This Shabbat, the one that comes between the High Holy Days of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur is one of a few shabbatot each year that have a special name. This will be Shabbat Shuvah, the shabbat of return, named for the first word of the special haftarah, reading from the prophets. The shabbatot with special names each have their own character. This one is a part of the season of reflection and repentance, and traditionally would be a moment for rabbis to give one of their most thoughtful and thought provoking sermons of the year. The word and the melodies of this shabbat’s prayer services are modified for the High Holy Day Season, and people will greet each other, as they do throughout the days between the two holidays, with the traditional greeting, gmar chatimah tovah, or gmar tov, wishing that you be sealed for a good year in the book of life.
Along with this greeting, many of us wish each other “an easy fast”. This greeting, while kind and thoughtful, has often struck me as a little odd. I would never wish a difficult fast on anyone, but I always wonder if an easy fast kind of misses the point. If it was supposed to be easy, would we really be fasting at all? The mitzvah to fast is given in Leviticus 16 where we are told on this day of atonement, v’initem et nafshoteichem. These words can be translated as you shall afflict your souls, deprive yourselves, practice self denial. But, as I often need to remind students, Yom Kippur is not a sad fast day as most of the other fast days on the Jewish calendar are. We are not fasting in mourning. Yom Kippur is also known as the white fast, and is a day of hope, and in many traditions outright joy. When we fast on Yom Kippur, it is in service of allowing ourselves to focus on the spiritual work that needs to be done, not to be distracted from that work by the joy of the holiday that eating would normally demand.
The transition we make on Yom Kippur from the old year into the new artfully mixes the emotions of joy, awe, regret, resolve, fear and hope. Like life itself, Yom Kippur does not allow us to compartmentalize the pleasant from the difficult. It all comes at once
The Parsha we read this Shabbat Shuvah, Vayelech, mixes these emotions as well. Moses, goes out to the people, to tell them that he has reached the end of his one-hundred and twenty year lifespan, and is passing the mantle of leadership to Joshua. He reminds that God will be with them, both ahead of them as they forge ahead into the new land, and among them in their camp. Moses urges the people and Joshua to be strong and courageous and not to fear on this next part of their journey. These words resound through history and into our own time, hazak v’ematz, be strong and courageous. We hear them added on to the charge we give B’nai Mitzvah as we call them up for their aliyah.
Traditional commentaries wonder at the first word of this parsha, why are we told that Moses went and and told the people to be strong and courageous. Why is going to them important? Some explain that Moses is trying to allay the people’s fear of the transition. Other say that just as a gracious guest makes sure to say goodbye to their host before taking leave, so too Moses is personally taking leave of his people. One commentator, Seforno, suggests that the word vayelech, he went, indicates that Moses brought this message to the people of his own initiative, to ease the transition that they were about to undertake. He saw the moment of their fulfilling the covenant by entering the land of Israel as a great joy, and he worried that it would be diminished by the people’s sorrow at his death. Moses went out to set the people’s mind at ease, to encourage them to feel the joy.
Life is like this. We don’t get our joy, and our grief in neat little boxes. We can’t easily separate the emotions that come with our complicated lives. I can’t imagine that Moses thought his personal farewell to the people would make their his loss easy for them. But, knowing of the powerful moment of joy and accomplishment that was coming, maybe he hoped that he could make his death and their entry into the promised land meaningful, shifting the focus more to the joy than the sorrow.
So, too, it is with the awesome, powerful, heartbreaking and heart-lifting High Holy Day of Yom Kippur. Our practice of self reflection and self-denial, be it fasting or another practice, should be neither difficult, nor easy. It should help us draw our attention to what will make the day meaningful and transformative.
Wishing you and your families a meaningful Yom Kippur and a gmar chatimah tovah.