Last week I went to join my dad at his long-term care home for services for the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah. I arrived just early enough to avoid parking issues, and promptly ran into an old high-school friend I hadn’t seen in a while.
We embraced, exchanging New Year greetings and then she said “You are so beautiful! The hair, your face, the way you’re dressed – you really are so beautiful!” I was stunned into literal silence. This morning, in my Positive Intelligence app, where I work on my own mental fitness as I guide clients to boosting theirs, the theme of the day was all about loving yourself unconditionally. I wondered if my old friend knew just how she uplifted me, and maybe even helped me love myself a little more unconditionally today.
As the services began, I was instantly struck by the sense of community in the room. So many Seniors – many in wheelchairs, some uncommunicative, others half asleep and some quite alert and aware of their surroundings – and all around them were multi-generational family members holding tightly to them – sharing in the blessing of another year of celebration with their loved one.
We don’t know if this is the last Rosh Hashanah we have with our loved ones here on earth so we revel in the opportunity for joyful celebration together. There was a tribal sense in the room that we are all in the same boat as we journey together at the varying stages of our lives.
Jewish history is really, really old – we are entering the year 5785 in the Hebrew calendar. The liturgy in the prayerbooks we read from pretty old too. Our prayers, our culture, our foods, our melodies – all handed down from generation to generation – Mi’Dor Le’Dor as we say in Hebrew. There is something superbly profound about standing in the midst of all this history of my ancestors.
What was so remarkable to me was looking around the room at so many seniors who, on any given day, can barely string a sentence together, let alone carry on a conversation… and yet there they were, raising their voices in song… the words embedded in their muscle memory from the time they were children, attesting to the longevity of these prayers and their melodies.
I recite the same prayers as my grandparents and their grandparents and their grandparents before them. One day I will also struggle to find words or recognize familiar faces, but these melodies, and these ancient words will live on in my brain and pour out of my mouth when I hear the music that sparks them alive in me. There is something so comforting in that too.
An important component of the Rosh Hashanah service is the blowing of the Shofar – the ram’s horn. This also harkens back to biblical times, when the call of the shofar brought the community together (before text messaging or social media could marshal a flash mob!). It is an ancient call that we Jews can feel in our bones. It shakes us awake and reminds us at this time of the year that we are in a season of repentance, and must atone before our Creator as we head into the start of new year.
This year, more than any other I can remember, as I closed my eyes, the loud cry of the ram’s horn echoed in every chamber of my being. I had goosebumps on my goosebumps.
The sound grounded me into my sense of community, the tribe I was born into in a way it hadn’t ever before. Not going to say I found religion, but the threads that pull me into the bosom of this community felt infinitely stronger than they had before.
And I wondered as I looked around the generations of people surrounding me, if my own future generations to come will someday hear the same echoes and feel the same sense of community that I did today.
Lessons Learned:
There is comfort in community – find yours.
There is joy in communal celebration – be present to feel it.
There is a legacy to leave your generations to come – root them in it.
Tell someone you know how beautiful they are – you’ve no idea how you will uplift them!
