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Jewish World / Taking the New Year to find beauty in Judaism and life
By Jeremy Rosen
Tags: Jewish world, Rosh Hashanah 

At least once a year, sometime between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, most Jews around the world are conscious of being Jewish.

In Israel and in the United States, it is part of local culture. The newscasters wish everyone a Happy New Year, bankers and Hedge Fund managers take a break - even if they go nowhere near a synagogue.

This is the one time that the majority of Jews actually do think of putting in an appearance at some place of worship.
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Most, it must be admitted, do so out of convention, to please their parents - as dear old Franz Kafka did - or out of guilt.

'Look I don't really give a damn, but I am a Jew after all, so once a year I'll suffer a bit, go to a place where I understand nothing, feel uncomfortable, have absolutely no religious inspiration whatsoever, but hey, at least I go.'

Like the Mafioso who turned up at the shrine to Rebbi Nachman of Bratslav in Uman in Ukraine last Yom Kippur, in his blacked out Merc, surrounded by armed guards. He dashed in, said his piece, and dashed out again. That's a good example of penance Judaism.

Thousands of youngsters will hang around a local synagogue, totally out of sync with what goes on inside, but feeling vaguely as though they are doing their duty, even as they slink round the corner for a spliff.

Inside most synagogues, regardless of denomination, the service is long boring and uninspiring, no matter what the language. In the old days of ghetto life, when Jews lived in stinking hovels, the synagogue was the only decent building to where one could escape. No wonder Jews wanted to stay there as long as possible. And so slowly and inexorably, the services grew longer and longer.

Nowadays, liturgical music is simply not what young people want to listen to. The rabbis speak as though from another planet and the audience is enough to put one off other Jews for good. And yet the ritual, like migrating lemmings, recurs each year. Dressed in all their finery, the remotely faithful make their way on annual pilgrimage to an incomprehensible and almost irrelevant past. They arrive at cold mausoleums or hot overcrowded market places feeling ignorant and uncomfortable. Who in his right mind would expect to get closer to God this way?

At the other end of the spectrum, the faithful and the passionate have been preparing themselves for over a month, saying Selichot every morning, blowing the shofar every weekday, working themselves up into a frenzy of pious repentance. The atmosphere is palpable and moving.

I'll never forget my first Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur in the Be'er Yaakov Yeshiva as a teenager. I had come from Anglo Jewry - cold, pompous and hypocritical. There were top hats and canonicals, cantors who bellowed like stuffed oxen accompanied by rag-tag choirs, all totally devoid of religious passion.

Then in Israel, for the first time, I was swept up in an exciting deeply spiritual experience which changed my life for ever. Pure devotional prayer, a community of hundreds, not a word out of place, no gossip, no boredom no shifting in one's place.

It was a spiritual magic carpet, taking one on a flight up to heaven. If only there was a way of providing that experience for everyone. Such a shame it is but inaccessible to most Jews, and equally a shame that so many who do experience it seem to disconnect from the obligation to be good, caring and ethical throughout the year!

Judaism is a strange mixture of the communal and the private. Places of worship at least remind us we are part of a larger whole with its benefits obligations and burdens. But how do we satisfy our own souls? In big Jewish centers there are choices. One can shtiebel crawl in the hope of finding somewhere where the spirit or a kind soul draws one in and inspires. It's harder with bigger cathedral synagogues and temples where you need a ticket to get in.

But if we don't find anything there, we still need to feed our souls.

There's an existential obligation in Judaism, something only an individual can do. Yet one can do it anywhere. If the synagogue isn't doing it for you, try the park, the sea shore or the desert.

We can imagine we stand before God on Judgment Day and give an account of our year. We can see ourselves as specks in an eternal infinite universe. The crucial question is what we have done to try to experience what is beautiful in Judaism and in life, and what we have done to make the world a better place. This is indeed a chance for self-evaluation. Otherwise we just allow ourselves to be put off by all those officious, pompous and often corrupt holy rollers who claim to be speaking in the name of God.

A new year means a new try. Please don't give up
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