For the Jewish people, Rosh Hashana is both a time of celebration and a time of serious reflection.
As we mark the New Year of 5780, we gather with family and friends to celebrate and thank God for the blessings in our lives. Our gratitude is accompanied by serious self-assessment of how we conducted ourselves throughout the past year and how, going forward, we can better live up to the responsibility of tikkun, which means “repair.” We examine how to repair ourselves, our relationships with others, our relationship with God, and our relationship with the world around us. Yet, examination is not enough. Our repentance requires that we act to invoke the changes necessary to be our best selves.
Judaism teaches that the responsibility to improve ourselves must include repair of the larger world in which we live. The ancient biblical command “Justice, justice shall you pursue” (Deut. 16:20) has become deeply embedded in the Jewish psyche. It has led to a long and proud tradition of social justice work, and continues to inform our responsibilities.
Jewish tradition teaches that respect for all people is fundamental to each person’s duty to God. The Talmud instructs us: “What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor.” Respect for all people is predicated upon the idea that everyone is created in the divine image (b’tzelem Elohim) and is worthy of dignity. At this time in our nation when acts of anti-Semitism, bigotry and hate are increasing, we must find ways to overcome the hate and divisive language that empower and encourage despicable and heartbreaking acts such as mass shootings, public displays of bigotry and the ill-treatment of those seeking asylum within our borders.
Adherence to the teachings of Torah requires us to welcome the stranger. The history of the Jewish people shares today’s struggles of immigrants and refugees throughout the world. Since ancient times, which included escaping slavery in Egypt and exile from Eretz Israel, to centuries of displacement in the middle ages, such as expulsions from England, Spain and Portugal, to the more modern horrors of pogroms and the Holocaust, all of these national traumas remind us that we too are a community of refugees. As such, we have a responsibility in today’s world to work to build a society that is welcoming to all. It is incumbent upon us to live in a nation that values diversity and recognizes the different cultures and traditions that make up who we are.