Richard Poussette-Dart, 1967.

Creations

Rosh Hashanah, the beginning of the year, marks the creation of the world. Or does it? The Torah refers to Rosh Hashanah, although not by that name, as the first day of "the seventh month" (Leviticus 23:24)—the seventh, that is, if you're counting from Nisan, the month of Passover. That month is designated as the beginning of the year in the first act of the Exodus: "This month will mark for you the first of the months; it will be, for you, the first month of the year" (Exodus 12:2). Like revolutionaries everywhere, the Israelites wanted a new calendar. 

The Birthday of the World  Ernst Simon,  Commentary.  Why, of all the "new years" in the Jewish calendar, the one commemorated by Rosh Hashanah claims central place. A classic 1955 essay by a religious humanist philosopher (1899-1988).  SAVE

At the Bar of Justice  Eliezer Segal,  Jewish Star.  In envisioning the great annual "day of judgment," the ancient rabbis and poets invoked legal and military images drawn from Greek and Roman life.  SAVE

Telling Time  Alan Corre, Michael J. Radwin,  Hebcal.com.  When was Rosh Hashanah in 1310? When will it fall in 2310? Free, one-stop shopping for all your calendrical needs.   SAVE

Tashlich, Kate Chester

Repentance = Freedom?

In the thick of the month of Ellul, nearing Rosh Hashanah, penitence is or should be in the air. Also recently marked was the 75th yahrzeit of the great mystic, jurist, and theologian Abraham Isaac Kook (1865-1935).  As it turns out, Kook's  teachings on the meaning of repentance are among his most striking, stamped with his distinctive mix of piety and audacity. In his eyes, teshuvah, generally translated as "repentance" but literally and more powerfully "return," signifies not only a deepened and renewed commitment to religion and commandments but, paradoxically, nothing less than a new birth of freedom.

A Healthy Soul in a Healthy Body  Abraham Isaac Kook,  Emet.  Two passages from Orot Hateshuvah, translated by Alter Metzger, clarify the physical—and the paradoxical—nature of repentance.  SAVE

Rav Kook, in His Time and Ours  Torah MiTzion.  A series of lectures by rabbis and teachers on the 75th anniversary of Kook's death. (Video.)  SAVE

When the Rav Met the Rav  Jeffrey Saks,  Tradition.  In 1935, two philosophers of repentance, the young Soloveitchik and the elderly and ailing Kook, met in the land of Israel.

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Cemetery Politics

Among the many bones its various enemies pick with the Jewish state, one has been much in the news lately: bones, very dry bones, residing in cemeteries both real and imagined all across the country.  

“That I May Bury My Dead”  Kaufmann Kohler,  Jewish Encyclopedia.  On the law and practice of Jewish burial and the sanctity of cemeteries.  SAVE

Bones Removed, Haredim Riot  Yair Ettinger,  Haaretz.  Violent protests greet the transfer of remains from Ashkelon, despite their certification as pagan by the Israel Antiquities Authority.  SAVE

A Struggle in the Sand  Isabel Kershner,  New York Times.  At Al Araqib, Bedouins and their sympathizers demonstrate by day, feast by night.  SAVE

Build Somewhere Else  Buzzy Gordon,  Forward.  Jerusalem is too fragile a place to allow a Museum of Tolerance to become an ethnic battleground.  SAVE