Rav Shira Shazeer – MWJDS School Rabbi
Wednesday morning, my alarm clock rang, bright and early. Earlier than it has had to go off throughout the summer. Earlier than last week during the staff preparation days which started a little later and when I was blissfully only responsible for getting myself out the door, with no kids in tow. As I return to the school-year routine, I now have three children to usher into the car with me, and the routine will not work the same way it did last year when only two were in school. So, when my alarm rang Wednesday morning, the morning ahead of me was familiar, but not totally predictable. Things could have gone in a number of ways. I told myself that this year, as tempting as it may be, when the alarm rings, I will not hit snooze. I will get moving, and start my day with energy and purpose, and get us all out of the house on time.
We have been back to school for just a few short days, and the energy in the building is high. Old friends are reunited after a summer apart, new friendships are forming. For students, teachers, staff and parents alike, there is an intriguing mix of comfortably familiar routines and the potentiality of change in the year that is just starting. As we have gotten started this week with students, there have been changes in some routines. Our morning gathering rituals have looked particularly different these last few days, with some familiar elements missing, and other new opportunities manifesting.
For me, one notably missing piece of our morning ritual, one that I associate strongly with the beginning of the school year, has been the blowing of the shofar. As school years and Jewish years tend to start pretty close to simultaneously, it is almost always the case that the school year begins in the middle of the Jewish month of Elul, the month leading up to Rosh Hashanah, during which the shofar is traditionally blown every morning except Shabbat. The shofar symbolically plays the role of something like a spiritual alarm clock. And Elul could be seen as the snooze button. We wake each morning and hear the familiar blasts of the horn. “The new year is coming! Wake up! Reflect! How will you be different this year?” The confluence of the Jewish and scholastic new years always feels like a happy coincidence to me. How abundantly appropriate that the new start of the school year aligns with the time of new beginnings and reflection in the Jewish calendar.
This year, the Jewish calendar is lagging a bit behind the school year. Elul does not start until this weekend. Rosh Chodesh comes this Shabbat and Sunday. And so, in the first short week of school there was no shofar blowing. And so instead of returning to our MWJDS community in the midst of the snooze-button process of the month of Elul, it is as if we “woke up” this year before the alarm clock rang, refreshed and ready to go, anticipating the changes this year will surely bring and rising to great them and take them on with intention.
This Shabbat, on Rosh Chodesh Elul, we read Parshat Re’eh, from the final book of the Torah, Devarim, Deuteronomy. As in the whole of this book, the Israelite people are standing at the border of the land of Israel, ready to enter the land and begin a new stage in their lives. Moses, however will not go with them, and he is in the midst of a series of lectures, detailing everything they will need to know when they follow their new leader, Joshua, into the promised land. In this week’s installment, the people are told: “Behold, I place before you today a blessing and a curse.” The blessing will take effect if the people follow the mitzvot, and the curse if they turn away from God’s ways. They are to pronounce the blessing and the curse atop two mountains on the other side of the border, when they get there, and from that point the choice lies with the people.
The parsha continues by enumerating the mitzvot that the people are to follow once they cross over into the land of Israel. While the people are presumably responsible for all of the mitzvot once they enter the land, the ones mentioned immediately following the promise of blessing or curse are notable. They include the intention to create a central place for sacrifice, that is, a place where people will come together to serve God, as well as a procedure for eating meat in smaller communities where the people live with their tribes. There are systems for including the Levites who do not own their own land, and for taking care of fellow Israelites who fall on hard times and helping them get back on their feet. There are rules to protect from false prophets who would divide the community and lead them astray, for standards of what can be eaten that sufuse the whole community, and holidays that bring the people together in space and time. These particular mitzvot all center on creating a community with cohesiveness, and with compassion and responsibility to one another. The blessing of the community lies in its ability to commit itself to creating that unity and care for each of its constituents.
As this school year begins, our community is feeling significant changes, changes that are bigger than just the start of a new academic year or the growth that each of our students has experienced over the summer vacation. We are starting this year with new leadership, with some new teachers and some new students, knowing that inevitably, some things will be changing about our community, and like the Israelites standing ready for their new reality in the promised land, many members of our community may be facing this year with both excitement and a bit of uncertainty.
But this first Shabbat of the school year which brings us both Parshat Re’eh and Rosh Chodesh Elul, reminds us that the distinction between blessing and curse lies in our hands. Our choice to put our energy into continuing to build a community that reflects our values of connection, concern, and commitment to every student and family will make the opportunity of this year into a blessing. And we will have a persistent reminder throughout the upcoming month of Elul, as we start each day with a blast of the shofar, calling, “Wake up! The choice is yours!”
Some mornings I get out of bed as soon as my alarm rings or even before, but instead of turning off the alarm altogether, I hit snooze. I hit snooze even though I am awake and not going back to sleep. Sometimes I sense that even though I am already awake and have plenty of time to take care of my morning responsibilities, the luxury of that time may lead me into distraction and I may end up just as rushed and unprepared as if I had slept for an extra half hour. Each time the snooze rings, it tells me, “Stay focussed! Keep moving forward! The day, with all its opportunity and responsibilities, is coming faster than you think!” This year we have awoken to the school year, a momentous and change filled year, ahead of the alarm. We have enough time, capable and dedicated leadership, a committed team, and the resources we need. The blessing is available. When we return from the long labor-day weekend, the shofar will already be calling out to us, “Wake up! Stay focused! Who will we be this year? How will we build our community? The time is now! Choose the blessing!”
May we all be blessed with successful awakenings, both literal and metaphorical, and a meaningful beginning to this season of reflection.
Shabbat Shalom!