The Eye of the Storm
Shabbat Shuvah 5784 - Look in the mirror and find a way back
Yomam VaLailah - Rabbi Josh Warshawsky featuring the Chaverai Nevarech Band
I just returned to Columbus after a really incredible, energetic, song-filled, and spirited Rosh Hashanah at Temple Beth Am in Los Angeles. I’ll be going back for Yom Kippur, but first Shabbat Shuvah back at my home shul: Congregation Agudas Achim. I love Shabbat Shuvah. With Rosh Hashanah on one side and Yom Kippur on the other, it sometimes feels like the eye of the storm. There is a calm to the routine of coming back to shul for a “normal” Shabbat, of seeing the people who come back not just for the highlights and uplift of the High Holidays but the weekly joy of Shabbat prayer and community.
It feels so human to begin a new year and then say, “wait a second, I forgot to orient myself! I forgot to get ready! I forgot to make a plan!”
People often talk about how strange it is that we have this ten day period of repentance leading up to Yom Kippur. Shouldn’t we have gotten all of this taken care of before the year started?! But to me it feels so human to begin a new year and then say, “wait a second, I forgot to orient myself! I forgot to get ready! I forgot to make a plan!”
But knowing where I’ll be isn’t the same thing as knowing who I’ll be.
I try very hard to be a planner. When I was growing up it felt like my parents would know our Shabbat dinner plans months in advance. With my itinerant-musical-rabbi life I have my Shabbatot planned out all the way until June! But knowing where I’ll be isn’t the same thing as knowing who I’ll be.
Lashuv means to return. Inherent in that definition is the fact that we have been there before! How could we return to something, to someone, that we have never been? We’re coming back to who we are, who we want to be, who we were meant to be. But it’s only possible to do that if we take a moment to pause and reflect and allow ourselves to figure out who that is. Perhaps we need a witness, someone to help us remember that this is our aspiration for who we want to be this year. That’s how this week’s parasha, Ha’azinu, begins.
הַאֲזִינוּ הַשָּׁמַיִם וַאֲדַבֵּרָה, וְתִשְׁמַע הָאָרֶץ אִמְרֵי־פִי׃
Give ear, O heavens, let me speak; Let the earth hear the words I utter! (Deut. 32:1)
Moses asks the heavens and the earth to be witnesses to him and to the People of Israel. And then on Yom Kippur we stand up and put ourselves on trial in front of God, but surrounded by community - giving strength and hope to each other because we are not alone in our mistakes, we are not alone in our hopes and dreams for who we want to be.
And so this day of atonement and reckoning, Yom Kippurim, can become a day of joy and celebration - Yom K’Purim - a day like Purim! To return is not so difficult, because we’ve been there before! It’s not so far for us to come back - what joy at that realization!
In this Shabbat Zemer, Yomam VaLailah, I try to capture what that joy could feel like on that Shabbat Shabbaton, that holiest of holy days.
שׁוּבִי שׁוּבִי רַעְיָתִי, וְנֶחָזֶה בָּךְ. הִגָלֵה נָא לִרְאוֹת, בְּתִפְאֶרֶת עֻזָךְ
Return, return, my darling, So that I may gaze upon you, Reveal yourself, so that I may see, The splendor of your strength
We’re talking to ourselves! Who is the me that I want to be this year? Who is the me that I am returning to? May the answer to that question serve as an inspiration, as an aspiration, as a source of joy and celebration to you in the year to come.
Happy 5784 and Gmar Chatimah Tovah,
Josh