As Jews gather for Rosh HaShana and Yom Kippur services, seeking to better understand holiness and to atone for our sins, we follow thousands of years of tradition and staunch will.   I offer this opening prayer for Rosh HaShana services (the beginning of the Jewish New Year and the beginning of the ten days of worship and prayer) in my Story of a Man collection.  Our Temple Beth Shalom and Congregation Emmanuel congregations in Spokane have used it as an opening prayer at our services.

Though it is written in a Jewish context, I hope you will find its meaning universal, as I feel that Christmas and Easter carry universal power, no matter one’s faith or even lack of religion at all.  There are some things human beings do that they do for all of us.  I hope “ripening” is one of them.

Ripening

And God said:  “Here you are, awakened and free to make your journey in the New Year, but can you hear me?  On these holy days, will you promise to hear me?  I am right here, in you.”

Even when we are distracted, God ripens.  Though the leaves fall, we do not call autumn an ending, we call it harvest.  Sun and moon begin new dreams.  Trees prepare to grow again by returning their attention to their roots underground.

Everything good must be chosen, again and again.  Everything good must be held close, like a child is held close.  Again and again, a community must understand the one quest in every holiness.

Jews, it is time to bend our stiff spines to the God who cannot be broken; time to blow our sacred horn; time to remember our original purpose, a tenderness hidden inside the first flame.

It is time to strip ourselves down to Light.

We are a people called to follow a Maker who, becoming humble inside us, experiences vastness.

What does this mean?

Let us take ten days to understand.

Copyright Michael Gurian 2022