Jewish Life #9 Rosh Hashanah: from terror towards awe

Have you ever experienced waking up early in the morning as a shocking experience? A few seconds recovering from a deep sleep and perhaps strange dream you were suddenly thrown out of a mini-death and awake. A shock and feeling of alienation. After you have looked around [your darling is still snoring a little] you realize that the new day has really begun; the prayer of Mode Ani follows. Awake and well, we thank Hashem for restoring our faculties, for He has returned my soul within me with compassion. After the last words – raba emunatecha- we get up and walk to the coffee machine for a cup of coffee. 
 
The same kind of experience takes place on Rosh Hashanah. We are involved in a preliminary stage of teshuvah [lit. ‘return’] called hirdur teshuvah. 
 
Hirdur teshuvah can be described as a spontaneous, instinctive and sudden kind of awakening form spiritual somnolence. It is a redemptive power of teshuvah in itself.[1]
 
On Rosh Hashanah, Jews are obligated to hear the shofar blast. But not only hearing is a mitzvah. Man must also experience the jarring awakening associated with hirdur teshuvah. This hirdur teshuvah constitutes a teshuvah-component of Rosh Hashanah. The required response, which Rambam refers to as a call to awaken from sleep, is the sudden, tragic realization that the false assumption upon which we build our lives have come crashing down before our eyes. We are abrupt aware of our alienation from Hashem. This intense experience results in terror (pachad), described in a prayer; ‘The great shofar will be sounded and a still, thin voice will be heard. Angels will hasten, a trembling and terror will seize them’. 
 
At this moment, a person is not able to adequately express remorse, guilt, confession, or even prayer. As a lonely man of faith, bereft of his illusions, he is terrified and paralyzed before his Maker. He is overwhelmed.
 
Yet, this is not the whole story. Rosh Hashanah is also a day of rejoicing! There is no greater joy than placing the crown of Sovereignty onto Hashem. A coronation takes place on Rosh Hashanah. In the concluding verses of Psalm 24 (verses 9, 10), the gates are opened by the term ‘raise up’: ‘Raise up your heads, O gates, and raise up, you everlasting entrances, so that the King of Honor may enter’. This term ‘raise up’ is shown in the active form. The doors are not opened by Hashem, but by man who welcomes His entry. 
 
Here, the second theme of Rosh Hashanah is introduced, namely the theme of joy.[2] Indeed, Hashem gave us appointed festivals for gladness, festive days and times for joy. It is the second set of shofar blasts, blown during the Shemoneh Esrei of Mussaf, which reflects this mood of joy. 
 
So, at Rosh Hashanah we are able to sense a transformation from terror to awe (yirah). This emotion of awe is a more mature emotion compared to the emotion of being paralyzed. The arousal of an emotion of terror and trembling on Rosh Hashanah is fortunately not intended to leave a person permanently paralyzed. This short momentary emotion, like the first seconds of waking up in the morning, must be transformed into a constructive, mobilizing force, like starting the day in an active mode, leading up to Yom Kippur and in the end… an intimate relationship with Hashem.[3]
 
The transformation on Rosh Hashanah from terror and a state of being paralyzed (hirdur teshuvah) to awe facilitates the next step towards teshuvah itself during the remaining days of repentance.     
 
I hope for a meaningful Rosh Hashanah for all of us! 
 
         
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[1] The story of the martyrdom of R’ Chanina ben Teradyon in Gemara in Avodah Zarah 18a, is often cited to describe this phenomenon. 

[2] See also: Nehemiah 8:10. 

[3] Most strikingly expressed in Psalm 16:8.