Hoshanah Rabah
Shemini Atzeret
If you were alive in the early days of television, you may remember Bud Collier, host of one of the first television game shows, “Beat The Clock.” Contestants would be asked to perform an inane stunt, usually involving water-filled balloons and eggs, with tools comically inappropriate to the task. Contestants were given instructions destined to lead to frustration, disorientation and failure that began with the words: “Are you ready? You have 50 seconds to…beat the clock.” Only when the clock ran out would a buzzer signal the end of embarrassment.
“Beat The Clock” signaled the dawn of a new era, an age of attempting to compress time into smaller and more quickly passing segments — the sound bite, the nanosecond, call waiting, speed dialing, e-mail and so forth. This technology provides the illusion that we can cram more hours into the traditional 24, that we can beat the clock. It is a theme that is antithetical to the fall line-up of Jewish holidays: Hoshanah Rabah, Shemini Azeret and Simchat Torah.
Hoshanah Rabah is devoted to prayer and study, and thought to be the day on which God finalizes the judgment decrees for the coming year. Shemini Azeret, the last day of Sukkot, is traditionally a day of memoriam, supplemented by prayers for rain (Numbers 29:35). Simchat Torah is a festive celebration marking a new cycle of Torah reading.
These three appear at the tail end of an intense period of fall holiday celebrations and are often met with exhaustion from all of the previous High Holy Days and with relief that they are finally over. Unfortunately, that reality frequently relegates these celebrations to a second-class status. This is especially unfortunate since they embody an important message about the passage of time that Jews would do well to consider.
The theme of “Beat the Clock” has infected the work of rabbis and cantors, just as it has that of everyone else. We often hear: “Keep it short, rabbi.” Brides and grooms, mourners, all seem to carry that sad caveat: “Hurry up with the joy, with the sorrow, with the celebration, with the blessing, with growing up, with dying.” Brevity has become the major criterion of an address or sermon. No matter what the content, if it is short, it is good.
In contrast to trying to compress time, thinking that we have all the time in the world is also a serious human flaw. Whereas some people lead rushed lives and often do not take time to appreciate daily tasks, others fail to understand the evanescent quality of time as illustrated by Rabbi Milton Steinberg’s instructive model:
Imagine a bank that credits your account with $86,000 each morning but deletes the unused balance every evening. Steinberg suggested that each person has such an account credited with 86,400 seconds of life each day. It carries no balance and allows no overdraft; seconds wasted are forever lost. Unutilized deposit results are irretrievable — there is no going back.
Recognizing the value of every moment is illustrated by this well-known children’s story by M. Miles:
“A Navajo grandmother announced that when the rug she was weaving was taken from the loom, she would return to Mother Earth. Her granddaughter, Annie, upset at the prospect of losing her grandmother because of the strong bond between them, wondered why her grandmother continued to weave on the loom if its completion meant her death. Annie tried to keep everyone away from the loom and even crawled out of bed in the middle of the night to pull the strands of yarn out of the loom one by one. But grandmother was not fooled. She tenderly took Annie aside and said, “You have tried to hold back time. It cannot be done.” When Annie was finally able to accept the reality of time’s inexorable forward march, she responded by saying, ‘Now I am ready to learn to weave,’ although she knew that every strand of yarn added to the tapestry would bring her grandmother closer and closer to death.”
The triad of fall holiday celebrations serves as a reminder that we cannot beat the clock any more than we can compress or hold back time. Instead, they provide an opportunity to step back from the rush of the world. This sobering thought is both a warning and a gift of this holiday season that enables anyone who takes this message to heart to hear the resonance of the psalmist’s ancient words: “Teach us to number our days that we may gain a heart of wisdom” (Psalm 90:12).