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So teach us to number our days that we may get us a heart of wisdom. (Psalms 90:12) | |
Who can discern errors, clear Thou me from hidden faults. Keep back Thy servant from presumptuous sins that they may not have dominion over me; then shall I be faultless and I shall be clear of great transgression. Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart, be acceptable before Thee, O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer. (Psalms 19:13-15) | |
Praise Him trembling today, His mercy is wide; Ye who fear for His wrath, it doth not abide! Ye seraphim, high above storm clouds, may sing; Men and angels make music, the All-seeing is king. As ye open your lips, at His Name they shall cease Transgressions and sin—in their place shall be peace; And thrice shall the Shophar re-echo your song On mountains and altar, to whom both belong. (From “Aapid Nézer Ayom” by Elazar ben Qallir, as translated by Katie Magnus) | |
The three groups of verses after which the Shofar is sounded on the New Year express three ideas: first, God’s sovereignty (Malkhioth), then God’s remembrance of His children (Zikhronoth), and the trumpet sound of deliverance (Shofroth). Why have our sages arranged these ideas in precisely this order? It is for the purpose of teaching you first to proclaim that God is your King, then to bid you plead for His compassion that He may be mindful of you when the trumpet is sounded for deliverance. (Sifré on Numbers 10:10) | |
The recurring New Year brings a lesson of hope. No sin stains for ever, no punishment is eternal. We need not wait for an ultimate judgment day, when final reckoning is made, and from whose dread decision there is no appeal. Each year of life brings its own accusation and its punishment, its own restoration and healing. Though life be wearied with iniquity, it may be renewed with hope. Each New Year the trumpet sounds, bidding man forsake the folly of his careless days and acquire the wisdom of righteousness. | |
We summon the days of the year out of the past and bid them stand before the saddened eyes of memory. Humbly we see the wrongs we have done, for there is none so righteous on earth that he sinneth not. We recall our angers and our tyrannies, our haughtiness and our pride, our harshness and injustice— all the sins that we have committed. And now we come before our Father and our King, pleading for His forgiveness, and praying for His guidance that we may learn how to live in His presence. | |
Not all our iniquities are manifest. Many of them are hidden even from ourselves. Unknowingly we have wounded the suffering, and flaunted our strength before the weak. Frequently our heart within us has muttered iniquity, and we knew it not. Only to God are all secret things revealed. We must call unto Him for deliverance, lest the hidden sins within us gather in strength and, emboldened by their power, come out into the daylight and win sudden dominion over us. If we seek His help, He will cleanse us from hidden faults. He is the source of strength, as merciful as He is omnipotent. He will teach us to number our days, and aid us to make the words of our lips and the mysterious meditation of our hearts acceptable unto Him. | |
Thou who art timeless, our frail hearts, tossed on the billows of time, need anchorage in Thee. The Shofar blast of this day awakeneth thoughts of judgment. | |
Lord, Thy judgment is mercy, for Thou art the righteous Judge. Though man doth misjudge, Thou art ever just. When, beneath the misunderstandings and misjudgments of men, hearts are in pain, O be Thou the Comforter, Thou all-seeing One, who knowest all, who understandest all. | |
We would learn, O our Father, to judge ourselves aright. We would judge aright concerning our own purposes and motives, oft so hidden, so elusive; for the heart is deceitful above all things; it is exceedingly weak—who can know it? We would cease to be deceived by our unexalted and selfish lives, blindly deeming them to be unselfish and exalted. O dispel Thou our delusions. Cause every unworthy purpose in our hearts to stand undisguised before the eye of conscience that we may nevermore mistake darkness for light or bitter for sweet. | |
We would also learn to judge aright concerning our fellow-men. We would cease to confuse that which we imagine with that which is. May all that we have suffered because others have misjudged us discipline us and impel us to take heed lest we ourselves misjudge. The motives, circumstances, necessities whereby others do as they do— how impenetrably are they hidden from our sight! | |
Teach us, O Merciful One, to judge in mercy that we may seek justice, reverence truth, and be prepared to grant to others the pardon that we seek from Thee. | |
Thou Infinite Justice, the passion for justice is the worship of Thee. O lift us above the storms of fretfulness into the calm of the spirit, out of the restlessness of time into the peace of eternity. Inscribe us in the book of character and consecration yea, in the book of the soul’s perfected life. Amen. |
“Rosh Hashanah~The New Year” is the eighth prayer found in ברכה ותהלה Blessing and Praise: A Book of Meditations and Prayers for Individual and Home Devotion (CCAR 1923), pp. 31-34. Unfortunately, we do not yet know of a resource providing clear attribution of authorship for any of the prayers in this volume.
Source(s)
“Rosh Hashanah—The New Year, a prayer for clarity in self-perception (CCAR 1923)” is shared through the Open Siddur Project under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) 4.0 International copyleft license.
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