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Time To Remember
Captured Soldiers
• When: This year, Erev Rosh
Hashanah falls on Friday, Sept.
18. The holiday lasts for two days,
Saturday, Sept.19 and Sunday, Sept.
20, which correspond to the first
and second of the month of Tishrei.
• Why We Celebrate: Rosh
Hashanah, Hebrew for "Head of the
Year," marks the beginning of the
new year and the commemoration of
the creation of the world.
• Why We Celebrate: The Torah
commandment to observe Rosh
Hashanah is in Parshat Emor
(Leviticus 23:24) and Parshat
Pinchas (Numbers 29:1). The name
of the holiday — Rosh Hashanah
— is not stated in the Torah; this
developed later. Rosh Hashanah also
inaugurates the three-week holiday
season in Judaism, continuing with
Yom Kippur, Sukkot, Shemini Atzeret
and culminating with Simchat Torah.
In addition to its importance as
the beginning of the year, Rosh
Hashanah is the Day of Judgment
when God weighs the acts of
each person over the past year
and decides the fate of every life.
Rosh Hashanah also is the Day of
Remembrance (Yom Ha-zikaron),
when God remembers the world,
and we remember our relationship
with Him, the Torah and the Land of
Israel.
• Rituals: One of the holiday's
most famous traditions is the blow-
ing of the shofar, made from the
horn of a kosher animal, usually a
ram. The shofar is sounded during
the Musaf service, the liturgy that
follows the Torah reading. (The ser-
vice on Rosh Hashanah morning, like
Shabbat and major Jewish holidays,
is divided into preliminary prayers,
or P'sukei d'zimra; the morning
prayers, Shacharit; the Torah read-
ing, or kriat Torah plus haftarah; an
additional service, or Musaf; and
closing prayers). The shofar is blown
immediately before the congrega-
tion recites the silent Amidah prayer
of Musaf.
By tradition, the shofar is not
blown on Shabbat, which this year
coincides with the first day of Rosh
Hashanah. Instead, the prayers will
mention the "memory of blowing
the shofar." On Sunday, however, we
will hear the shofar.
In most synagogues, everyone
first recites Psalm 47 seven times.
The person blowing the shofar and
the congregation then responsively
recite seven verses drawn from
Psalms and Lamentations. The sho-
far blower next recites two bless-
ings, after which he blows three
sets of shofar blasts, followed by a
responsive reading of three verses
from Psalm 89.
In Ashkenazi tradition, the shofar
is again blown during the cantor's
repetition of the Musaf Amidah;
in the Sephardi rite, the shofar is
blown during the congregation's
silent Amidah prayer and during the
repetition.
Along with Yom Kippur, Rosh
Hashanah is the only day on which
we prostrate ourselves in prayer
as in the days of the Temple in
Jerusalem. The prostration occurs
during the Aleinu portion of the
Amidah prayer and is performed by
kneeling and touching the forehead
to the floor (a modified form of the
prostration done in the Temple).
• Sweetness: Rosh Hashanah is
celebrated with festive meals and,
more so than any other Jewish
holiday, it is replete with symbolic
foods. The best known of these are
apples and honey, which we eat
after saying a prayer that expresses
our hopes for a sweet new year.
• Tzom Gedaliah: The day after
Rosh Hashanah is Tzom Gedaliah,
the Fast of Gedaliah. This is a minor
fast, which begins at sunrise and
ends at sundown, as opposed to
Yom Kippur and Tisha b'Av, which
are 24-hour fasts.
Tzom Gedaliah commemorates
the murder on the third of Tishrei of
Gedaliah ben Achikam, named gov-
ernor of Judah by the Babylonians
after their sack of Jerusalem in 586
BCE.
Following the conquest, the
Babylonians deported much of the
Jewish population of both the north-
ern and southern king-
doms of Israel and
Judah. The rem-
nant that stayed
included the family
of Gedaliah, long
prominent in politics.
The respected Gedaliah
who, together with his
ally, the prophet Jeremiah,
encouraged Jews to accept the real-
ity of Babylonian rule and rebuild
the land.
Gedaliah's hopeful attitude and
words of encouragement gained him
the support of the people. Soon,
word got back to Jews who had fled
that life in Israel was returning to
normal and many refugees made
their way back.
Baalis, king of the neighboring
hostile Ammonites, feared a resur-
gent Jewish state and brought to his
court Yishmael, the son of Nataniah,
a descendant of the last king of
Judah. Baalis played on Yishmael's
resentment that Gedaliah, unlike
Yeshmael, was not descended from
King David — yet there he was, rul-
ing the Jews! Baalis then goaded
Yishmael into murdering Gedalia.
Fearing reprisal from Babylonia,
the Jews of Judah fled to Egypt.
Jeremiah urged them not to leave,
warning that Egypt was a death
trap, yet the Jews not only ignored
Jeremiah, they abducted and took
him with them.
When Babylonia made war on
Egypt soon after, the armies killed
every Jew they found. Meanwhile,
the towns, vineyards and fields in
Israel fell into ruin and the land
remained desolate. The destruction
begun by the Babylonians was now
complete.
To memorialize the Gedalia, and
to remember the horrendous after-
math of his senseless murder, the
rabbis ruled that the entire Jewish
people should forever fast on the
third of Tishrei.
Tzom Gedaliah can be seen as a
particularly relevant fast for our
times. Gedalia was killed by another
Jew, the expression of a Jewish
community divided. Today, the
Jewish community remains filled
with discord, distrust and hostility
— the very sentiments that resulted
in the murder of Gedaliah and the
destruction of Israel. LI
I
n time for the High Holidays, the
Orthodox Union (www.ou.org)
and NCSY, its international youth
organization, are making available
a bookmark for machzorim (prayer
books for Rosh Hashanah and Yom
Kippur) with a prayer for captured sol-
diers Gilad Shalit, an Israeli captured
by Hamas, and Bowe Bergdahl, an
American captured by the Taliban.
The bookmark is a project of NCSY
Teens for Freedom, a group of NCSY
teens who decided to undertake a
project in honor of Gilad Shalit, who
was captured in June 2006. Every
Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur since
then, the group has created a book-
mark/prayer card with a prayer for the
return of Israeli soldiers.
Rabbi Steven Burg, interna-
tional director of NCSY and a former
Detroiter, declared, "This year, NCSY
decided to include a photo of an
American soldier as well to show that
we acknowledge that the United States
and Israel are facing some of the same
challenges. Unfortunately, the Jewish
community knows how horrible it is
for family members not to know what
happened to their loved ones, and it is
important for us to keep that on our
radar during the High Holidays when
we engage in some of the most power-
ful prayers of the year. My thoughts
and prayers are especially with the
Shalit and Bergdahl families."
The prayer is as follows:
"May the One Who blessed our
ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob,
Moses, Aaron, David, and Solomon,
bless and kidnapped the captured
soldiers. May the Holy One, Blessed be
He, watch them and save them from
all trouble and oppression and from
all evil and injury. May He be filled
with mercy for them, to cause them to
recover and to heal them, to strengthen
them and to invigorate them, and to
bring them speedily to freedom, to
return to the embrace of their families.
May they merit long lives and years of
much strength and peace. In the merit
of our forefathers, may the descendents
be saved and fulfill through them the
verse, 'Release my soul from imprison-
ment to praise Your Name' (Psalms
142:8), swiftly and soon, and let us all
say Amen."
To order the free cards, contact Rabbi
Jack Abramowitz at jacka@ou.org or
(212) 613-8366.
September 17 b, 2009
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