Rosh Hashanah 5786
Erev Rosh Hashanah 5786 (2025)
We stand together this evening on the threshold of a new year. Now that the sun has set, with it the past year is gently placed behind us and before us opens the possibility of renewal, of reflection, and of transformation.
Our tradition reminds us that there is not just one “new year” but many, four in fact. Each is a reminder that life has different rhythms and that renewal can come in many forms: through nature, through community, and through spirit. Tonight, however, we focus specifically on the heart and soul. Rosh Hashanah, the head of the year, calls us to lift our eyes upwards, eisah einay. Passover marks the birth of our people in freedom, and tonight marks the renewal of our spirits in awe.
The sages tell us that the month of Elul, which has just ended, is a time of searching. Elul prepares us to encounter these sacred days with honesty and humility. Its very letters, we are told, form an acronym for the Hebrew phrase “Ani l’dodi v’dodi li – I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine.” This is not only about human love but about our relationship with the Eternal. It is about rediscovering within ourselves the capacity to reach towards God, to live more fully, more compassionately, and more wisely.
Tonight we begin not only the start of a new year, but also the Yamim Nora’im, the Days of Awe, a period of reflection that is not meant to distance us from life but to bring us more deeply into it. The shofar will sound tomorrow to awaken us, but tonight we begin with quiet intention. We prepare our hearts to hear its call, we remind ourselves that brokenness and wholeness can exist side by side and both play a role in sacredness.
Erev Rosh Hashanah is an invitation. An invitation to plant new seeds in our souls, to trust that what is planted tonight may grow in the year ahead. We do not cast aside the past, rather we weave it into the fabric of renewal. We remember that beginning again does not mean erasing what came before, it means carrying forward what is good and learning from what was broken.
As Psalm 27 reminds us, “be strong, let your heart be filled with courage, and place your hope in the Eternal.” May this be our prayer tonight. May we have the courage to hope, the strength to love, and the openness to be renewed.
Shanah Tovah – may it be a year of blessing, renewal, and peace.
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Rosh Hashanah Morning 5786 (2025)
Last night we gathered to stand together on the threshold of a new year, this morning we gather in awe and humility, standing at the head of that new year. The shofar has sounded, its cry still lingering in our souls, and yet it will yet sound again. It awakens us, unsettles us, calls us to rise from the comfort of routine and confront both the fragility and the promise of our lives. We are here not only to pray and to sing, but to face ourselves, to face one another, and to face the Eternal - however you find yourself best doing that.
Rosh Hashanah is Yom Harat Olam – the birthday of the world. The mystics of our tradition remind us that creation is not an event consigned to ancient memory; creation is constant. The world is sustained at every moment by the Divine breath. Every sunrise is a beginning. Every heartbeat is an act of creation renewed. On this day the cosmos itself is said to be reborn, and so are we. The question before us is not whether the world will begin again, but whether we will. Will we seize this chance to participate in renewal? Will we take up the courage to become the authors of our own story?
As I said last night, our tradition tells us that the Jewish year begins not once, but many times. Nisan, the month of Passover, marks freedom – the moment our ancestors left Egypt and began their life as a people. But today, in Tishrei, we celebrate something different: the renewal of the spirit. Nisan gave us liberation of the body. Tishrei calls us to liberation of the soul. Rosh Hashanah is the season for lifting our heads heavenwards, for turning inward with honesty, for hearing the summons to live more fully, more compassionately, and more wisely.
The sages taught that Elul, the month just past, is a time of searching, a time of preparation, asking us to harvest the fruits of our year, and to reflect on where we have been, so that today we may plant the seeds of who we will yet become. The shofar blasts through Elul prepared our ears, but today it pierces our souls. Today the call cannot be ignored.
Our lives are not that simple though, because the world is complicated, and we carry within us both wholeness and brokenness. As I said last night, the Ark of the Covenant is said to have held not only the whole tablets of Sinai but also the shattered fragments of the tablets Moses broke in frustration. The mystics saw the Aron HaBrit as a symbol of the human heart: that within each of us lies both that which is whole and pieces of that which is broken. Renewal does not mean discarding our past or erasing our wounds. It means holding both with courage and discovering that holiness resides in both. In our own brokenness, we find compassion. In our wholeness, we find strength. Both are part of the story we carry into this new year.
This morning I want to make a bold statement: renewal is our sacred authority. We are not simply passive recipients of tradition. We are its custodians and its authors. The Talmudic story of the Oven of Akhnai insists that “Torah is not in heaven” but in our hands. Our ancestors were at one point convinced that the living conversation with Torah mattered more than any heavenly voice. And so it is with us. When we renew ourselves, we claim not only the power to change our own lives, but the responsibility to shape our communities and our traditions. We become the custodians of Judaism’s future, flame-keepers of an ever-living tradition.
At times like those in which we are living, authority can feel fragile. We live in a world where voices are many and hierarchies no longer command unquestioned obedience. But let us not see this as a weakness – it is opportunity. When authority is shared, it is strengthened. When tradition is lived, it is renewed. Renewal does not belong only to rabbis or book people; renewal belongs to all of us, when we accept responsibility for our lives, our communities, and the Judaism we choose to embody. In this sense, each of us becomes a flame-keeper – tending the sparks of revelation, honouring the past, and shaping the present.
The mystics taught that creation itself began with shattering, with the breaking of vessels, and yet from that brokenness light was scattered throughout the world. Our task is tikkun – to gather the sparks, to mend what is broken, to bring light to darkened places. This is not an abstract theology. It is the most practical call of our lives. Every act of kindness, every step towards justice, every prayer said with sincerity, is an act of tikkun. And together these acts form the great story of our people – a story of resilience, of hope … of renewal.
Hope is not naïve, and it is not blind optimism. Hope is courage. Hope insists that even in the face of pain, the world can yet be remade. On Rosh Hashanah we dare to hope. We dare to believe that we can return, that we can change, that we can repair. This is the work of teshuvah. Teshuvah does not mean repentance alone. It means return – return to our truest selves, return to God, return to the path we sometimes lose in the noise of life. The mystics taught that teshuvah was woven into creation itself, for without it the world could not endure. We stumble, we falter, we break – but we can always return. That is the gift of the Yamim Noraim.
This is the purpose of the Aseret Yemei Teshuvah – the Ten Days of Returning from Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur. These are not empty days between festivals, but days laden with possibility. They are an invitation to write new chapters in the story of our lives. To speak words of apology where once there was silence. To forgive, even when forgiveness feels hard. To choose, each day, an act that draws us closer to the people we long to be. Angels may sing but they cannot change, only we have the gift of growth, of fall and rise, of return. This is our authority, our unique human calling.
And so let us take seriously the authority of our renewal. We are authors of our own story. Every year we inscribe our names in the Book of Life – not only by prayer, but by how we live, how we love, how we repair. Each of us carries a pen. Each of us is invited to write with courage, with compassion, with imagination. When we do, we do not write alone. We write in harmony with our ancestors and our descendants. We write in chorus with our community. We write in partnership with the Eternal, who breathes life into us even now.
This morning, then, is about more than ritual. It is about the courage to claim our role as custodians of tradition and as co-authors of our own renewal. We inherit a Judaism that is ancient, but it is alive only because each generation has had the courage to shape it. We are called to do the same. Not to discard, not to destroy, but to renew – to preserve the fire, not the ashes. Renewal is not only possible, it is necessary. It is the essence of our authority as a community of a lived tradition.
May we therefore listen deeply to the cry of the shofar. Let it pierce our hearts, and call us to awaken, to rise, to renew. Let it remind us that brokenness is not the end but the beginning of light. Let it remind us that we are bound to one another, that our lives are interwoven, and that the healing of the world begins with the healing of our hearts.
This is the challenge of Rosh Hashanah, and this is its gift: the authority to begin again, the power to renew, the courage to write our own story. May we have the strength to accept that gift, the humility to live it, and the hope to carry it forward into the year ahead.
As Psalm 27 teaches, Kaveh el Adonai, chazak v’ye’ameitz libecha, v’kaveh el Adonai – Hope in the Eternal; be strong; let your heart be filled with courage; and hope in the Eternal. May this be our prayer. May this be our path. May this be our renewal.
Shanah Tovah.