Nameless

By RABBI JOSEPH PROUSER

Rosh Hashanah, a major communal and religious event, filled with pageantry for contemporary Jews, is given precious little attention in the Torah. Unlike Yom Kippur, Succot, Pesach, and Shavuot, the Holiday is not even given a name! The Torah simply prescribes a “sacred occasion” on the first day of the seventh month (Leviticus 23:24; Numbers 29:1).

That “sacred occasion” is described by the Torah as Yom Teruah: “a day for sounding the Shofar”… though this Hebrew phrase is understood by some to indicate merely “a day of festivity” or “a day of rejoicing and shouting!”

Rosh Hashanah’s later identity as “Yom Ha-Zikaron” – a “day of remembrance” – is not to be confused with Israel’s observance of the same name, honoring her fallen soldiers.

While these descriptors evoke the holiday’s function and observances, the annual rite remains bereft of any official Biblical designation.

Perhaps the namelessness of this “High Holy Day” reflects the wisdom of Pirkei Avot (1:13)… “A name made great is a name destroyed.” Humility in service, not celebrity, promotes spiritual progress.

Throughout the New Year ahead, may the anonymity of this joyful, festive, sacred day inspire us to the moral vision of romantic poet William Wordsworth:

“The best portion of a good man’s life: his little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love.”

(Rabbi Joseph H. Prouser is the rabbi of Temple Emanuel of North Jersey and the former National Chaplain of the National Jewish Committee on Scouting.)