Giving and getting unconditional love
Rosh Hashanah
There are three curious aspects about this period of the Days of Awe that I would like to analyze. First, what is the real message of the sound of the shofar, especially since the Bible itself says about our Jewish New Year’s day, “A day of the broken sound of the shofar — tru’a — shall it be for you.” Second, during the month of Elul and on the days between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, we recite Selihot, penitential prayers, which should be said very early in the morning, before sunrise. What is the significance of these prayers? And finally the kohen gadol, the high priest, is commanded to enter the Holy of Holies, the innermost part of the sanctuary, only twice a year on the same day, Yom Kippur, the day of forgiveness. The first time he enters, he offers incense in a very difficult act of divine service. The second time, toward the end of the day, he goes in to this most sacred place without any specific function mandated by the Bible. What could be the significance of this second entry into such a holy place?
Tru’a — the broken, staccato sound of the shofar — is identified by the sages of the Talmud as being either three sighs or nine sobs. These sounds cannot but remind us of an infant’s wailing, which is perhaps the most primal sound known to human beings. What is the baby seeking when he looks up at his mother and cries in this way? The most primal need within every human being, the need for love. The most frightening experience is the feeling of being alienated, alone, and unloved. Our most fundamental human need is to be loved unconditionally.
It is precisely this unconditional love that our Parent in heaven is willing to give to his children on earth.
The hasidic disciples of the revered Rebbe Menahem Mendel of Kotzka once asked him, “Why is it that in kabalistic and hasidic lore, the Almighty is referred to as the Shechina (usually translated as ‘divine presence’); after all, the Hebrew noun ‘shechina’ is a feminine noun…, and we are living in a very patriarchal society. Shouldn’t God be referred to with a masculine noun?”
The Kotzka rebbe smiled and explained with an analogy that might be a bit anachronistic, but which contains a most profound message: “It is the way of the world that when a father comes home after a difficult day’s work, he derives great relaxation from playing with his infant child. But once the baby messes its diaper, he gives the baby to its mother to clean it up. But the father watches the mother as she changes the diaper; sees how she kisses the baby as she cleans it. She accepts the child with its filth; that is precisely the way God accepts us with his divine and unconditional love.”
This is the true meaning of our penitential prayers. Again and again we repeat the very names or partial descriptions of God that the Almighty revealed to Moses as the great prophet stood at the cleft of a rock: “Lord, Lord, God of compassion (rahum) and freely giving love (hanun), long-suffering, full of kindness and truth….” (Exodus 34:6) Our sages explain that the Lord of love is written twice because God loves us before we sin and God still loves us after we sin. The Hebrew word for compassion (rahum) is built on the Hebrew noun rehem, which means womb. God loves us unconditionally just as a mother loves a child of her womb unconditionally. The shofar sound is a human cry for love. The penitential prayers are God’s loving response to our tearful request for love.
The high priest, a representative of the entire Jewish people, spends the entire day of Yom Kippur engaged in presenting sacrificial offerings to the divine. At the end of the day, he enters the Holy of Holies just as he is, with no offering. He asks that God accept him just as he is. And this is precisely the meaning of the last request of the penitential prayers, Avinu Malkeinu (Our Father, Our King): “Be gracious unto us and answer us, because we have no worthy deeds to speak up for us; do for us an act of charity, an unconditional loving-kindness and save us.” And we sing these words out loud in order to express our joy in a God who loves us unconditionally.
An individual once went to Rabbi Yisroel Ba’al Shem Tov and asked the proper way to repent. The rabbi told him to write on down on separate papers the names of all those people for whom he did favors; on another set of papers, the names of all those people who wronged him. He should then make a fire and cast into its flames the two piles of papers, destroying both. In this way, he demonstrates that as God loves us unconditionally, we must love every other human being unconditionally as well — and we must never expect any reward or thanks for the good things we do.
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