CPTnet
12 September 2007
FORT FRANCES, ON: Reflections on Rosh Hashanah

[Note: The following reflection by CPT Director Emeritus, Gene Stoltzfus,
has been edited for length and clarity. People wishing to see the original
will find it at http://gstoltzfus.blogspot.com ]

>From Wednesday evening to Friday evening of this week, Jews celebrate Rosh
Hashanah. My consciousness of Rosh Hashanah, a New Year celebration, was
nudged by the following words from Avraham Burg, an Israeli politician and
Peace Now activist:

"Rosh Hashanah is very different from other Jewish holidays. A thread of
universalism runs through it-- Nationalism and the nation's collective
memories are marginal at this time; its main essence is directed outward: 'a
prayer ... for all the nations.' -- We sing "today the world was
conceived," and we know that "everyone in the world will pass before Him,"
without distinction and without discrimination, because everyone is equal
before the world's creator. Like Adam and Eve, who were born free of
religion and zealotry."

According to Jewish tradition, God judges our actions for the previous year
on Rosh Hashanah. For some, the jaws of judgment remind us of a primal fear
of hell and a joyless path of escape to heaven. We forget that in the
Bible, for some people, the judgment of God held up the possibility of
fairness in a world of corrupt judges, harsh sentences, and oppression. For
Rosh Hashanah, maybe some of us can give up the harsh idea of God for
forty-eight hours.

On this one day, I will try to place myself before God without judgment of
others or of myself, without judgment of my religious community and all
religious communities, without judgment of my nation or any nation. I will
try to give up my response to Congress's mantra of devotion to America's
returning hero General Petraeus. And I will give up my notions about the
military solutions that his nation pursues.

By giving up my well-intentioned judging for a day, I will see each person
and each expression of creation in its unique and necessary part of the
whole.

So does this mean I might become a Jew, a New Ager, a Muslim, or a Buddhist
at least for one day? Does this mean I am fumbling towards some kind of new
religious integration of it all? Or does it mean for a day I will practice
giving up my hardened habits, beliefs and notions about the perpetrators of
violence, the war makers, the overeaters, the consumers, the over-paid
corporate executives, and all the other "bad" people, most of whom I persist
in believing are outside of me. I will do this in the expectation that in
the moment of divine judgment I will get a fresh perspective on how this all
fits together. And, I will be a more natural product of original love.

I might even learn that this thing we call creation is depending upon all of
its parts, including me, to rise in fresh ways to the occasion of the New
Year.