{"id":63191,"date":"2021-09-03T14:01:37","date_gmt":"2021-09-03T20:01:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/?p=63191"},"modified":"2021-09-03T14:01:37","modified_gmt":"2021-09-03T20:01:37","slug":"nameless","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/nameless\/","title":{"rendered":"Nameless"},"content":{"rendered":"

By RABBI JOSEPH PROUSER<\/p>\n

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 \u201csacred occasion\u201d on the first day of the seventh month (Leviticus 23:24; Numbers 29:1).<\/p>\n

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Rosh Hashanah\u2019s later identity as \u201cYom Ha-Zikaron<\/em>\u201d \u2013 a \u201cday of remembrance\u201d \u2013 is not to be confused with Israel\u2019s observance of the same name, honoring her fallen soldiers.<\/p>\n

While these descriptors evoke the holiday\u2019s function and observances, the annual rite remains bereft of any official Biblical designation.<\/p>\n

Perhaps the namelessness of this \u201cHigh Holy Day\u201d reflects the wisdom of Pirkei Avot (1:13)… \u201cA name made great is a name destroyed.\u201d Humility in service, not celebrity, promotes spiritual progress.<\/p>\n

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:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe best portion of a good man’s life: his little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love.\u201d<\/p>\n

(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.)<\/em><\/p>\n

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