Sunday – Rosa Hashanah
I traveled all day yesterday, returning from a funeral in Iowa, so I am reposting an old essay.
Reprinted from Sept. 22, 2022, slightly amended
Judaism’s celebration of the Jewish new year—which is to say, the anniversary of the creation of Adam and Eve—began yesterday. The Ten Days of Repentance, beginning with Rosh Hashanah and culminating with Yom Kippur, are a time for reflecting on our lives, mending our ways, and seeking the forgiveness of those we have wronged.
Jewish poet Marge Piercy has written one of the best Rosh Hashanah poems that I know. On the Rosh Hashanah for which Piercy wrote the poem, the moon was dark, which gave her a powerful image to work with. This moon is a “black zero of beginning,” a chance to “void yourself of injuries, insults, incursions.” In our hollowness we “hunger,” like the moon, to be full.
The days of repentance provide Jews with a chance to begin anew, to set out with a clean slate and a firm foundation. “Go with empty hands,” the poet tells us, “to those you have hurt and make amends.” The old moon may have died, but that only means that it is early, not late. Now is the time of growth, “a time to/ turn inward to face yourself, the hidden twin of/ all you must grow to be.”
And if we forgive—forgive the dead year that has come up short and forgive ourselves for the same—then what we truly desire will “push through our fingers.” As with the dark moon, our inner light awaits, and if we open ourselves to it, it will come streaming from our eyes. Like the moon, we “will wax in new goodness.”
Head of the Year
by Marge PiercyThe moon is dark tonight, a new
moon for a new year. It is
hollow and hungers to be full.
It is the black zero of beginning.Now you must void yourself
of injuries, insults, incursions.
Go with empty hands to those
you have hurt and make amends.It is not too late. It is early
and about to grow. Now
is the time to do what you
know you must and have feared
to begin. Your face is dark
too as you turn inward to face
yourself, the hidden twin of
all you must grow to be.Forgive the dead year. Forgive
yourself. What will be wants
to push through your fingers.
The light you seek hides
in your belly. The light you
crave longs to stream from
your eyes. You are the moon
that will wax in new goodness.
Further thought: The moon imagery reminds me of the opening interchange between Theseus and Hippolyta in Midsummer Night’s Dream. The two are to be married on a night with a new moon, and Theseus complains that waiting an extra four days for the old moon to die is like a young man waiting for someone to pass so that he can step into his inheritance. “How slow this old moon wanes,” he laments.
In a beautiful image, however, Hippolyta tells Theseus to anticipate the new moon:
Four days will quickly steep themselves in night;
Four nights will quickly dream away the time;
And then the moon, like to a silver bow
New-bent in heaven, shall behold the night
Of our solemnities.
That new bow will propel them into married life. Or as Piercy puts it, into “all you must grow to be.”
Past Posts about the High Holy Days
–Emma Lazarus: Rosh Hashanah and the American Dream
–Lucille Clifton – Running into a New Year
–Alicia Ostriker – Poems for Judaism’s High Holy Days
–Grace Schulman May God’s Love Be Taught at Last in Jerusalem
—Rachel Barenblat–Rosh Hashanah: How to Keep It New
—Enid Shomer–How Rosh Hashanah Is Like Swimming
—Marge Piercy–Let My Words Turn into Sparks
—Yehuda Amichai–Theoretically, a Season for Everything
—Emma Lazarus–High above the Flood and Fire Ye Held the Scroll
—Kadya Molodowsky–Blowing for Hope in the Face of Darkness
—Alicia Ostriker–Entering the Days of Awe
—Muriel Ruykeyser and Denise Levertov: Rosh Hashanah – A Stirring of Wonder
—Marge Piercy: Rosh Hashanah – Weave Real Connections
—Lucille Clifton: On 9-11 Firemen Ascended Jacob’s Ladder
—Rashani: Blowing for Hope in the Face of Darkness
—A Ninth Century Prayer for Yom Kippur
—Adrienne Rich’s Yom Kippur Thoughts about Conflict
—Jane Kenyon: Thirsting of Disordered Souls
—Rashani: Out of Darkness, Sanctified into Being
–Stanley Kunitz: Live in the Layers, Not on the Litter
—Philip Schultz: Believe in the Utter Sweetness of Your Life
