Rabbi Sharon Cohen Anisfeld A Rosh Hashanah message from Hebrew College

Dear Hebrew College community,

Tonight, Jews all over the world will be gathering for Rosh Hashanah.
Together, we will be standing before the gates of the new year.
Each of us holding our own loves, losses, longings, and fears.
All of us hoping, praying, somehow, to be able to begin again.

How do we celebrate, while our loved ones in Israel are actively under attack?
How do we sing, amidst the ruins of this past year?

For the last several months, amidst devastating violence in Israel and the Middle East
and amidst deepening division here in the United States,
I have been carrying with me the following words from Elie Wiesel, of blessed memory.

“There is a Hasidic teaching of Rebbe Nachman.
He said, ‘When two people speak simultaneously, there is dissonance.
But when they sing together, there is harmony.’
When the world loses its ethical compass, it needs beauty to recalibrate.
When words fail, what is left to us but to sing?”

Our Rosh Hashanah liturgy is full of words, but it’s the melodies I’m longing for this year.
Melodies that connect us to each other and to generations past
Melodies that create enough space for the confused and competing yearnings of our own hearts.

Singing together this Rosh Hashanah, may we summon enough beauty
to help a world that has lost its ethical compass recalibrate,
and perhaps even begin anew.

תכלה שנה וקללותיה תחל שנה וברכותיה
Let the old year and its curses come to an end, let the new year and its blessings begin.

לשנה טובה תכתבו ותחתמו
May you be inscribed and sealed for a good year.

With prayers for peace, safety, and wellbeing,

Rabbi Sharon Cohen Anisfeld
President, Hebrew College