9.21.26 – 3 Words to Focus On, Part 3

Today we will finish connecting our three-word focus to take into the next year. With that focus comes a question: "How do I make that plea to the Author? The Author knows me better than I know myself. What am I going to do—come to the Author and bargain with them, lawyer with them? How do I make the case to include me in the story?"

Think about the moment of revelation itself in our national experience. How did we confront the Author? We confronted the Author because we heard His voice; we heard the untrammeled cry, the ethereal sound of a shofar that was not physical but was the sound that the Almighty channeled toward us as a way of reaching out to us and saying, "Here is who I am. This is the deepest way I can represent Myself to you."

The most powerful thing we can do is to match voice with voice—to give our voice back to the Almighty in the deepest way we can. Not with words, but with something deeper than words: just our voice. This is who we are. That is the shofar.

When we blow the shofar at Trumpets and the final trump at Atonement, at one level we are remembering the cry of the shofar we heard at Sinai; we are showing we remember by echoing that voice. You have heard me refer to this as "the McDonald's drive-up window" :-)

But we are also doing something else. We are matching that voice with a voice that comes from us. If God revealed Himself to us most deeply through that voice, we reveal ourselves in turn to God most deeply through our shofar calling.

It goes all the way back to Eden. The first time we heard God's voice, God was reaching out to us with His voice. That moment was catastrophic—we hid from the voice, we hid from ourselves, we could not bear to understand who we were. But back in Eden, we did not have to hide. What could Adam and Eve have done? They had just sinned, they had just eaten from the tree; they were afraid, maybe of the Master's story. "I have sinned—maybe I do not have a place in Your story anymore."

What could they have done at that moment? They could have matched voice with voice. They could have reached out to God with their own voice—not with words. "I hear Your voice, Master. I know who You are. This is who I am. You are the Creator, I am the creature."

Here is me. The deepest thing I can give You is my voice. Listen to it carefully—in it You will hear that the deepest desire I have is to be part of Your story. You, the great Arbiter of Tov and Ra'ah, You will decide what fits and what does not fit. But take me in; allow me to fit. I want so deeply to be part of Your story.

Malchiyot provokes a crisis—the possible loss of self—but Zichronot and Shofar provide the deepest of answers to that crisis. I can be more meaningful than I ever thought possible. I could be part of Your story. Take me in.

Let us go back to Nehemiah 8. What can we learn?

It just so happens that the day, the first day of the seventh month, Tishrei 1. They do not even seem to be aware of that until Nehemiah tells them. The people gather together as one in the street in front of the Water Gate. Ezra begins to read the Torah scroll, where we are told once again that he is reading in the street in front of the Water Gate. As the people listen all day, they begin to cry... with good reason. They did not even know what was written in it.

Ezra is standing on this platform made of wood, made specially for this event. Is that even an important detail?

Now we hear about the entourage of people that surrounded Ezra at the time. We are going to get this whole list of names; people are standing to his right, people are standing to his left—and the strange thing is, we never hear about these people again. They seem to be like extras in the movie.

The names are also a little strange. It seems kind of coincidental. Shemah happens to be Shin, Mem, Ayin—seems to be related to the idea of listening. Next to him just happens to be a guy by the name of Anayah, which means "answering." That seems rather coincidental, does it not? You have got other people on his left—these are the people on his right.

On his left you have people like Pedaiah, Malkiyah, people like Chashbadanah, Zecharyah. So again, why do I even need to know about all of this?

So anyway, Ezra reads, and when he is done reading he blesses God; vaya'anu kol ha'am Amen Amen—and all of the people answer, "Yes, yes, Amen, Amen" (Neh. 8:1–8).

Does this scene bring back any memories? A nation gathered together as one man, listening to the Torah/the Word of God, from one man who was elevated above the rest? If you guessed Sinai, you win the brownie button!

Think a little deeper. Revelation is something that hits you between the eyes and it is new. It was ultimately new at revelation itself, and here these people are like unaware of what is written in the Torah—it is all new to them, it is like a big revelation to them.

It sounds like it is an echo of the very first revelation. There too the people were gathered—they were gathered around this mountain. There too they were all together standing as one. There too they were listening to the Torah. There too there was a man, Moses, who was perched higher than them on top of a mountain. There too the people answered, "Yes, everything that God says we will do."

By the way, it is not just the general themes—even the specific words are the same. For example, Ezra opens up the scroll and reads it: l'einei kol ha'am, "in the eyes of all the people." Well, that sounds like a normal, everyday phrase, but guess what? That phrase only appears one other time in the entire Tanakh.

The only other time it appears is back at Sinai, when on the third day God descended from heaven; l'einei kol ha'am, "in front of the eyes of all the people"; al Har Sinai, "on Mount Sinai."

And it is not just that phrase. Vaya'anu kol ha'am—when the people answer Ezra's blessing of God by saying, "Amen, Amen"—so that phrase also, vaya'anu kol ha'am, appears only one other time in the entire Five Books of Moses. Vaya'anu kol ha'am yachdov vayomru kol asher diber Hashem na'aseh—when at Sinai they said all together, "Everything that God has said we will do." It really sounds like the Nehemiah-Ezra event is echoing the original revelation at Sinai.

Remember the street? Big deal—they are on a street, who cares? Well, where were they at Sinai? They were at a mountain. The mountain was known as Sinai, otherwise known as Chorev. Well, guess how you spell "street" in Hebrew? Reish, Chet, Vav, Beit—the same letters as Chorev, just rearranged. And for you as a Hebrew student, you understand the significance of the same letters :-)

What about all those people whose presence we did not understand why they were even there on the right and left of Ezra? Listen to some of their names, and you will see how familiar they are.

The first person standing to Ezra's right, Matityah—literally "the gift given by God." What was Sinai about? It was about the Torah given by God. Right next to him, Shemah va'Anayah—a person by the name of "hearing" and another known as "answering." What happened at Sinai? The people heard the voice of God and they answered: kol asher diber Hashem na'aseh—"everything that God says we will do."

On the left of Ezra there is a fellow by the name of Pedaiah, which literally means "redeemed by God"—which is exactly how God introduces Himself at Sinai: "I redeemed you, I took you out of Egypt, the land of slavery."

Right next to him there is a man by the name of Malkiyah—"God is King." What was Sinai about? It was about God revealing Himself as King. And would you not know it, right after Malkiyah we hear echoes of the next logical Sinai/Rosh Hashanah theme—not just Malchiyot but Zichronot. Oh yes, Zecharyah was one other fellow to the left of Ezra—literally, "the remembrance of God."

What about that fellow by the name of Chashbadanah? A strange name, but seemingly a contraction of two words: Chashav and Dan—"to think" and "to judge." What is the Sinai day that Rosh Hashanah commemorates year after year? A day when God is King—Malkiyah; when God remembers—Zecharyah; and Chashbadanah—a day when God thinks of His creatures and figures out where they fit and judges them, Chashav and Dan. It all evokes Sinai.

Everything is so much smaller in the times of Ezra and Nehemiah. The crowd is smaller. The man is talking to the people, he is standing on something, but it is not a big, imposing mountain—it is a little wooden platform. Everything is diminished.

But that, I think, is the whole point of Nehemiah. It really did not look like much, what they were doing. That was the people's point too—that is why they were crying. They looked at themselves and they were just insignificant.

Here they were at a ruined Jerusalem, sacked by Nebuchadnezzar, on a crazy, idealistic mission to come back and try to rebuild this land. There was no infrastructure, no great established state—it was just them, Ezra, and Nehemiah. They barely knew anything.

They cry because they realize how far away they are from these ideals that the Torah is talking about. What are they really keeping of the Torah's mitzvot anyway? Half of them are intermarried with non-believers. They barely even know it is Rosh Hashanah. And so they cry.

Yet they are told not to cry! There is a God out there, a Master, and His story—the story of His purposes, woven through history—that is the Master's delight. That delight is your strength. You are part of that story, part of that delight. Go home and celebrate. I cannot redo yesterday's decisions, but today is a new year. A new beginning. A time to celebrate where I am and where I am going.

The Torah was just read publicly here for six hours and you listened raptly to it. You may find yourself deficient in keeping all of its dictates, but that Torah embodies God's vision of Tov and Ra'ah, and you want to be part of that vision. If so, you need to walk away from here with strength, with your head held up high. You are part of the delight of God, His story—and that is your greatest strength.

This may seem like nothing—your little, apparently insignificant life here—but as part of the Master's story, it can be a piece of everything. What you are doing here on this little street, in the eyes of the Master, it is a replay of Sinai itself. And your little, pitiful return to this barren wasteland, the ruins of Jerusalem—in the Master's eyes, that is part of everything too.

Look back on this in the sweep of history: what were these people doing? They are building the Second Temple, the Second Commonwealth. It will stand for four hundred years. They are playing starring roles in Jewish history.

You know, there is an interesting curiosity in the text of Nehemiah here. When they go home and celebrate that day, the words Nehemiah uses to describe it are Simcha Gedolah—they celebrate it with great rejoicing. Simcha Gedolah is a rare phrase in Tanakh; one of the only other times it appears is at King Solomon's coronation—the height of kingship in the people of Israel, Solomon the builder of the First Temple.

It is like Nehemiah is saying, "Look at the echoes of what is happening here. I know you guys do not see a physical king; there is no palace, there is no pomp and circumstance. But what you are doing is every bit as significant as Solomon's coronation. He was the builder of the First Temple; you are the builders of the Second."

It is coronation day, but there is no earthly king here—there is only God. It is Rosh Hashanah, the day the King comes into our lives.

So here we are, twenty-four centuries and change after Nehemiah—and what does Yom Teruah, Trumpets, mean to us?

But maybe Nehemiah's words continue to serve us well: Chedvat Hashem hi ma'uzchem—"The delight of God, that is your strength." God delights in His story and is inviting you to be a part of it.

Trumpets is not a day to be sad; it is not a day to get weighed down with guilt. It is a day to approach the Master with all the genuineness you can muster and say, "This is my voice. I have heard Your voice.

"I remember the shofar blast; it is there in my collective memory. It feels familiar to me. Here is my voice, my most genuine self. I just want to be part of this great story that You are telling. I want to be part of Your delight.

"Can You delight in me? Can You help me find a role? I am just a human being; I feel like nothing in front of You. But I know that through You I can be part of everything."

And with your rehearsal, you are anticipating the final Yom Teruah, when the Lord will descend from heaven with a shout (Teruah), with the voice of the archangel and the shofar of God, when we will be gathered together as one in the clouds… Chag sameach this feast season, my friends!

Hope this helps in your celebration of the Fall Feast season, which is a shadow of things to come!

Shalom!
Alan

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