Whose Birthday is it Anyway?
Going as far back as preschool we were told that Rosh Hashanah is the birthday of the world. That sounded so beautiful, we loved celebrating our own birthday and it filled our little hearts with joy to know that the world has a birthday celebration as well.
We got a bit older and we discovered that the birthday celebration theme of Rosh Hashanah is confirmed in the Machzor, the Rosh Hashanah prayer book. There we read: “this is the day of the (anniversary of the) beginning of your creation.”
When you do the math, however, you discover that Rosh Hashanah does not occur on the “beginning of your creation” at all. In fact, Rosh Hashanah is celebrated on the sixth day of creation. By the time Rosh Hashanah came around the heavens and earth, the stars and planets, the oceans and dry land, the birds and the fish were already created. Rosh Hashanah is actually the birthday of Adam and Eve, of humanity, not the birthday of the world. If that is the case why do we keep saying that it is the anniversary of the “beginning of your creations”, the birthday of the universe?
The process of creation expresses the awesome power of G-d. As King David put it in the book of Psalms: “How manifold are Your works, O L-rd! You have made them all with wisdom”. An untold number of galaxies and stars, millions of forms of life, endless diversity of creations, yet until the creation of man, the creation of the universe is not complete. For while the first day of creation represents the multiplicity, diversity, and fragmentation of existence, the sixth day, the day of the creation of Adam and Eve, represents the ability of the human being to create unity and harmony amongst the diversity. The Zohar describes that when Adam was created he turned to the creations and said: “Come, let us prostrate ourselves and bow; let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker.” For human beings alone possess the capacity to heal the fragmentation of existence by recognizing that all of creation is part of a greater whole, that all of existence is an expression of one infinite creator.
The birthday of humanity is therefore also the birthday the entire world and its creations. For the creation of the world has not been completed until man reveals the unifying purpose in all the earth, stringing together the multiplicity of creation into a single unified organism.
Judaism teaches that every individual person in a microcosm of the entire world. Initially, when we look inside ourselves, on the figurative “first day of creation”, we see chaos and conflict. We have multiple, often contradictory, desires, thoughts, and aspirations. We often lead a fragmented life, being pulled in different directions. Part of us seeks material well being and pleasure while part of us seeks transcendence. Part of us is concerned only with the self while part of us wants to connect to others. We have big dreams, goals, and aspirations but spend much of our day engaged in mundane tedious tasks that deflate our excitement, energy, and passion.
Rosh Hashanah, the day when humanity discovers the purpose and meaning within all of creation, is the day we heal the division and create a unified holistic life. Rosh Hashanah is the day when we internalize the perception that the drive for materialism can be elevated to serve our spiritual soul. That every detail of our day is part of the greater purpose for which we were created. There is no such thing as a meaningless moment and mundane task. For every moment, every encounter can be a moment that expresses, and is critical to, our purpose on this earth.
(Adapted from the Rebbe’s letter, 25 Elul 5747)