A Pregnant World

True or false: after each round of shofar blasts in musaf, the Rosh Hashanah liturgy declares that “today is the birthday of the world” …

The answer may surprise you – but the answer is much deeper – deeper even than the world’s creation.

The musaf liturgy has a phrase: Hayom Harat Olam

We usually translate it as: this is the day the world was born.

That’s not really what it says.

The phrase should be translated as: this is the day the world was conceived.

The word here that is often mistranslated as giving birth is harat – which means conceived. The word for giving birth, being born? It isn’t there!

These days, we commonly assume that Rosh Hashanah is the first day of creation, even though the Talmud itself doesn’t reach that conclusion!

In the Talmud, we have an intriguing conversation about the date of creation. Rabbi Eliezer holds out for Creation at the beginning of Tishri – Rosh Hashanah. However, Rabbi Joshua’s arguments for Creation in Nissan – in the spring – are equally formidable.

At some point, our tradition decided to associate Creation with the month of Tishri in the fall and not with Nissan in the spring.

But this tradition is ambiguous at best.

Tishri is the seventh month of the year, not the first! And yet, our calendars will reflect that the year begins on Rosh Hashanah.

Confusing? Yes, it is confusing. The logic isn’t apparent. At least, the logic isn’t apparent until we look at today in terms of conception.

We unlock the meaning – not regarding the calendar or the specifics of Creation – but we unlock the potential of Rosh Hashanah.

A word about the Creation story: that, too, cannot be taken literally. The rabbis of the Talmud held the secrets of Creation to be a deep mystery, one that is not allowed to even be taught in its entirety! The Talmud allows teaching Creation via hints – period.

Note that in the discussion of the date of Creation, the Talmudic rabbis did not reach a conclusion.

For the rabbis, the concept of Creation was so vast, so mysterious, that how could anyone put a date on it? Who knew if it was Nissan or Tishri? Torah certainly gives no hints.

So, without any real basis in text, why does our tradition link Rosh Hashanah to Creation?

The concept of pregnancy implies potential. The potential for this day extends into eternity.

Let’s look again at the phrase, only this time we’ll break it down word by word. As we do so, keep in mind that each time we chant it during services, it immediately follows the shofar – which surely gets our attention and jars our souls!

היום הרת עולם
Hayom Harat olam

היום Hayom. Today,

הרת Harat. Is conceived, is pregant

עולם Olam, the world, or eternity

Today and forever the world is pregnant with potential.

On this holy day, we can unlock that potential.

On this holy day, we look at world as vast, eternal, our own lives laden with possibilities of creativity and goodness.

The shofar calls us – the prayer calls us – to recognize our own potential!
A major part of the Yamim Noraim, the Days of Awe, is doing teshuvah, reflecting on what we’ve done wrong.

We talked about that last night. We can’t fix ourselves if we don’t know what parts are broken!

First, we have to face the darkness in ourselves and overcome our fear of change.
How do we know this from a simple phrase in the liturgy?

Think about pregnancy. It’s a time of blessing and a time of fear. We’re excited but worried all at the same time.

For the fetus, the world is nurturing but dark.

All we know about this fetus is that it’s full of potential. Maybe we know the gender. Beyond that, we’re facing the unknown. A glorious unknown – but still, we don’t know what our lives, the child’s life, will become.

The odd thing about our phrase -- hayhom harat olam -- is that it does not appear in the Bible, Talmud, or midrash. It was written just for the liturgy.
But it wasn’t invented out of whole cloth. It’s an adaptation of a statement by the prophet Jeremiah. It’s a very odd statement. Jeremiah is full of despair because he sees the impending doom of Israel, Jerusalem, and the Temple, and cannot prevent it. Worse, he has been oppressed by the people he is trying to save.

“Because he did not kill me in the womb, so that my mother would have been my grave, and her womb eternal.”

Yet, when we sing it, we do so with gusto and joy!

As my colleague, Rabbi Ayelet Cohen, pointed out, Jeremiah was afraid, the challenge before him was so immense. However, he overcame his fear and continued to serve God as a prophet.

The key Hebrew words are related to the last three, that her womb would be eternal.
This day is pregnant with potential! Now the hard work – labor – is up to us.
This is our time to go through a spiritual rebirth. These days are meant to transform us as a fetus is transformed into a person.

But now, the looming question is: where do we start? How do we start?
If we understand that today – and every day – is pregnant with unseen potential -- we gain deeper understanding of time, how precious every moment is.

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel talked about Shabbat as our cathedral in time. We don’t have holy places. We have holy time.

Heschel insisted that the topography of time – it’s mountains, it’s valleys, every single moment – come together to form the most precious thing we could have: moments that are alive with memory, with looking ahead, of joy and sorrow – a collection of moments.

Heschel felt strongly about the primacy of time over space – literally. In the sixties, when the space race was a symbol of national pride, he pointed out that it was even easier to conquer space than time. Holiness is found in moments. Finding those moments, making them special, is the great task that lies before us.
Heschel wanted us to look at the world with “radical amazement,” with eyes of wonder.

Most of us don’t do this. We look just look at things and see things just like we always do: normal and routine.

Centuries before Heschel, Rambam – Maimonides – said that we should contemplate nature. If we ponder God’s works in nature, we come to greater awe of Him, and that brings us to love of God.

… by pondering nature … and by knowing that ultimately, all is created by the Almighty.

Rambam could have also used the term “radical amazement.”

We have the ability – the obligation – to frame the way we look at the world.
This isn’t just a way of thinking. The important part is doing.
Rabbi Heschel said that to encounter God, we had to push beyond filling our own needs, we had to push beyond selfish desires. This would lead to a change of orientation – to the re-framing we have to do.

We don’t re-frame the world through our thoughts but by our actions. Those actions lead us to find parts of ourselves that we didn’t even realize were embedded in our souls.

As my teacher Rabbi Ed Feinstein put it, Heschel’s key to finding God is living with knowledge that something asked demanded of us.

Today, we stand before the Kadosh Baruch Hu, the Holy One Blessed is He, and proclaim his kingship. In our proclamations, we acknowledge that he wants – and needs us to participate in the world He created.

Why?

The world is still being created. The potential is there anew at every moment for the creation of a better world. It’s a long-standing tenet of Judaism that we are God’s partners in the ongoing work of creation.

This is our obligation to Hashem. This is why He created us.

We cannot participate with Him until we understand the creation is continuous, happening every moment, and that He needs us.

The world IS pregnant with potential. The shofar blasts drive that knowledge home.
Heschel firmly believed, you do and then you learn. Keeping Shabbat is an example. We cannot possibly understand Shabbat until we do it. No amount of study can replace the sublime experience of Shabbat.

Rabbi Heschel said it was important to express gratitude and to say berachot, blessings. It gives us a moment to acknowledge that something special is before us – even if it’s a simple peanut butter sandwich.

We want to acknowledge every moment that we can.

We want to make every moment as special as we can.

In doing so, we can transform ordinary moments into sparks of holiness.

We do this one step at a time. A little here, a little there, pulls us into direction of wanting to more, of wanting to add more goodness to the world.

Our challenge right now: look at the rest of the service with radical amazement, as an opportunity to reach for holiness, to come closer to God.

Treat the entirety of these holy days as a drama – in which every scene leads to the next – and the next – and ultimately we can stand before God with a new heart and a freshly renewed soul.

Allow the words, the music, the ritual to touch you.

When you hear the shofar, and then sing hayom harat olam, know that we are acknowledging the potential for all of us, together, to enlarge our souls, to enrich the world.
Allow yourself to feel your own connections to everyone else in the community. Know that we are part of the mysterious, glorious tapestry of time.

Take this same consciousness into Yom Kippur, allow it to reach a crescendo with n’ilah.

Know that like the topography of our lives as a whole, this ten day journey through the days of awe, the services themselves, will have mountains and valleys, but God’s grandeur awaits.