“Bend… dare to bend,” taught the Chasidic master Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Kotzk. “The curvature of the Shofar is bent… to teach us to bend our stubbornness and our pride. The sound of the shofar includes ‘shevarim,’ the sobbing staccato of broken notes to remind you that ‘teshuvah’ – repentance, the road to reconciliation, is a process… a series of steps. The sound of the shofar is broken, for in God’s eyes nothing is more whole than a broken heart.” As you may suspect by now, it is that time of year again! There is something deeply comforting in all that remains the same as one High Holiday season follows another. Many of us carry these sensory memories from our childhood: the first mournful notes of Kol Nidre, the sacred drama of standing to face the Ark as Avinu Malkeinu begins. The first sweet bite of apples and honey and the sharp tang of autumn in the air. The feeling of excitement as a New Year beckons… its potential untested, its promise yet to be revealed.
And yet. These Yamim Noraim(Days of Awe) do change as we get older. One of the most affecting parts of Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Kotzk’s words is his conclusion: “… in God’s eyes, nothing is more whole than a broken heart.” As we move through life, we come to realize that we all miss the mark in some way. We have all absorbed losses, and we will again. We have all known the pain of being humbled and disappointed. The broken notes of the shofar echo the brokenness each of us carries somewhere inside. Even in unsteady and divisive times such as these, we approach Rosh Hashanah with excitement and glad hearts. As to our preparing for the accounting of the soul that Yom Kippur asks of us so soon after, the call of the shofar, and its broken notes in particular, remind us again – as Rabbi Menachem Mendel taught – that there is actually great strength and resilience to be found in our vulnerabilities. They are what we have in common, what binds us together as one year follows the next. As we come to understand that change and growth are a process to be charted over time, we discover that the wholeness for which we strive may be closer at hand than we thought.
L'Shana Tovah and Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Rebecca Gutterman
