Stories & Voices
A Reset and a Rethink
An essay by Jonathan Greenblatt
September 27th, 2017
UJA Federation of New York >>

Every year, Jews the world over gather on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur and stand before God — individually, but also collectively as a community and as a people. We ask our Creator to inscribe us into the Book of Life. Our deeds and our lives are measured, as it says in Psalm 33, “He who fashions the heart of them all … discerns all their doings.” It is the severity of the day that makes this time of year so meaningful.

In these Days of Awe, as the ark is opened before the entire congregation, as the shofar blast pierces through the numbness and routine of daily life, we experience what Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel called an “encounter with the ineffable.” Heschel wrote in Man Is Not Alone, “Some people sense this quality at distant intervals in extraordinary events; others sense it in ordinary events, in every fold, in every nook; day after day, hour after hour.”

The High Holidays are, for me, such an extraordinary event — a time not only for us to “hit the reset button,” but to pause to consider the big questions that fill our lives with meaning: What obligations do we have to God? What obligations do we have to our fellow man? And what, if anything, are we going to do about it?

This past year has tested our obligations to one another in this country and around the globe. As the world faces the largest refugee crisis since World War II, those fleeing war and famine face not only the persecution in their countries of origin, but also hatred and xenophobia in their places of refuge. As the institutions of democracy in our country and around the world are tested, I believe the year of 5778 will be a defining one.

So, with those first haunting notes of Rosh Hashanah prayer, and with those first resounding blasts of the shofar, let us reset. Let us go back to seeing people as people, and lives as real lives. Let us share dialogue in which we listen instead of shout. In which we empathize and respect, even if we don’t agree.

5778 will not see our differences disappear, but let us not allow them to tear us further apart. Let us practice the best of what we are capable. Let us live up to the test and live our lives, individually and collectively, with righteousness and loving-kindness. And when we appear again before the Creator in 5779 to have our good deeds measured, may they be plentiful.

Jonathan Greenblatt is the CEO and sixth national director of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). A social entrepreneur, Jonathan served in the White House as special assistant to President Obama and director of the Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation. He co-founded Ethos Brands, which was acquired by Starbucks Coffee Company in 2005.

This essay is part UJA’s High Holiday publication Hitting Reset: A Fresh Start for 5778.