In this season of confessing, I begin with a confession of my own: I shudder as I write these words. I shudder with the dread of offering words, even as I feel myself to be drowning under a waterfall of words — words from others and even from myself. Words of prayer, words of teaching, words of analysis and explanation. So why bother? For two reasons, both of which I offer with genuine humility and equally genuine hope, especially in a moment when we seem not to have enough of either, and I and Clal are trying to cultivate more of both.
I am sharing words because they are both so fundamentally human and so fundamentally divine. Other creatures may have limited language, but none possess it or use it as humans do, so using words, even when there are too many of them, is a grasping for our humanity. And at the same time, it is an act of what the poet Anne Sexton calls “rowing toward God.” And whether we think God exists or not, rowing toward whatever we understand as the source of life and the ground of meaning nurtures the hope and humility we all need.
I am sharing words also because they are creative tools through which worlds are created and the human story unfolds — tools in the Biblical creation story that Rosh Hashanah celebrates as the birthday of the world. Words unleash possibilities — some good, some bad — but always more than we imagine, and even more than God imagines, in the story. They are used nonetheless, and using them celebrates that creative capacity to make the world more as we want it to be. Using words reminds us that we all have the ability to do that.
But which words? Especially this week, as we step into celebrating the promise of a new year, beginning on the evening of October 2nd, and remembering the nightmare that began on October 7th, just last year. In each of these observances, we are invited to turn a new page. That’s how it is with all new years and all remembrances of years past, and it is especially true when it comes to Rosh Hashanah and the anniversary of October 7th.
On Rosh Hashanah, we ask for a new page in the Book of Life. We ask for that page to be written — by God, by ourselves, in partnership with others, or some combination of those. Who does the writing is secondary to the desire to turn a new page in our lives, to really open up that new piece of paper, embracing all of its promise and all that is unknown about it, and truly declare: “Bring it on!”
Do we really want to turn the page? We say it is a new page in the Book of Life, but new is still new. We humans are creatures of habit, often even when the habit is unhappy or unhealthy. And if it is complicated to turn the page in a book of life, it is that much more complicated to turn the page in a book of death, as the unfolding story of October 7th has been, and continues to be, for millions of people. No less than when we turn a page in a book of life, doing so in a book of death also means embracing uncertainty — the uncertainty that comes with being less defined by the pains and struggles that have so shaped us for the past year.
So here is the moment that demands our greatest honesty, if not certainty: Do we really want new pages in the books of life and death that are open before us this year? Do we really want to turn the pages, knowing that things could be so much better and that when they are, they will also never be quite the same.? That’s what it means to be on a new page, after all.
And if I am as honest with myself as I am inviting us all to be, I would answer the question of desire to turn the page in classic rabbinic fashion, with a very clear, “Yes…and maybe not.” Even the most adventurous of us craves familiarity. The boldest explorer of new worlds still needs a compass that reliably tracks true North. So yeah, I want a new page in the Book of Life, and if it is really new, I acknowledge that it will never be as simple as we like to imagine. If it is that simple, then it really isn’t a new page. A beautiful palimpsest of the previous page? Maybe. But a new page? No.
And when it comes to remembering October 7th, it may be even harder. Am I really ready to turn the page, to loosen my hold on the clarity of good and evil born in a brutal attack against those I love? Is anybody? Do I really want to nurture a new moral imagination — one in which I and those I love are kept safe and secure, and yet also one that requires more than a recapitulation of the current fights in which we are enmeshed? I think so, but I’m not sure. What if new imagining erodes our strength? What if it weakens our sense of self?
But that is the gift of a book. It allows us to turn new pages without fully relinquishing any of those that have gone before it. I am ready to turn the pages into which both the beauty of Rosh Hashanah and the terrible anniversary of October 7th invite us, precisely because I appreciate that the pages into which I am turning could not be written without all the pages that came before — the good ones and the bad ones, the life-affirming ones and death-dealing ones. I don’t want to waste too much time on questions of which was worth it and which was not.
My job — our job — as we turn both of these pages, is actually the same as it has always been: to stay connected to the previous pages, not to let doing so keep us from turning a new page, and to do both in ways that are bold, humble, and deepen our capacity for empathy. That process is as old as the story of Sarah, Abraham, and God that we read on Rosh Hashanah. As in all great stories, this one invites us to be each of the characters, empowering us to turn to new pages even in the face of death, and always for life.
Sarah tells Abraham to “Cast out that slave-woman [Hagar] and her son [Ishmael], for the son of that slave shall not share in the inheritance of my son, Isaac.”
“The matter distressed Abraham greatly…but God said to Abraham, ‘Do not be distressed over the boy or the slave; Whatever Sarah tells you, do as she says.’”
Talk about turning pages! And whether they are turning for life, as both Sarah and God seem to see it, or for death, as Abraham worries (and Hagar will soon assume to be the case as she and her son are left in the desert, their food and water exhausted), this is a moment when the pages of all of their stories are turning.
Sarah is bold to the point of ugliness. Abraham is humble to the extent that he overcomes his reservations and carries out both Sarah’s and God’s commands. God is empathic in not only saving Hagar’s and Ishmael’s lives but in promising Ishmael his own great nation and the pledge that God will be with him.
Sarah, Abraham, God. Who was right in the story? Who was wrong? Each of them. None of them. The truth is, we cannot know, certainly not as much as we often think we do.
What we can know is that we are all of them, albeit in diverse ways and at various times. What we can know is that in appreciating how we are all each of them, we can nurture the kind combination of boldness, humility, and empathy that help us all to turn new pages: within ourselves, with others in our lives, and with the world whose birthday we celebrate, even as we remember those no longer in it.
Brad Hirschfield is the co-founder and co-executive editor of The Wisdom Daily. A rabbi, Brad has been featured on ABC’s Nightline UpClose, PBS’s Frontline, Fox News and National Public Radio. He wrote a long-standing column, “For God’s Sake,” for the Washington Post and has also written for The Huffington Post and Beliefnet.com. He authored the book You Don’t Have To Be Wrong For Me To Be Right: Finding Faith Without Fanaticism. Brad also serves as President of Clal, The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership, a leadership training institute, think tank, and resource center in New York City.