The first and last time I tried to recite Tashlikh prayers in Israel was unlike anything I had ever seen before. When I was 18, I left home and traveled to Israel to study in a yeshiva for the first time. Instead of Rosh Hashannah in New York where Tashlikh is recited on the shores of the Hudson River, or perhaps alongside the Central Park Reservoir amid hundreds of Jews from dozens of local synagogues, I went to lunch on the first day of Rosh Hashannah at the nearby home of one of our teachers. In the Judean Hills there are no grand rivers, lakes, or ponds, (certainly not weeks before the arrival of the winter rains).
And so, in what I suppose was an effort to be helpful, our host and teacher walked us into the kitchen and turned on the faucet of his kitchen sink. He then lead us to a sewage grate behind his home and told us we could recite Tashlich there as soon as the water from the drain would make its way through the sewage system. After that moment, I stopped reciting Tashlich, which, in retrospect, was probably the goal of our teacher.
The custom of reciting Tashlich prayers goes back several centuries to Medieval Ashkenaz, and, in time, a long and venerable tradition, going back to the Vilna Gaon and his students, came to reject the practice of reciting Tashlich prayers. It’s a dangerous ritual, they argued, because sincere Jews, in desperate need of repentance, would mistakenly believe they had accomplished something significant by merely reciting a few verses along the shores of a body of water.
More than twenty years later, I decided last week to take another look at Tashlich and, after most of the crowd had dispersed from our customary spot alongside Lake Michigan, I began to read from the xeroxed sheets that I had prepared. I made it one paragraph in. I saw, not for the first time this season, and not for the last time, a series of verses from the Prophet Michah, that accompany us through this time of year. Perhaps because of their familiarity, I had never paid much attention to them:
מִי־אֵ֣ל כָּמ֗וֹךָ נֹשֵׂ֤א עָוֺן֙ וְעֹבֵ֣ר עַל־פֶּ֔שַׁע לִשְׁאֵרִ֖ית נַחֲלָת֑וֹ לֹא־הֶחֱזִ֤יק לָעַד֙ אַפּ֔וֹ כִּֽי־חָפֵ֥ץ חֶ֖סֶד הֽוּא׃
יָשׁ֣וּב יְרַֽחֲמֵ֔נוּ יִכְבֹּ֖שׁ עֲוֺֽנֹתֵ֑ינוּ וְתַשְׁלִ֛יךְ בִּמְצֻל֥וֹת יָ֖ם כָּל־חַטֹּאותָֽם׃
תִּתֵּ֤ן אֱמֶת֙ לְיַֽעֲקֹ֔ב חֶ֖סֶד לְאַבְרָהָ֑ם אֲשֶׁר־נִשְׁבַּ֥עְתָּ לַאֲבֹתֵ֖ינוּ מִ֥ימֵי קֶֽדֶם׃
“Who is a God like You, Forgiving iniquity And remitting transgression; Who has not maintained His wrath forever Against the remnant of His own people, Because He loves graciousness! He will take us back in love; He will cover up our iniquities, You will hurl all our sins Into the depths of the sea. You will keep faith with Jacob, Loyalty to Abraham, As You promised on oath to our fathers In days gone by.”
These verses from Micah summarize and distill this entire season in the Jewish calendar – God forgives and in so doing “casts away our sins.” The risk of tashlich, that we may come to think that it works without teshuvah, is actually a risk of moral hazard inherent in God’s mercy itself. We don’t deserve forgiveness, it is a gift and the product of an inscrutable Divine mercy.
Tashlich is not the only time those words appear. They appeared in the Selichot prayers that we said a week before Rosh Hasnnah.. They appear at the end of the haftarah on Shabbat Shuvah, and they appear in the selichot we will recite tonight.
Micah, apparently, is a hidden hero of Yom Kippur and he should be added to the list of the prophets who, each year, accompany us through this season.
Hannah and Jeremiah, the prophetic voices of the Rosh Hashannah haftarot, teach us that a parent’s love for a child is the most powerful metaphor for the love that God has for us. The ensuing confidence and support can give us the courage to repair our relationships with other people and with God. Hoshea’s words (14:2), opened the Haftarah last Shabbat, giving voice to the perpetual call emanating, the Talmud says, from Har Sinai:
שׁ֚וּבָה יִשְׂרָאֵ֔ל עַ֖ד ה אֱ-לֹהֶ֑יךָ כִּ֥י כָשַׁ֖לְתָּ בַּעֲוֺנֶֽךָ׃
Return, O Israel, to the LORD your God, For you have fallen because of your sin.
While Hoshe’a words open the Haftarah of Shabbat Shuvah, Michah is the closer. The same words of Tashlich conclude the haftarah.
…מִי־אֵ֣ל כָּמ֗וֹךָ נֹשֵׂ֤א עָוֺן֙ וְעֹבֵ֣ר עַל־פֶּ֔שַׁע
“Who is a God like You, Forgiving iniquity And remitting transgression…”
This morning we heard powerful words from Isaiah that anchor the fasting and observances of Yom Kippur into a broader ethical framework that extends beyond the walls of the synagogue to our conduct in everyday life.
But, again, Michah is the closer; we will tack on those same words from Michah to the end of the haftarah this afternoon at Mincha.
Michah lived at the same time as Isaiah, a golden age of prophecy, if not a golden age for the Jewish people. The two prophets, active at the same time, delivered different messages to different audiences and Michah’s words are time and again brought in to shape our experience of this time of year. What characterized Michah’s prophecy? There are three defining characteristics to Michah’s prophecy, especially when compared to his colleague and contemporary Isaiah.
Michah- was the first prophet to predict the destruction of Jerusalem. A century later, during the prophetic career of Yirmiyahu, the people of Jerusalem still spoke of Michah’s prophecy (Jeremiah 26:17) as a warning which was impactful. Michah left it all on the field. He did not hold back. He knew his fears were justified and so he was willing to say things in the most shocking and impactful way. That’s how he inspired the religious revival of King Hezzekiah and postponed the destruction for generations. That boldness and courage is certainly needed at this time of year.
Michah differs from Isaiah in the weight that he gives to human actions and human initiative in the eventual messianic redemption. Isaiah prophesies about God’s salvation and a miraculous messianic age at some time in the future. Michah (4:10) compared Israel’s role in redemption to a woman in labor who plays an active and indispensable role in the delivery of her child. Of course that activism and sense of our own potential is certainly needed at this time.
And Michah is concise. He distills God’s message of compassionate forgiveness into a slogan that accompanies us throughout this season.
מִי־אֵ֣ל כָּמ֗וֹךָ נֹשֵׂ֤א עָוֺן֙ וְעֹבֵ֣ר עַל־פֶּ֔שַׁע לִשְׁאֵרִ֖ית נַחֲלָת֑וֹ לֹא־הֶחֱזִ֤יק לָעַד֙ אַפּ֔וֹ כִּֽי־חָפֵ֥ץ חֶ֖סֶד הֽוּא׃
יָשׁ֣וּב יְרַֽחֲמֵ֔נוּ יִכְבֹּ֖שׁ עֲוֺֽנֹתֵ֑ינוּ וְתַשְׁלִ֛יךְ בִּמְצֻל֥וֹת יָ֖ם כָּל־חַטֹּאותָֽם׃
God is beyond compare because of the indescribable ability of God to forgive. God takes us back as our sins are cast into the sea.
That’s what this is all about. According to Rav Kook, in his Introduction to Olat Ra’iyah, these brief words of prophecy reveal God’s wish to provide hessed for the world and it is that Divine wish which justifies and explains so many of our prayers. We are praying for God to actualize what God directly wants. That’s why we can ask for these things. We are only articulating God’s own will as it was revealed to us by Michah.
Michah’s singular ability and unique gift was crystallization and summarization, taking big ideas and expressing them in concise ways. This was noticed by Rabbi Simlai in the Talmud (Makkot 24a). Rabbi Similai was the one who discovered that there are 613 mitzvot in the Torah. Now, you can go up to a man on the street an say “how many mitzvot are in the Torah?” and he will say “six hundred thirteen” but I challenge any one of you to sit down with a Chumash and list and count the mitzvot and try to come up with six hundred thirteen. I know it’s hard because an entire genre of Torah scholarship developed in the Middle Ages surrounding the attempt to list and identity what was and what was not one of the six hundred thirteen mitzvot. After teaching that there are six hundred thirteen mitzvot, R. Simlai tells us that David was able to summarize them in just eleven principles which he lists in Psalm 15 (see if you can catch all eleven):
בא דוד והעמידן על אחת עשרה דכתיב (תהלים טו, א) מזמור לדוד [ה’] מי יגור באהלך מי ישכון בהר קדשך הולך תמים ופועל צדק ודובר אמת בלבבו לא רגל על לשונו לא עשה לרעהו רעה וחרפה לא נשא על קרובו נבזה בעיניו נמאס ואת יראי ה’ יכבד נשבע להרע ולא ימיר כספו לא נתן בנשך ושוחד על נקי לא לקח עושה אלה לא ימוט לעולם
“A Psalm of David. Lord, who shall sojourn in Your Tent? Who shall dwell upon Your sacred mountain? He who walks wholeheartedly, and works righteousness, and speaks truth in his heart. Who has no slander upon his tongue, nor does evil to his neighbor, nor takes up reproach against his relative. In whose eyes a vile person is despised, and he honors those who fear the Lord; he takes an oath to his own detriment, and changes not. He neither gives his money with interest, nor takes a bribe against the innocent. He who performs these shall never be moved”.
That sounds impressive, but not as impressive as Isaiah. According to R. Simlai, Isaiah summarized the entire Torah in just six ideas. Six hundred thirteen mitzvot distilled to just six ideas is impressive. But not as impressive as Michah. The entire Torah, R. Simlai tells us, was summarized by Michah in just three ideas:
בא מיכה והעמידן על שלש דכתיב (מיכה ו, ח) הגיד לך אדם מה טוב ומה ה’ דורש ממך כי אם עשות משפט ואהבת חסד והצנע לכת עם (ה’) א-להיך
Micah came and established the 613 mitzvot upon three, as it is written: “It has been told to you, O man, what is good, and what the Lord does require of you; only to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8).
This is a good day to pay attention to a concise and distilled message and this is the right time of day to do so.
We don’t eat or drink or otherwise indulge any bodily pleasures today. We are occupying less space in the world, consuming fewer resources, and doing so because we are trying to understand some big ideas. Michah had a unique ability to see the big picture and to convey a big idea in a small number of words. God forgives. And God’s forgiveness empowers us to ask for that forgiveness from God and to provide it to one another.
This is the time of day when we think about small messages that can be expressed in a few words because in just a few minutes we will recite Yizkor prayers and memory forces us to condense and distill.
Earlier this summer, I made a trip to the small cemetery that our shul owns adjacent to the much larger Oakwoods Cemetery near Hyde Park. The last burial took place there decades before I was born and there are almost no current members of this community with any ancestors buried there. Nonetheless, construction of this very building was funded through the sale of plots in that cemetery and so we feel a certain responsibility as a congregation to ensure that it is maintained.
It is a perpetual challenge to keep that cemetery in good repair because the style of tombstone that dominates that cemetery is one that features elaborate carvings and sculptures and long descriptions of the lives and accomplishments of some of the distinguished individuals buried there. In a cemetery like that it is impossible to cut grass with a large lawn mower. In contrast, modern headstones in the newer sections of contemporary cemeteries are small and low to the ground and landscaping can be done efficiently.
But, in truth, no matter how elaborate or ornate a memorial stone may be, it cannot adequately do justice to a human lifespan that hopefully extends for decades of accomplishments and relationships and dreams and achievements. What can fit on a headstone? A name and two dates. A few more words: “Beloved Father” “Forever in our hearts” “Teacher” “Doctor” “Mother and Grandmother”.
And even though our memories are not limited by the physical constraints of a tombstone, the nature of our busy lives and current responsibilities inevitably limit the scope and scale of our memories of our deceased relatives. We always invoke a condensed version of those who are no longer alive when we recall them in our memories. That’s a sad feature of memory. But it can also motivate us to think about the legacy that others have left for us and the legacies we wish to leave behind. I have now been alive for more years since my father died than I was with him but the shrinking percentage of my life when I was blessed with living parents has an outsized impact on my life.
Yizkor gives us a few minutes of dialogue with our memories. Parents, siblings, spouses and children with whom we lived for years, will all return to our minds for a few moments of contemplation as we recall them in Yizkor prayers.
But the dead don’t only live on in our memories. They shaped who we are and therefore our own thoughts and actions and impact on the world is an ever-lasting and ever evolving memorial to them which remains on earth. Who we are, at the most distilled and condensed format, says something about all of those who shaped us. Beyond Yizkor and kaddish, do our lives sanctify God’s name? Beyond the pledge to tzedakah that we make in yizkor prayers, do our lives make the world a better place.
It is up to us for today and tomorrow, and the rest of the year, to take the three attributes that Michah touches on so briefly and build them out in the fullness of our lives. After all the point of making something compact and summarized is to be able to unpack and expand it at some later time.
הִגִּ֥יד לְךָ֛ אָדָ֖ם מַה־טּ֑וֹב וּמָֽה־ה׳ דּוֹרֵ֣שׁ מִמְּךָ֗ כִּ֣י אִם־עֲשׂ֤וֹת מִשְׁפָּט֙ וְאַ֣הֲבַת חֶ֔סֶד וְהַצְנֵ֥עַ לֶ֖כֶת עִם־אֱ-לֹהֶֽיךָ׃ (פ)
He has told you, O man, what is good, And what the LORD requires of you: (1) Only to do justice (2) And to love goodness, (3) And to walk modestly with your God;
עֲשׂ֤וֹת מִשְׁפָּט֙
Do our interactions with others produce justice? Do we protect the innocent and hold the guilty accountable? Are our professional lives exemplified by integrity? How many hundreds of mitzvot does this category contain?
אַ֣הֲבַת חֶ֔סֶד
Do we love goodness? Do our hearts stir with the opportunity to perform an act of kindness? Does the awareness of a fellow human being in pain generate a response? How many hundreds of mitzvot does this category contain?
וְהַצְנֵ֥עַ לֶ֖כֶת עִם־אֱ-לֹהֶֽיךָ׃
How do we walk humbly and do so with God? If I excel at my humility how am I at God’s side? If I am at God’s side, how can I exhibit humility? Tzniut, humble modesty, is an ethos of recognizing that the world exists for other people too, and it is my job to make space for them. Walking humbly with God is to avoid taking up more than my fair share of space in the world, while striving, all the while, to make a lasting impression.
As we acknowledge the lasting impression that others have made on us, we can shape the impression we will make on others and on the world.
Gmar Hatimah Tovah, May you each be sealed in the Book of Life.
Rabbi David Wolkenfeld 