From Bloody Guilt to Mazel Tov & Shoftim

At the end of this week’s parsha, Shoftim, there’s a very strange ritual.

Its purpose is to cleanse the Israelite community of any bloodguilt incurred in the case of a homicide whose perpetrator is unknown or unfound.

It involves a heifer (a young female calf too young to work or give birth), the elders of the town, the local Levite priests, and an everflowing nearby stream. The elders break the Heifer’s neck by the stream, wash their hands with blood over the animal, and make a declaration of innocence.

Thus, they are free of guilt before God.

This ritual seems strange to us, but each element had meaning for people of its time.

Over the next five weeks or so, the Jewish community will be finishing an entire year of Torah readings. The weekly Torah reading is a ritual in itself.

We have also just entered the month of Elul, the month before Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year, and Yom Kippur, when we atone for our “sins,” washing away our guilt.

It is a time of transition, when we prepare for these “high” holy days by looking inward, examining our thoughts and behavior over the past year, considering ways in which we can do better in the coming year.

One of our rituals is to hear the blowing of the Shofar, the ram’s horn, every day during this month. It is a reminder to “wake up.”

The Israelites of the Ancient World of the Bible have also been in a transition period, preparing to enter their new land. Weekly, there has been a review of the laws God gave them as a recipe for how to live a righteous life as a people in their Holy Land going forward.

Transitions take a lot of work, both inner and outer.

Even joyful ones.

And I have so many happening in my family this week.

Most importantly, my elder daughter is getting married. Preparing for the wedding, cleaning the house for guests, shopping for food…

My younger daughter, too, is going through big changes. Having just begun fall classes in her (almost) last year of college, she is moving to a new apartment, with new roommates, saying goodbye to old friends. It’s joyful, sad, and full of unknowns.

I am also turning 60 (a happy birthday shout-out to my twin brother!), a birthday that both American and Jewish cultures give importance to, and I hardly have time to mark or celebrate it.

All in one week!

Lots of transitions, not the least of which is preparing for this New Year, which is also the year I complete my rabbinical studies.

Even the world is going through big transitions, hopefully for the greater good over time, but it’s painful in the meantime.

As I said, transitions are challenging. While they may signify growth, entering into a new phase, they can also carry some sadness and loss—of youth, of parenting in the same way, of things as we knew them before. There is always a saying goodbye to the old, and with that comes varying degrees of grief.

Rituals help us through these periods of transition and any accompanying grief. They may be prescribed by the traditions of our community, often from religion, and are a way of making meaning.

Weddings are rituals signifying commitment between two people, while also involving family and community. We laugh, and we also cry.

The Jewish High Holy Days are a time of re-commitment to making changes in ourselves for the sake of relationships and community, a time for admitting that we are merely humans who will continue to make mistakes.

They are a time of connecting with regret and remorse, both emotions and tools that helps us re-commit to changes.

May we each commit or re-commit to finding ways of integrating ritual, old and new, into our lives, to help us through challenging times.

May we wake up and connect and re-connect to our fellow humans.

May we wake up and re-commit to ourselves and our relationships with each other and the Earth.

And in the Jewish tradition of joyful occasions, even when tinged with a little sadness: Mazel Tov to all!

And let us say Amen.