será duradero.
Una nueva dirección
Es interesante que la gente por lo general asuma que el esfuerzo requerido para corregir su alma (es decir, para reparar el daño de sus errores del año previo) llevará mucho más tiempo que el que será necesario para trabajar sobre su libre albedrío (es decir, sobre mejorar sus valores y su dirección para el nuevo año). Al fin de cuentas, reparar el alma requiere primero identificar y después rectificar cada error que cometieron durante el último año. En contraste con esto, podemos imaginar que mejorar nuestro libre albedrío sólo requiere un poco de introspección básica y adoptar unas pocas resoluciones diferentes para el nuevo año.
Sin embargo, el judaísmo nos dice que la realidad es exactamente la opuesta. Tenemos todo el mes de elul para prepararnos para Rosh HaShaná, y sólo una semana después de Rosh HaShaná para prepararnos para Iom Kipur. Recuerda las dos analogías previas. ¿No es obvio que el trabajo involucrado para quebrar una adicción es mucho mayor que rectificar el daño resultante de esa adicción? Lo mismo respecto a cambiar la forma en que uno conduce versus hacer arreglar los rayones del auto. Cambiar nuestros valores y nuestra visión implica cambiar lo que somos. Por otro lado, corregir los errores del pasado, básicamente es un proceso mecánico. Es críticamente importante, pero de todas maneras es algo mecánico. Además, mientras más somos capaces de convertirnos en una persona nueva para el nuevo año, más fácil será rectificar nuestros errores del pasado a través de este proceso.
Uno de los mayores errores que todos cometemos es permitir que nuestro pasado gobierne y determine nuestro futuro. La calidad que define a nuestro libre albedrío, que en realidad es lo que nos define como seres humanos, es que es libre y no tiene impedimentos. Y quizás más que ninguna otra cosa, no está limitado por el pasado. Si bien esto es importante durante todo el año, Rosh HaShaná es el momento más ideal para implementarlo. Por lo menos una vez al año, a su comienzo, debemos tomarnos el tiempo para pensar no sobre lo que ya hemos hecho, sino más bien sobre lo que queremos hacer; no sobre lo que ya fuimos sino dónde queremos llegar con nuestras vidas. Esto nos dará la capacidad no sólo de corregir el daño de nuestros errores del pasado sino que también nos permitirá vivir un nuevo año que sea verdaderamente nuevo, no sólo en nombre sino en realidad.
¿Cómo es posible que un hombre felizmente casado y un destacado científico puedan tener los mismos rasgos tomográficos que un asesino en serie?
El Dr. James Fallon, un psiquiatra forense, es uno de los expertos mundiales en la lectura de tomografías cerebrales. El desarrollo de la neurociencia llevó a que tengamos la capacidad de identificar diversas partes del cerebro que son responsables de emociones, comportamientos y elecciones específicas. El entendimiento que Fallon tiene de la anatomía cerebral le permite utilizar imágenes tomográficas para diagnosticar disfunciones cerebrales en trastornos tales como esquizofrenia, psicopatías e incluso depresión. Fallon viajó mucho para dar testimonio en beneficio de asesinos seriales antes de que reciban su sentencia, para explicar que sus actos no son realmente el resultado de su elección sino que sus cerebros están conformados de tal manera que los lleva a matar.
Al analizar la pila de tomografías de su familia, vio algo sorprendente: el escáner revelaba que ese cerebro era similar al de un psicópata.
En el año 2005, Fallon decidió estudiar la enfermedad de Alzheimer, y comenzó a analizar las tomografías que pertenecían a su propia familia. Una tarde estaba estudiando una pila de escáneres cerebrales de su familia cuando vio algo sumamente sorprendente. La tomografía revelaba que ese cerebro era similar al de un psicópata. Allí se veía muy poca actividad en los lóbulos frontal y temporal, los que se relacionan con la empatía, la moralidad y el autocontrol.
Fallon se sintió incómodo al ver ese escáner entre los miembros de su familia, así que decidió revisar su equipo de tomografía computada buscando un error, pero descubrió que funcionaba perfectamente. Entonces acusó a su asistente de la investigación de haber mezclado la pila de tomografías que había sobre su escritorio.
El asistente insistió que no había ningún error y que esa tomografía de hecho pertenecía a un miembro de la familia de Fallon. Fallon se sintió alarmado y espantado. Sintió que necesitaba desenmascarar la identidad del dueño de esa tomografía cuyo cerebro presentaba semejantes señales. Al fin de cuentas, ese individuo tenía una predisposición hacia la maldad. ¿Qué ocurriría si esa persona llegaba a dañar o incluso a asesinar a una víctima inocente? Debían detenerla antes de que llegara a actuar. Fallon buscó el código y lo que descubrió al cotejarlo con los nombres de los participantes del estudio fue sumamente inquietante.
El cerebro psicopático descrito en la tomografía pertenecía ni más ni menos que a él mismo. El hombre que había dedicado su vida y su carrera a demostrar que los psicópatas tenían el cerebro configurado de esa forma y no podían ser considerados responsables por su comportamiento, descubrió que de hecho él tenía la misma configuración cerebral y a pesar de eso no era un psicópata.
La mayoría de las personas sin dudarlo hubieran ocultado ese descubrimiento. Pero quizás porque las conexiones cerebrales de los psicópatas los llevan a carecer de inhibiciones, Fallon fue en la dirección opuesta. Él publicó un libro llamado El psicópata interior, en donde trata de explicar cómo un hombre felizmente casado y un científico reconocido como él, pueden tener los mismos rasgos tomográficos que un asesino en serie.
En un primer momento pensó que tal vez su hipótesis era errónea y que no se puede decir a partir de un escáner cerebral cómo la gente está predispuesta a comportarse. Por eso decidió someterse a una serie de estudios genéticos, pero las cosas fueron de mal en peor.
Los estudios revelaron que Fallon tiene una variante del gen MAO-A conectado con la agresión, la violencia y la baja empatía. Él siguió adelante con más pruebas neurológicas y tests de comportamiento, todos los cuales confirmaron que de hecho es un psicópata certificado.
Cuando reflexionó sobre su vida comenzó a entender que en verdad tenía ciertos comportamientos psicopáticos. Él es desagradablemente competitivo, ni siquiera deja ganar a sus nietos en un juego de mesa. Puede ser verbalmente agresivo, ofensivo y duro sin siquiera darse cuenta. Sin embargo, pese a toda esta predisposición y a tener las tendencias de un psicópata, nunca mató, violó ni fue violento.
No podía desprenderse de la pregunta “¿por qué?”. ¿Por qué él había sido capaz de controlar su comportamiento mientras que otros con las mismas tendencias genéticas y características cerebrales terminaron en prisión? Fallon dio varias respuestas. En primer lugar, él sugiere que de niño fue muy amado y nutrido y eso contribuyó enormemente a darle forma a su personalidad. Su madre sufrió una serie de abortos espontáneos antes de que él naciera, y le brindó muchísima atención durante sus primeros años. Él cree que eso jugó un rol fundamental.
Su segunda respuesta refleja una importante lección del Talmud:
“En el momento de la concepción un ángel encargado del embarazo lleva la semilla del embarazo ante Dios, Quien decreta la fuerza física, sabiduría y estatus socioeconómico, la habilidad artística y atlética, la creatividad, y el perfil psicológico que tendrá la futura persona”.
Esta observación del Talmud resuena profundamente en muchos. Después de años de resistencia, innumerables intentos por cambiar y ajustar diferentes aspectos de nuestras vidas o personalidades, muchos nos sentimos impotentes, desesperanzados. Nos sentimos indefectiblemente conectados con cierto comportamiento. Algunos tenemos la predisposición a ser holgazanes, otros se enojan rápido, y a otros les falta autodisciplina. Algunos tenemos poco tacto, otros somos emocionalmente muy cerrados; algunos tienden a tener bajo rendimiento y otros son implacablemente ambiciosos.
El Talmud sólo confirma lo que ya sospechábamos durante toda nuestra vida. Esa semilla, presentada ante Dios antes de que llegáramos al mundo, fue pre-programada y condicionada de cierta manera que determinaría nuestra vida y nos hace sentir impotentes de cambiar de una forma duradera. ¿Quizás debemos dejar de luchar contra quienes estamos predeterminados a ser y simplemente aceptar lo que somos con todas nuestras deficiencias, defectos y fallas?
Tal vez sería así, si el Talmud se hubiera detenido allí. Pero sigue diciendo:
“El ángel no pregunta si va a ser recto o malvado, si va a ser bueno o malo. Esto de acuerdo con la declaración de Rabí Janina, quien dice que todo está en manos de Dios, excepto el temor a Dios, la espiritualidad y la rectitud de la persona”.
Sí, a través de la genética y del ambiente Dios ha pre-programado gran parte de nuestra salud, nuestra inteligencia, nuestras capacidades, nuestra apariencia. Sin embargo, el ángel no pregunta sobre lo que tal vez sea el componente más importante para el futuro de esa nueva persona, si va a ser ‘malvado’ o ‘recto’, porque eso depende completamente del individuo.
El Dr. Fallon resume esta capacidad de superar su predisposición y su tendencia genética en dos palabras: libre albedrío. Él creía que las personas eran en un 80 por ciento el resultado de su genética y en un 20 por ciento de su ambiente; pero ahora eso cambió. “A partir de este hallazgo y de estudiar el tema, me he esforzado por tratar de cambiar mi comportamiento”.
El Rambam dice que todos tenemos cualidades personales innatas y predisposiciones significativas. Por ejemplo, algunas perspmas por naturaleza son crueles y otras son misericordiosas, algunos por naturaleza son arrogantes y otros humildes. Sin embargo, el Rambam enfatiza que la naturaleza de la persona no la lleva a ser justa o malvada, bondadosa o cruel, inteligente o tonta, generosa o tacaña:
“No pienses como los tontos de las naciones del mundo y como la mayoría de los ignorantes de Israel que dicen que Dios decreta cuando la persona nace si será justa o malvada. No es así. Cada persona es capaz de llegar a ser tan justa como nuestro maestro Moshé o tan malvada como Ierovoam…” (Leyes de Teshuvá, 5:2).
Entonces, ¿nuestra vida está predeterminada o tenemos libre albedrío?
En una entrevista sobre su libro, Fallon dijo lo siguiente: “Después de toda esta investigación, comencé a pensar sobre esta experiencia como una oportunidad de hacer algo bueno por haber sido un imbécil durante toda mi vida. En vez de tratar de cambiar de forma fundamental, porque es muy difícil cambiar algo, quiero usar lo que puede ser considerado como defectos (tal como el narcisismo) como una ventaja, para hacer algo bueno”.
Nuestra genética nos entrega un grupo de naipes. De nosotros depende cómo los jugamos.
El Rambam no se contradice a sí mismo. Creo que la respuesta es que sin ninguna duda nacemos con predisposiciones y predilecciones. La genética ocupa un lugar importantísimo en dar forma a quiénes somos y cómo se desarrollará nuestra vida. Sin embargo, nuestra genética sólo provee las fronteras de nuestras limitaciones. Ella da el parámetro de nuestro intelecto, nuestro cuerpo e incluso en cierto grado de nuestras almas. Nuestra genética nos entrega un grupo de naipes. De nosotros depende cómo los jugamos y ese es el factor más importante para determinar nuestro futuro.
Ninguno de nuestros atributos o cualidades es inherentemente malo, sino que más bien todos son neutros. De nosotros depende dotarlos con un valor basado en la forma en que los usamos. Nuestras cualidades de carácter en gran medida están predeterminadas, pero cómo las controlamos, hacia qué las dedicamos, cómo las utilizamos y con qué fin depende por completo de nosotros y de nuestro libre albedrío.
Al analizar las diversas barreras y obstáculos para la teshuvá, Rabenu Iona sugiere que tal vez la mayor barrera es la falta de optimismo, el hecho de no creer en nuestra capacidad para cambiar.
Sí, tenemos predisposiciones y predilecciones, pero ellas no son las que nos definen. Podemos hacer con ellas lo que deseemos.
Al comenzar un nuevo año tenemos que comprender que si lo deseamos tenemos la posibilidad de cambiar. Sí, tenemos predisposiciones y predilecciones, pero ellas no son las que nos definen. Podemos hacer con ellas lo que deseemos. Podemos superar la negatividad de lo que consideramos como nuestros defectos y canalizar esas mismas cualidades hacia resultados positivos. Sin embargo, todo comienza con creer en nuestra capacidad de hacerlo.
Fallon explica cómo fue capaz de cambiar su vida y marcar una enorme diferencia para su familia y sus amigos. “Cada vez que empezaba a hacer algo, tenía que pensarlo, analizarlo y recién entonces seguir adelante. No. No actúes con egoísmo ni en tu propio beneficio. Paso a paso, eso es lo que estuve haciendo hace un año y medio y todos están muy contentos”.
Paso a paso, de a poco, así es como Fallon describe sus cambios positivos y es exactamente la forma en que tenemos que efectuar nuestros propios cambios. Dar el primer paso y luego seguir lentamente, paso a paso.
Nadie está condenado por su composición genética. Esto tiene una importancia crítica para nosotros mismos, para nuestras relaciones y para la manera en que somos padres de nuestros hijos. Podemos canalizar aquello que somos y lo que tenemos programado para hacer el bien, para ser buenos, para sentirnos bien y para recibir cosas buenas.
Podemos ser el catalizador del cambio. Actúa como la persona que deseas ser y te convertirás en esa persona. Recibamos al nuevo año con el comienzo de una nueva actitud, pasando de la impotencia y la desesperanza a la fortaleza y la determinación.
If Prof. Israel Knohl is right, history books will require rewriting and Church sermons around the world will have to be rethought
In a small Jerusalem study bursting with books, an affable professor, cap on his head and white beard covering much of his face, has found the formula to end a centuries-old controversy. If he’s right, history books will require rewriting and sermons in churches around the world will have to be rethought. “It will have far-reaching implications for relations between Jews and Christians,” Israel Knohl tells me when we meet in his office at the Shalom Hartman Institute, in Jerusalem’s German Colony neighborhood.
Bible scholar Knohl, 67, specializes in finding unconventional explanations for fateful issues and has no compunctions about angering his colleagues along the way. Earlier studies by the religiously observant holder of the Yehezkel Kaufmann Chair in Bible at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have sparked furious debate, transcending the confines of academia. This time, the subject is more highly charged than ever: the trial and crucifixion of Jesus.
In contrast to some of his colleagues – certainly in the such departments as Bible studies – Prof. Knohl has the ability to present his arguments clearly and concisely, in a way that every person can understand immediately, without unnecessary hairsplitting. That’s true of his new book, too.
In “The Messiah Controversy: Who Are the Jews Waiting For?” (Hebrew), he sheds new light on the trial of Jesus, who was sentenced to death by a Jewish court and executed by the Romans in 30 C.E. After billions of Christians were taught over many centuries that the Jews were responsible for Jesus’ death, Knohl sets out to reexamine this convention.
“The notion that Jesus was put to death by ‘the Jewish people’ is fundamentally wrong. The great majority of the Jewish people did not accept Jesus as the Messiah, but espoused a messianic outlook that was basically similar to his,” he says, adding that today, “after centuries of enmity between Christendom and the Jewish people, which was wrongfully accused of bearing the guilt for Jesus’ crucifixion, surely the time has come to reexamine the events in their historical, religious and social context.”
What can be gleaned from such a reconsideration of events? To understand Knohl’s thesis we need to go back in time and reacquaint ourselves with the dramatic, multifaceted and fascinating disputes in the Hebrew Bible concerning the issue of the Messiah. A perusal of the Bible’s various books reveals two main trends. On the one hand, the Torah presents an anti-messianic stance, according to which the gulf between the divine and the human cannot be bridged. This approach rules out the possibility that a flesh-and-blood king will achieve a “quasi-divine” status, and supports a clear separation between the two realms. Accordingly, God cannot possibly have begotten a son, and eternal life cannot be attributed to a king or a messiah.
On the other hand, some of the Prophetic books and some of the individual Psalms do express a messianic approach, and attribute divine qualities to the king (whoever he may be) and portray him as the “son of God” – as sitting next to God in heaven and as possessing “divine” names.
Knohl: “The messianic idea, the belief in the existence of a king who is a lofty and exalted being with quasi-divine traits, occupies a very respectable place already in the Bible.”
Jesus’ trial and crucifixion, he maintains, constitute a “dramatic and decisive moment” in the history of the Jewish people and of Western culture as a whole. It is the moment at which the two approaches – the anti-messianic and the messianic – meet in an unavoidable collision, whose impact is still felt today.
Jesus was apparently born and raised in Nazareth. His name (Yeshua or Yeshu, in Hebrew) signified the anticipation of yeshua, salvation or redemption. As a young man, he was baptized in the Jordan River by John the Baptist, who similarly immersed thousands of people who flocked to him in order to confess their sins, repent and be purified. The New Testament relates that during his baptism, Jesus heard a voice saying, “Thou art my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased,” and the holy spirit descended on him like a dove.
“The Baptism of Christ,” Jose Ferraz de Almeida Júnior, 1895.
Subsequently, in a Nazareth synagogue on the Sabbath, Jesus recites verses from the Book of Isaiah that begin, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me,” and tells the worshippers, “This day is this scripture fulfilled in your hearing” (Luke 4:18-21). According to Knohl, in his deeds, Jesus “continued the messianic biblical tradition” and supported his words with references from the Hebrew Bible about the image of the Messiah.
Afterward, in Jerusalem on Passover, Jesus enters the Temple courtyard, chases away the buyers and sellers and the peddlers of doves (which were used for sacrifices), and overturns the tables of the money changers. This is an affront to ritual, which causes a tumult in the Temple and infuriates the priests.
Why was he not arrested immediately after this act?
Knohl: “Many among the Jewish people hoped he would prove himself to be the Messiah, who would redeem the people and restore its freedom. He enjoyed great public sympathy. The people were fond of him, cheered him on, supported and protected him.”
Thus Jesus was able to return to the Temple courtyard on a later occasion and to speak publicly. His principal argument was extreme: The Messiah, whose advent the people awaited, is not a descendant of David, as everyone believed until then. As such, Jesus solved the problem of his own lineage, as one who was not descended from the House of David and was a pretender to the messianic crown. In addition, he presented a new model of the Messiah: Whereas the disciples who followed him clung to the prevailing belief in a triumphant warrior Messiah and expected him to deliver the people from Roman rule, Jesus saw himself as a suffering, nonviolent, poor and weak Messiah.
This position would seem to be at odds with the general approach found in the Hebrew Bible, according to which God is above suffering, which is solely a human attribute. According to that description, it follows that if the Messiah is a quasi-divine figure, it wasn’t possible for him to suffer, as Jesus claimed. However, Knohl looked for and found evidence of divine suffering in other sources, and explains that, “The portrait of the divinity suffering with his people appeared in Jewish tradition before the birth of Christianity.”
In support of this thesis, the scholar cites Isaiah 63:9: “In all their afflictions he was afflicted.” The Hebrew text emends the word lo [spelled lamed aleph, meaning “not”] to lo [lamed vav, meaning “to him”], which is very significant in this context. According to the emended version – whose date is unknown – God is regretful, and shares in Israel’s suffering. For the first time, the image of a suffering God enters the Bible, a concept previously foreign to the biblical way of thought.
“Once the idea that God himself suffers and shares in the sorrow of his people was accepted, it became possible to attribute suffering to a messiah possessing divine status too,” Knohl observes.
‘Quasi-divine’ figure
After being arrested, Jesus is placed on trial. His judges were members of the priestly Sadducee sect, which controlled the courts at the time. When Jesus stood before them, he represented, in his deeds and words, the position of the Prophets and the psalmist, who awaited the arrival of a “quasi-divine” messiah. According to Knohl, this was the image shared by the majority of Jewish people during this period. However, it was Jesus’ misfortune that his judges, who condemned him to death, ruled out the possibility of the advent of a Messiah of this kind. The Sadducees were anti-messianic and objected in principle to the messianic idea. From their point of view, the notion that the Messiah was the son of God, as Jesus presented it, constituted an abomination of God’s name, punishable by death.
In other words, Jesus’ trial was actually an intra-Jewish matter?
“Yes. Jesus’ trial is not a moment of collision between the Jewish message and the Christian message. It is a conflict between two clearly intra-Jewish concepts.”
Jesus’ judges, Knohl emphasizes, did not faithfully represent the feelings of the people. “According to all the sources, the Sadducees, who sentenced him to death, represented only a minority of the Jewish people.” The majority of Jews in Jesus’ time actually supported the Pharisees, who agreed with Jesus that the Messiah would bear a “quasi-divine” status, he notes.
Like Jesus and his disciples, most of the people believed in the resurrection of the dead and the advent of a messiah bearing divine qualities. “It’s reasonable to assume that if Jesus had been judged by Pharisees, he would have been acquitted,” Knohl says. “It was not the Jewish people who tried him, but the leadership of a minority group.”
After he was sentenced to death, Jesus was handed over to the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, who ordered his crucifixion. The execution was carried out by Roman soldiers. The Romans, for their part, saw Jesus as yet another in a series of messianic Jews who constituted a threat to their rule.
Orthodox Christians walking on the Via Dolorosa, in Jerusalem’s Old City.
Olivier Fitoussi
About 30 years earlier, in 4 B.C.E., following the death of King Herod, an extensive rebellion against the Romans had broken out in the same place – the Temple courtyard – and at the same time of year: during Passover. “From their perspective, Jesus was the successor to the messianic leaders of that revolt,” Knohl says, which is the reason the Romans placed a sign reading “King of the Jews” atop the cross on which Jesus was crucified.
Forty years after the Crucifixion, the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and burned down the Temple. Many of the Sadduccees perished. Thus it was, in the year 70 C.E. – along with the destruction of the Second Temple – that the Sadducees disappeared from the historical stage. The leadership of the Jewish people fell into the hands of the heirs of the Pharisees, the Mishnaic sages.
Knohl: “It is safe to assume that these sages, and notably Rabbi Akiva, would not have sentenced Jesus to death for his messianic views, which were not so far from their own approach.” Yet, the tragic circumstances of history had Jesus living during the period in which the Sadducees controlled the Temple and became his judges.
“It would be a grievous error to cast the blame for Jesus’ death on the Jewish people collectively,” Knohl concludes. Furthermore, Rabbinic Judaism, which developed under the leadership of the sages after the Temple’s destruction, also accepted the belief in the resurrection of the dead and the advent of a superhuman messiah. In this sense, he says, “basic agreement exists between the messianic concepts of Jesus and the historic Jewish concept.”
This thesis has multiple implications that go beyond academic, theological and philosophical discourse. The hatred of the Jewish people harbored by Christian peoples is based primarily on belief in the Jews’ responsibility for the crucifixion of Jesus.
“That is true, and we cannot ignore it. There will be no healing until this wound is opened. I suggest opening it, not covering it up. To declare courageously: Yes, there was a trial. But those who judged Jesus were a minority group, who disappeared from the Jewish map. You can’t just take what they did and use it to accuse the entire Jewish people. That is a terrible distortion.”
What happened that suddenly led you to this conclusion? Where have you been until now?
“The [assumption underlying] your question is the opposite of scientific. The role of science is to question the conventions and find new things. The question of why no one said this earlier destroys the foundation and the role of science: to think, to call into question, to turn over the stones and find new things.”
Prof. Aviad Kleinberg, director of the School of Historical Studies at Tel Aviv University, and an expert in the history of Christianity and Christian theology, takes issue with Knohl. “Prof. Knohl wants to exonerate the Jewish people of guilt in Jesus’ death. But Knohl arrived on the scene 54 years late,” Kleinberg says.
He is referring to the Vatican Council’s 1965 declaration, “Nostra Aetate,” which states, in part, “True, the Jewish authorities and those who followed their lead pressed for the death of Christ; still, what happened in His passion cannot be charged against all the Jews, without distinction, then alive, nor against the Jews of today.”
According to Kleinberg, since that historic statement, “The Catholic Church has repeatedly dissociated itself from any accusation of the Jewish people for Jesus’ death. The Church has condemned anti-Semitism and expressed contrition for its part in the persecution of the Jews in the past.” Similarly, the hope voiced by Knohl that the figure of Jesus would be reexamined in its Jewish context, and that the resemblance between his views and those of the Pharisees would be recognized, has already been realized, Kleinberg maintains. “The new trend in research – including Catholic research – is to present Jesus as a Jew in every respect, who was not out to found a new religion and certainly did not wish to turn his back on his Jewish brethren,” he says.
Knohl, for his part, maintains that the Vatican Council’s declaration did not go into the details of Jesus’ trial or the internal disputes in Judaism on this question, as he does in his new book. He adds that he is familiar with the other studies which are trying “to return Jesus to Judaism,” but they devote little space to Jesus’ messianic side, and treat his claim to be the son of God metaphorically, he says. He, in contrast, emphasizes Jesus’ messianic conception in his research.
An angel and a mute rebbe
Israel Knohl was born in Jaffa in 1952. His parents, Dov and Shoshana, who immigrated to Palestine from Galician Poland in the 1930s, were among the founders of Kibbutz Kfar Etzion, near Bethlehem. His father was one of the few who survived when the kibbutz was conquered by the Jordanians in the War of Independence, in 1948. The family moved to Jerusalem when Knohl was 8, and he has lived in the city ever since.
After doing army service in a combat unit, he studied Talmud at the Hebrew University but afterward switched to the Bible department, where he wrote his doctoral thesis and found his academic home. He retires this month. In the 1980s, he was among the founders of the Shalom Hartman Institute, a center of pluralistic Jewish education and thought, where he will continue to conduct research and teaches.
The Via Dolorosa, in Jerusalem’s Old City, 1950.
Willem van de Poll
“I like to think out of the box,” he says. At the same time, he does not hesitate to retract his views if new details arise that cause him to question them. In 2007 and 2008, for example, he put forward a new and surprising interpretation for the inscription, called “Gabriel’s Revelation” (Hazon Gabriel), on a stone tablet from the Second Temple period. Experts were puzzled by the meaning of the inscription, which had been discovered in Jordan a few years earlier. Knohl maintained that the text depicts the angel Gabriel as resurrecting a messianic leader from the dead after three days. From this he inferred that the belief that the Messiah died and came back to life after three days – a central tenet of the Christian faith, and one that obviously differentiates it from Judaism – existed in Judaism even before the birth of Jesus.
“The Gabriel Revelation thus confirms my thesis that the belief in a slain and resurrected messiah existed prior to the messianic activity of Jesus,” Knohl wrote in Haaretz in 2007. He told The New York Times in 2008, “Resurrection after three days becomes a motif developed before Jesus, which runs contrary to nearly all scholarship. What happens in the New Testament was adopted by Jesus and his followers based on an earlier messiah story.” He added, “His mission is that he has to be put to death by the Romans to suffer so his blood will be the sign for redemption to come. This is the sign of the son of Joseph. This is the conscious view of Jesus himself. This gives the Last Supper an absolutely different meaning.”
Against this background, Jesus should be seen as a national leader of the Jewish people, Knohl concluded at the time. If a Jewish tradition already existed, whereby a Messiah who suffers, dies and rises to life – we can understand that, “Jesus wanted to be captured by the Romans and killed by them, because he believes that in this way he will bring redemption to Israel,” Knohl said in a 2009 interview. “And when I speak about redemption, I speak about national redemption… [Jesus] wanted to be the king of the Jews, because he believed that after his blood will be shed, God will come from heaven, kill the enemies – the Romans – and redeem Israel.” Jesus, then, was “a very devoted and national Jew who wanted to sacrifice his life in order to redeem his people.” And, as he told The Times, “To shed blood is not for the sins of people but to bring redemption to Israel.”
It was in the wake of a different reading of one of the lines in the Gabriel Revelation inscription, as suggested by an American scholar, and in light of technical difficulties in deciphering the text, that Knohl announced in a 2008 article that he was revoking his earlier interpretation.
In his bestselling Hebrew-language book entitled “Where Are We From? The Genetic Code of the Bible,” published that same year, Knohl also offered a new reading of ancient texts. In the book he explains that the Jewish people sprang from different groups that brought with them diverse beliefs and rituals – a view that contradicts what is taught to most of those who pass through Israel’s school system. The book was widely discussed, and not only in academic circles. Prof. Yaacov Shavit, former head of the Jewish history department at Tel Aviv University, savaged the work in an article in Haaretz, writing that it rests on “flimsy foundations and imaginary connections,” and is characterized by “an abundance of fertile imagination, conjectures like castles in the air and leftovers of groundless theories.”
In a rebuttal published in the newspaper, Knohl asserted that Shavit’s words were not the stuff of a critical review, but rather “a crass attempt to shut people up by hurling garbage and nonsense.” He excoriated Shavit as “a historian of the modern era who is unfamiliar with the study of the Bible and its era,” adding, “A person needs a healthy dose of arrogance, effrontery and vulgarity to review a book that is not from his particular field of study and to hurl unbridled accusations at its author without grounding and proving even one of the accusations. As an outsider to the field, he is unable to address the substance but only to scream his head off. As the saying goes, ‘empty vessels make the greatest noise.’”
Knohl’s 2018 book “How the Bible Was Born” (Hebrew) also became a local best seller. In it the author conducts an industrious search for the historical core that underlies biblical accounts of the Jewish people’s origins. He concludes that the Bible is not a history book, but contains “seeds” of historical memory.
In that book he positions himself between two conflicting approaches. The first, traditional one believes fully and blindly in everything the Torah relates: from the emergence of the Jewish people, to the patriarchs, Joseph and the bondage in Egypt, and down to Moses and Joshua and the entry into the Land of Israel. It’s all true, in this telling, even if contemporary archaeology and other sources don’t confirm it.
The second approach is that of Bible scholars who maintain that all the stories in the Torah, from Genesis onward, are a total invention that doesn’t necessarily reflect any historical truth. Thus, for example, according to this approach, the Exodus from Egypt never happened.
For his part, Knohl thinks the stories of the Jewish people’s origins do not constitute historical truths but a literary compilation of myths, traditions and tales that had some sort of anchor in history and over hundreds of years were handed down orally. “Unlike the view of many scholars, my position is that the Torah story is not without historical value and historical context,” he writes. “The Torah is not out to teach us history, and therefore should not be judged like a history book. The important question is not whether the story happened or not, but what the story’s spiritual, religious meaning is. The Torah story provides us with an ‘Israelite mythology of the nation’s beginnings.’”
In his newest book, Knohl offers a survey of the disputes over the messianic idea and its roots, beginning with the Torah, the Prophets and the Psalms, and including the written texts discovered at Qumran, the views of the Pharisees and the Sadducees, and even discussions of Maimonides and the Lubavitcher Rebbe.
“Although the great majority of the Jewish people did not accept Jesus as the Messiah, they espoused a messianic concept that was fundamentally similar to Jesus’ messianic concept,” he tells me, placing Jesus back at center stage. “The messianic expectation was an operative, driving force throughout the 2,000 years of exile.”
It is in this connection that Knohl refers to Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the Lubavitcher Rebbe, who is a contemporary messianic figure. In 1992, almost nearly 90 years old, he suffered a stroke. Although he lost his power of speech permanently, when he recovered, he resumed his public appearances. His followers danced before him, singing, “Long live our master, our teacher and our rabbi, the Messiah forever and ever.”
Knohl: “The mute rabbi frequently encouraged the singing with gestures of his head and hand. The messianic fervor among his followers grew more intense.” Thus, the professor reasons, the Rebbe’s condition and suffering were interpreted in a messianic context. “His followers read his agonies as a sign of his messiah-hood.” Thus another link was added to the chain of images of the suffering Messiah.
Still, Messiah-hood is not solely a religious matter, the scholar asserts.
“Zionism, which was a secular movement, was nevertheless founded on the basis of the messianic expectation, which had existed among the Jewish people for thousands of years,” Knohl notes. “It cannot be understood without the background of the messianic expectation.”
So, if we like, we can add another suffering Messiah to the chain: Theodor Herzl.
When I was a student at university in the late 1960s — the era of student protests, psychedelic drugs, and the Beatles meditating with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi — a story went around. An American Jewish woman in her sixties traveled to northern India to see a celebrated guru. There were huge crowds waiting to see the holy man, but she pushed through, saying that she needed to see him urgently. Eventually, after weaving through the swaying crowds, she entered the tent and stood in the presence of the master himself. What she said that day has entered the realm of legend. She said, “Marvin, listen to your mother. Enough already. Come home.”
Starting in the ’60s, Jews made their way into many religions and cultures with one notable exception: their own. Yet Judaism has historically had its mystics and meditators, its poets and philosophers, its holy men and women, its visionaries and prophets. It has often seemed as if the longing we have for spiritual enlightenment is in direct proportion to its distance, its foreignness, its unfamiliarity. We prefer the far to the near.
Moses already foresaw this possibility:
Now what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach. It is not in heaven, so that you have to ask, “Who will ascend into heaven to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?” Nor is it beyond the sea, so that you have to ask, “Who will cross the sea to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?” No, the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart so you may obey it. (Deut. 30:11–14)
Moses sensed prophetically that in the future Jews would say that to find inspiration we have to ascend to heaven or cross the sea. It is anywhere but here. So it was for much of Israel’s history during the First and Second Temple periods. First came the era in which the people were tempted by the gods of the people around them: the Canaanite Baal, the Moabite Chemosh, or Marduk and Astarte in Babylon. Later, in Second Temple times, they were attracted to Hellenism in its Greek or Roman forms. It is a strange phenomenon, best expressed in the memorable line of Groucho Marx: “I don’t want to belong to any club that would have me as a member.”
Jews have long had a tendency to fall in love with people who do not love them and pursue almost any spiritual path so long as it is not their own. But it is very debilitating.
When great minds leave Judaism, Judaism loses great minds. When those in search of spirituality go elsewhere, Jewish spirituality suffers. And this tends to happen in precisely the paradoxical way that Moses describes several times in Deuteronomy. It occurs in ages of affluence, not poverty; in eras of freedom, not slavery. When we seem to have little to thank God for, we thank God. When we have much to be grateful for, we forget.
The eras in which Jews worshiped idols or became Hellenized were Temple times when Jews lived in their land, enjoying either sovereignty or autonomy. The age in which, in Europe, they abandoned Judaism was the period of Emancipation, from the late 18th to the early 20th centuries, when for the first time they enjoyed civil rights.
The surrounding culture in most of these cases was hostile to Jews and Judaism. Yet Jews often preferred to adopt the culture that rejected them rather than embrace the one that was theirs by birth and inheritance, where they had the chance of feeling at home. The results were often tragic.
Becoming Baal worshipers did not lead to Israelites being welcomed by the Canaanites. Becoming Hellenized did not endear Jews to either the Greeks or the Romans. Abandoning Judaism in the 19th century did not end antisemitism; it inflamed it. Hence the power of Moses’ insistence: to find truth, beauty, and spirituality, you do not have to go elsewhere. “The word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart so you may obey it.”
The result was that Jews enriched other cultures more than their own. Part of Mahler’s Eighth Symphony is a Catholic mass. Irving Berlin, son of a chazzan, wrote “White Christmas.” Felix Mendelssohn, grandson of one of the first “enlightened” Jews, Moses Mendelssohn, composed church music and rehabilitated Bach’s long-neglected St Matthew Passion. Simone Weil, one of the deepest Christian thinkers of the 20th century — described by Albert Camus as “the only great spirit of our times” — was born to Jewish parents. So was Edith Stein, celebrated by the Catholic Church as a saint and martyr, but murdered in Auschwitz because to the Nazis she was a Jew. And so on.
Was it the failure of Europe to accept the Jewishness of Jews and Judaism? Was it Judaism’s failure to confront the challenge? The phenomenon is so complex it defies any simple explanation. But in the process, we lost great art, great intellect, and great spirits and minds.
To some extent the situation has changed both in Israel and in the Diaspora. There has been much new Jewish music and a revival of Jewish mysticism. There have been important Jewish writers and thinkers. But we still spiritually underachieve. The deepest roots of spirituality come from within: from within a culture, a tradition, a sensibility. They come from the syntax and semantics of the native language of the soul: “The word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart so you may obey it.”
The beauty of Jewish spirituality is precisely that in Judaism God is close. You do not need to climb a mountain or enter an ashram to find the Divine Presence. It is there around the table at a Shabbat meal, in the light of the candles and the simple holiness of the Kiddush wine and the challot, in the praise of the Eishet Chayil and the blessing of children, in the peace of mind that comes when you leave the world to look after itself for a day while you celebrate the good things that come not from working but resting, not from buying but enjoying — the gifts you have had all along but did not have time to appreciate.
In Judaism, God is close. He is there in the poetry of the psalms, the greatest literature of the soul ever written. He is there listening in to our debates as we study a page of the Talmud or offer new interpretations of ancient texts. He is there in the joy of the festivals, the tears of Tisha B’Av, the echoes of the shofar of Rosh Hashanah, and the contrition of Yom Kippur. He is there in the very air of the land of Israel and the stones of Jerusalem, where the oldest of the old and the newest of the new mingle together like close friends.
God is near. That is the overwhelming feeling I get from a lifetime of engaging with the faith of our ancestors. Judaism needed no cathedrals, no monasteries, no abstruse theologies, no metaphysical ingenuities — beautiful though all these are — because for us God is the God of everyone and everywhere, who has time for each of us, and who meets us where we are, if we are willing to open our soul to Him.
I am a Rabbi. For many years I was a Chief Rabbi. But in the end I think it was we, the Rabbis, who did not do enough to help people open their doors, their minds, and their feelings to the Presence-beyond-the-universe-who-created-us-in-love that our ancestors knew so well and loved so much. We were afraid — of the intellectual challenges of an aggressively secular culture, of the social challenges of being in yet not entirely of the world, of the emotional challenge of finding Jews or Judaism or the State of Israel criticized and condemned. So we retreated behind a high wall, thinking that made us safe. High walls never make you safe; they only make you fearful. What makes you safe is confronting the challenges without fear and inspiring others to do likewise.
What Moses meant in those extraordinary words, “It is not in heaven … nor is it beyond the sea,” was: Kinderlach, your parents trembled when they heard the voice of God at Sinai. They were overwhelmed. They said: If we hear any more we will die. So God found ways in which you could meet Him without being overwhelmed. Yes, He is creator, sovereign, supreme power, first cause, mover of the planets and the stars. But He is also parent, partner, lover, friend. He is Shechinah, from shachen, meaning, the neighbor next door.
So thank Him every morning for the gift of life. Say the Shema twice daily for the gift of love. Join your voice to others in prayer so that His spirit may flow through you, giving you the strength and courage to change the world.
When you cannot see Him, it is because you are looking in the wrong direction. When He seems absent, He is there just behind you, but you have to turn to meet Him. Do not treat Him like a stranger. He loves you. He believes in you. He wants your success. To find Him you do not have to climb to heaven or cross the sea. His is the voice you hear in the silence of the soul. His is the light you see when you open your eyes to wonder. His is the hand you touch in the pit of despair. His is the breath that gives you life.
Master of the Universe! We are entering that very special time when Noah opened the window of his ark (Genesis 8:6), a daring act of faith against the tragic reality of a collapsed world. “This is Yom Kippur,” our ancients taught us, “for the ark of Noah, she is Mother of Above, and the window of the ark is the Central Column through which the light of the Torah, the hidden light, is illuminated” (Tikunei Zohar, Tikun 39). Give us then the strength and the courage to fling open that window so that your light may shine more brilliantly, as when it shone through the window of Noah’s Ark when he dared to open it and envision Genesis in the face of Nemesis. Carry us across the chasm between what once was and what we hope can be. Grant us the wisdom and inspiration to do what we must here in the realm of the Created to empower the potency of the Divine Light so that it may shatter the impediments and illuminate the beauty of your Creation.
Rabbi Gershon Winkler Walking Stick Foundation Cedar Glen, CA
HUMANISTIC
Humanistic Jews greet the High Holidays with optimism and purpose. For us, these are not days of dread and awe, but opportunities for renewal and rededication to bettering our own lives and the world around us. This year, we will have in our minds the death of Heather Heyer and the blatant display of racism, neo-Nazism and anti-Semitism in Charlottesville. We will be thinking of the lack of moral leadership coming from the White House, the stripping away of rights and voting access, and more.
To this end, on Rosh Hashanah we will say, “Where there are prejudice and hatred, let there be acceptance and love. Where there are tyranny and oppression, let there be freedom and justice. Where there are strife and discord, let there be harmony and peace.” And on Yom Kippur we will acknowledge that “we have acted wrongly by hardening our hearts, by shirking duty, by keeping the poor in the chains of poverty and turning a deaf ear to the cry of the oppressed, by failing to work for peace, by keeping silent in the face of injustice.”
But we will also take encouragement from each other and say, “May our hearts not despair of human good. May no trial, however severe, embitter our souls and destroy our trust. May we too find strength to meet adversity with quiet courage and unshaken will.”
Rabbi Peter H. Schweitzer The City Congregation for Humanistic Judaism New York, NY
RENEWAL
In many synagogues the last phrase before we start the Shacharit (morning) prayers on Shabbat is, “The King is enthroned on high in majesty.” On the High Holy Days, we also chant this phrase in the morning, but the music is quite grand—it is meant to stand out. The High Holy Days emphasize our need to crown God as king. We are reminding ourselves that not everything (and perhaps nothing) is in our power. As much as we think we can control what’s happening in our world, in our country, in our own lives, we must count on God. It doesn’t mean that we stop doing the hard work, but it does mean that we humble ourselves. The Unetaneh Tokef prayer, sung on Rosh Hashanah, also embraces God as Sovereign and takes it further. It tells us that God counts each of us as a shepherd counts his sheep. We all matter. Each one of us is seen, watched, judged and cared for. And there is a shepherd, there is a king, there is a Great Power, if we would only open our hearts.
Rabbi Elyssa Joy Austerklein Beth El Congregation Akron, Ohio
RECONSTRUCTIONIST
The mosticonic prayer is Unetaneh Tokef, which asks “who shall live and who shall die.” This piyut (pietistic poem) reaches every high note: the metaphorical book of remembrances, bearing our signature, signaling that we’re judged by our actions alone; the true and scary unknowns of the year ahead, such as “who’ll be humbled, and who uplifted”; and the clarity that though we’re not in control, three of our actions—repentance, prayer and righteousness—temper the severity of God’s (or fate’s) decree.
An especially insightful prayer is Hayom Harat Olam, said after the shofar is blown at the Rosh Hashanah Musaf (afternoon) service: “Today the world is conceived.” It’s a liturgical call to stay open to the pregnant possibilities in this world—to practice gratitude, transcend inertia and habits and see the possibilities around us. It insists that Creation itself matters, with our own existence utterly intertwined with the lives of all people and all species.
But the mostimportantprayer? Whatever moves you! What sends you out of shul, ready to make amends? Soothes the troubled soul? Punctures smugness to truly trouble us? Sticks in our heart and our kishkes, pushing us to be better people through next Rosh Hashanah? That’s the most important prayer.
Rabbi Fred Scherlinder Dobb Adat Shalom Reconstructionist Congregation Bethesda, MD
REFORM
Is the most important prayer the one that is most evocative of the holiday, such as Kol Nidre? Chanted on Yom Kippur evening, the Kol Nidre prayer asks God to absolve any oaths or vows we have made in the past year, effectively wiping the slate clean. Or is it the prayer most often repeated, such as Avinu Malkeinu? One of the oldest prayers in the High Holy Day prayer book, recited throughout the Ten Days of Repentance and during the morning and evening services, this prayer pleads to God for the year ahead. Or is the most important prayer the one most tied to our process of teshuvah (repentance)? As we recite the Vidui, the litany of confessions in the first person plural, on Yom Kippur, we stand together as a community of support, recognizing that while we may not have individually committed any one of these sins, we surely have done so collectively.
Any one of these prayers recited during this season could be considered the most important. But it doesn’t matter what I suggest. The better question is, “What is the most important prayer for you at this time and in this season?”
Rabbi Laura Novak Winer
Fresno, CA
CONSERVATIVE
I sense from the question that you are wondering whether there are particular High Holy Day prayers that bring light or meaning especially to these challenging political times. So many of us have little or no confidence in the president of the United States, and we worry that the very soul of this country is under siege.
The prayers that speak to these times and these issues are not unique to the High Holy Days but are recited each Shabbat morning. The prayer for our country, the prayer for Israel and the prayer for peace resonate more now than ever. Each of these prayers speaks to the important issues so many of us worry about. In addition, in the Conservative movement’s new siddur Lev Shalem, there is a beautiful prayer about the environment, which seems particularly meaningful now.
I think that the High Holy Day liturgy serves a different purpose. The High Holy Days are about individual reflection and introspection. As a result, the prayers that are especially important for one individual may not be especially relevant for another. While we come together as a community and recite much of the liturgy as one, the days are about our individual lives and personal relationships. The High Holy Days challenge us to ensure that our personal values are aligned with our behavior.
Rabbi Amy Wallk Katz
Temple Beth El
Springfield, MA
MODERN ORTHODOX
Sadly, most of the prayers we will say on the High Holy Days will be verbal exercises. They will have no effect on our heart. A friend once compared uttering these words to drinking distilled water, which goes through the system but leaves nothing behind.
The most important prayer, the prayer that brings a moment of ignition of the heart, is unpredictable in advance. From year to year, different prayers have touched me. A lot depends on your readiness to be inspired. One prayer has touched me more often than others. It is found at the end of the Neilah (closing) prayer of Yom Kippur in the traditional liturgy: “O Lord our God, out of love, You have given us this Yom Kippur to end it in forgiveness of all our sins in order that we cease all acts of exploitation or oppression and turn to You to fulfill your gracious laws with our whole heart.”
This passage reminds me that the amazing blessing of being forgiven for wrong behaviors is predicated on our desisting from ongoing acts that harm, exploit or oppress others. I always stop and review what acts I am doing that fit this description, and I promise myself to cease and desist. Some years, it works.
Rabbi Yitzhak Greenberg
Riverdale, NY
ORTHODOX
The single most important line of the prayers we say is in Neilah at the end of Yom Kippur. Near the end of the Amidah, we return once more to the Vidui, or confession, as we have done throughout the day, but this time it’s truncated. We say the one-paragraph alphabetical list of sins, the Ashamnu, but we leave out the long laundry list of failings that is usually included and replace it with one line, “L’maan nechdal me-oshek yadenu,” which means, “so we may withdraw our hands from oshek.” The prayer book usually translates oshek as “oppression,” but rabbinically it can also be understood as “theft.” Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik says that after we spend the entire month of Elul repenting and ten days living on a spiritual high, after five repetitions of the Amidahand 25 hours of fasting, it all comes down to this one line: If we don’t recognize that life is not random, that we were given the gift of life with a set of expectations, we’re not just sinning, we are stealing life itself. When we fail in our commitment to God, our fellow man or ourselves, we essentially are misappropriating our very lives—not using them for the purpose for which they were given.
Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein
Loyola Law School
Los Angeles, CA
CHABAD
The most important prayer of Rosh Hashanah is: “May everything that was made know that you made it; may everything that was formed understand that you formed it, and may everyone with breath in his nostrils proclaim, ‘The Lord, G-d of Israel, is king.’”
Beseeching G-d for our needs is a big part of our daily prayers. Yet, on Rosh Hashanah, when the fate of our year hangs in the balance, our prayers are virtually silent on our own needs. Instead they focus on our allegiance to G-d. Why?
Rosh Hashanah is the anniversary of the creation of mankind. On this day, Adam proclaimed G-d king of the universe and G-d accepted the title. Ever since, on this day, we too crown G-d. But though G-d asked nothing of Adam in return, He asks something of us. He will be our king, if we pledge our obedience. On Rosh Hashanah, we pledge our fidelity to G-d, and He, as our king, pledges to provide for our needs. We don’t need to pray for our needs on this day because G-d pledges to take care of them. Instead we pray for the greatest gift of all: The gift of a relationship with G-d.
Before blowing the shofar, the Sephardic custom is to chant the poem Oked VeHaneekad, by Rabbi Yehuda ben Shmuel ibn Abbas. It is a powerful and penetrating criticism of the Binding of Isaac, one that gives no answers and raises many questions. At the heart of the poem is a dialogue between Isaac and Abraham, in which the son tells his father to wrap the remnants of his ashes and take them home to Sarah. “Tell her,” he says, “this is Isaac’s fragrance.” Lest the reader think that Isaac glorifies the sacrifice, the author puts in his mouth these words “I feel for my mother! She will cry and mourn! How can I comfort her?” Isaac tells Abraham that whereas his own ordeal will end with his death on the altar, Abraham will have to live with the consequences. He asks his father if he has considered his actions, if he feels that his love of God is greater than his love for his wife and son and if he did right by not telling Sarah his true intentions. This call for balancing religious zeal with compassion, and for understanding that human emotions are part of God’s world, is one of the most important messages of the High Holidays.
Rabbi Haim Ovadia Magen David Sephardic Congregation Rockville, MD
I know a woman, a woman so fragile and yet so strong. She spends nearly her entire day trying to stay afloat. She knows that she needs help. Deep down, there is a burning desire to live, not just to survive. And so, with each ounce of effort she can muster, she does it. She goes to therapy, she’s in treatment, and she comes to me for help as well.
I know with all herShe spends her days trying to stay afloat
might that she tries to heal and to grow. It’s nonstop effort. I am so proud of
her courage and will to invest in her life.
She came to me the other day, and I could sense that she felt low, really low. She has demons from the past that haunt her. As she describes it, like “a monster inside.” This monster tells her that she’s worthless, no good and tries to control her mind. It doesn’t allow her to eat, sleep or feel good inside.
It’s not that she was doing great (great is relative), but she was doing OK. Then something happened, what we call a “trigger.” The trigger became a festive meal for the monster that told her, “Don’t eat!” And now she can’t sleep. Which is a form not of living, but dying.
In the midst of our conversation, she murmured, “I am a failure. I will never get better.” I stopped her. “YOU are not. You had a setback. It’s normal. Yes, a setback is dangerous in your case, but you are aware of it. You reached out for help. Your actions show how much strength you have; you are so strong! It’s a new day. Today, we get up and move on.”
It could be that a person acts impulsively, impatiently, unhealthily, deceitfully, but they are not their act. It could be that a person has a disorder. But that’s only one part of them; it doesn’t define who they are. It describes what they have or feel. What challenges they might be dealing with and what strengths they were created with to overcome.
That means that even if someone stole, the moment they stop doing the act of stealing, they are not a thief. A person might have an addiction, but they certainly are not their addiction, and the moment they make a commitment to abstain and get help, if needed, they are on the way.
You are not a label, a letter or an addiction, but yes, you might have a tendency or a disorder. You might have a trait that says you need to be constantly working on or an addiction that needs constant vigilance and support. But you are a pure soul that is housed inside of a body with many, many traits, talents, and yes, some weaknesses.
Each morning, we say in our prayers, “G‑d the soul that You gave me is pure.” Each morning, we have to say this prayer anew to remind us that today is a new day, with new opportunities, opportunities to connect to our Creator. As long as a person lives, he or she has the chance to start anew.
Rosh Hashanah, the New Year, is right around the corner. We refer to this holy day as the Day of Judgement. Without a doubt, the month preceding this awesome holiday should be filled with self-reflection, introspection, self-judgment. You have to be aware of your mistakes, your weaknesses, your challenges in order to put the effort into working on them. We have to take responsibility for our thoughts, actions and behavior. But Rosh Hashanah is also the new year, a new beginning; it’s also referred to as the Day of Remembrance. We ask G‑d, “Please, remember our merits, the merits of our forefathers. Remember the sacrifices that they made.” We ask G‑d to remember, but so do we!
We have to rememberWe are inherently pure and good
that we are inherently pure and good, and each day is a new day and a new
opportunity. We have to remember that we are complex (in a good way!) and multifaceted. G‑d gave us the power to change negative behavior. We have to remember that a single act doesn’t define who we are and neither does a challenge; instead, we can use it to grow, and become stronger and better.
Infants can be excused for assuming that they are the center
of the universe. Everyone in the vicinity—mother, father, grandparents—seems to
be doing nothing other than caring for the baby. Twenty four hours a day, seven
days a week, adults respond to its calling.
As children begin to grow, developing from infant to child
Infants can be excused
to teenager to adult, they start to recognize that they are only one of seven
billion people, that the entire human species—as well as the planet we
inhabit—is but a speck in a solar system within a galaxy, which is completely
insignificant compared to the vastness of the universe.
Yet, despite this knowledge, something inside of us
protests. Something deep within the psyche of the individual insists that he or
she is special and indispensable.
And that is a good thing.
Moses’ greatest fear as the Jewish people were about to
enter Israel was that the Jew would no longer see himself as the center of the
universe. He was afraid that once the Jews crossed the Jordan River, the
individual would see himself as nothing more than one among millions; an
individual citizen whose choices don’t make much difference in the grand scheme
of things.
Moses understood that in order for a nation to survive, for
it to maintain a high moral ground and live up to its calling as a light unto
the nations, each individual must understand that the destiny of the nation is
in his or her hands.1 The
greatest threat to morality is if every individual believes that the purpose of
creation, the mission of the Jewish people, and the fate of humanity is out of
his or her control. The greatest assurance that people will make the correct
choices in life is when each individual understands that G‑d looks to him or
her as the center of the universe.
In the opening verses of this week’s Parshah, Moses creates
a covenant with the people:
You are all standing this day before
the L‑rd, your G‑d, the leaders of your tribes, your elders and your officers,
every man of Israel, your young children, your women, and your convert who is
within your camp, both your woodcutters and your water drawers…2
Then, after speaking to them in the plural, Moses switches
to the singular:
..in order to establish you this day as His people, and that He
will be your G‑d, as He spoke to you, and as He swore to your forefathers, to
Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.
The “you” in “in order to establish you this day as His people” is written in the singular. Moses is telling each and every Jew: You are not just one in a nation of millions. Don’t look to others to carry the Jewish heritage for you. You, personally and singularly, are G‑d’s nation, the center of His universe. He is looking to you to carry the torch.
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Centro Estudios Judaicos del Sur de PR 