Two Minute Torah Podcast

Rosh Hashannah 5770 by Richard S. Moline

Shalom, this is KOACH director Rich Moline, welcoming you to KOACH's Two Minute Torah, a project of the College Department of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism.

(melody - holiday motif)

This haunting melody is arguably one of the best known in the Jewish world. One can walk into practically any synagogue of any style, hear that melody, and immediately know that the High Holiday season is in full gear.

And this melody - (melody - Kol Nidre) - is also well known. It is, of course, the melody to Kol Nidre, a rather dry legal formula which is recited on the eve of Yom Kippur. Attempts to remove Kol Nidre from our liturgy have been met with fierce resistance - not because of the words, but because of the music. It has been chanted for generation upon generation as a moving and stirring opening to the holiest day of the Jewish year.

There is much in the High Holiday liturgy that is troubling and confusing. Does God really determine who lives and who dies within a ten day period? Does God even make those decisions at all? Can repentance, prayer and charity - teshuvah, t'filah and tzedakah - really avert an evil decree? And what draws us to this liturgy? For that matter, what attracts Jews of all types to come and listen or read or review these prayers year in and year out?

We enter a synagogue for all sorts of reasons. Sometimes it's to provide or receive support or comfort. Sometimes it's for friendship. Sometimes it's for words or poetry or music or simply to get news. Sometimes it's for study; sometimes it's guilt.

A synagogue is called a Beit Knesset - a gathering place. It's not called a House of Prayer or a House of Study. It's a house in which to gather - to be with community. If the language doesn't speak to us, maybe the music does. If the music doesn't resonate, then maybe it's the comfort of the crowd. If the crowd is too much, maybe it's the words we'll hear or simply the faces of the people we know and love.

Whatever brings you into the synagogue this year - whether it's the one in which you grew up, your Hillel, that of a friend or even somebody you've just met - know that there is no one reason to be there. Find your place. Listen to the music. Read the words. Look at the crowd. While every person in the room is there for their own reason, they are in a Beit Knesset, the central institution of Jewish life for generations.

Let these things link you this year - to your family, your friends - to generations before and those yet to come. And have a healthy, productive, fulfilling and sweet new year.

Shanah Tovah!