The Same, But Different: Before Rosh HaShanah

“Ehhhhhhh….S’LICHAH!”   

If you’ve ever been to Israel or had any interaction with an Israeli, you’re familiar with the phrase. It is the Hebrew equivalent of “excuse me,” and Israelis use it for anything and everything, even when—especially when—they don’t really mean it. Once in Jerusalem I wasn’t bumped into, I was blatantly shoved by a woman trying to move past me, and when I looked at her incredulously, waiting for some kind of apology, she begrudgingly said, “Oh. Slicha.” As if just saying the word made it all okay.   

But s’lichah is—or at least, it’s supposed to be—more than just “excuse me,” more than just a necessary verbal offering in an effort to appear polite. It is, at its essence, a phrase, a concept we hear an awful lot this time of year on the Jewish calendar, most clearly tomorrow night for the observance of Selichot, but all throughout our High Holy Day liturgy. And that is forgiveness. We are, at the moment, in the final week of Elul, the month leading up to Rosh HaShanah, where we’re supposed to be taking a good, hard, deep look at ourselves, evaluating our lives—where we’ve been, where we are, where we’re headed. The rabbis call it cheshbon ha-nefesh, an accounting of the soul, a taking stock of who we are, as we prepare to enter into the new year. When this cheshbon ha-nefesh—this digging down into the deepest, darkest recesses of our entire beings, the places perhaps only God and each of us know—when it’s done honestly and truthfully, it is grueling and upsetting and scary as hell. But when it’s done right, there is, I believe, nothing more powerful, nothing more transformative in nature.   

So. How do we get ourselves to begin this most difficult of processes? How do we start to strive for the ultimate reward of this soul-searching, hoping to God it’s all worth the incredibly hard work it requires, the hurt and the pain we will inevitably discover along the way?   

We begin with the word shanah, the Hebrew word meaning “year.” A professor at HUC in Jerusalem told us to look at the word, and asked us what is its shoresh, its root? Taken one way, the root is shin-nun-hay, having to do with changes and differences, as in the Arik Einstein song Ani V’atah N’shaneh et Ha-olam, “You and I will change the world,” as well as the chorus of the Four Questions from Passover, Mah nishtanah ha-laila hazah mikol haleilot?, “What makes this night different from all other nights?” With this root in mind, the word shanah tells us that the new year is a chance to make changes in our lives, to do things differently in 5772 than we did in 5771. Whether the changes are as big as things like improving our time or stress management, or as small as cutting back your coffee intake by one cup a day, they’re all changes for the better. So shanah is an opportunity for change.   

But if we look at it another way, perhaps the root is shin-nun-nun, which has to do with repeating or doubling things, as in the verse from V’ahavta:  v’shinantam l’vanecha, literally “and you shall repeat them to your children,” and shnayim, the number two. For all of the things we could have—and maybe should have—done differently in the past year, there are so many things that we did right, that we did well. And it’s these things that we want to repeat, and double, and triple, if we can. Clearly we didn’t mess everything up, right? So what’s wrong with focusing some of our energy on what went right so that we can try to do even more, even better versions, of those?    

This is not to say that focusing on the good things we want to repeat is more important than the things we want to change. Not hardly. They are unequivocally halves of the same whole, both parts necessary if we really want to do this soul-searching thing right. But perhaps the emphasis on the good is exactly what we need to hear right now. After all, it’s this time of year, this point in our calendar, where the famous Jewish guilt first made a name for itself. And we spend so much of it focused on our shortcomings, our flaws, our mistakes, beating at our chests as we recite the communal confession of Ashamnu.

But we still did some good in there. That shouldn’t be overlooked by us, because it certainly isn’t by God. So maybe for each striking of our chest for what we did wrong this past year—for what we want to shoneh, to make different, for the coming year—maybe we can give ourselves a small pat on the back, for everything we did right, everything we want to shinan, to repeat again and again.   

May 5772 be a happy, healthy, sweet, successful, and meaningful year for all of us. May we find the strength and courage to embark on the difficult, but powerful and transformative journey that comes with a genuine cheshbon ha-nefesh, a true accounting of our souls. And when we come together, in the coming weeks and months, at the same time next year, may each of us find ourselves better people than we are right now.

AMEN.