Congregation Netivot Shalom

Rosh Hashanah
September 30, 2008 / 1 Tishrei 5769
Josh Kirsch

Shana tova.

Today. Today is the day we sit, stand, pray, and throw bread in the water. Ten days later we fast. There is shofar, honey, and machzor. And then there is falling on our faces.

Judaism has long had a fascination with bowing and prostration- however it is only this time of the year that we practice complete bowing. Judaism usually focuses on this as a prohibition- don’t bow down to other gods, don’t bow to idols. It says this in the shma, the ten commandments, and even in the original version of the Aleinu. And our own bowing has been limited both in terms of when we do it and how we do it. Yet when we do let ourselves fall before HaShem on the High Holidays, it is incredibly powerful. I was raised in a very secular Jewish context, and was not exposed to this practice until a few years ago. Falling down on Rosh HaShanah made perfect sense. Certainly all those yoga classes helped prepare me for it, but it was more than that- it was my body and prayer uniting in an act of surrender. It felt like a very ancient action, yet somehow immediate and intimate.

We will bow today during the great Aleinu, in the kingship section of the Musaf service. It is the same Aleinu as our daily one, except the nusach is ancient, the tempo slower, and the choreography entirely different. Bowing recalls the physical sign of loyalty shown to kings by our ancestors. The concept of monarchy is entirely foreign to our own experience.. We are in one of the most liberal cities of America, and we are a congregation that is known for its egalitarianism. What is the value of imagining G-d as a king? How can this have any relevance for our own lives? For me it goes along with recognition that life is fragile. We are constantly exerting control over our own lives, buying food out of season, flying across the world, and text messaging instructions to our loved ones. It can feel good to let go of that power, and to recognize how little we control external events. The passage of time brings loss, earthquakes, and challenging co-workers.

I remember when my daughter was born. There were all of these gadgets, and the monitors. We coached, and we waited. Amid all of the human interventions, something bigger was happening. I was afraid, and impatient. And then a miracle happened, she was born. Don’t get me wrong. I was extremely grateful for all of the technology and the expertise. However, as much as we tried to exert control, it was an illusion. Rashi taught that the more exalted the person, the more he should bow. Maybe we can learn from this that the more we humans are able to control our environment, the more we need to make ourselves small. We fall to the floor in a gesture of surrender to G-d, and to all of the uncertainty we have about the upcoming year.

Rather than a cerebral act, bowing involves our whole body. Just like tashlich, it is a physical letting go. As beautiful and intricate as our liturgy can be, we need these simple gestures to connect to HaShem. There is a teaching in the Palestinian Talmud that illustrates this well. Rabbi Simon is discussing the week day amidah. “The 18 (blessings) correspond to the 18 vertebrae of the spinal cord,” he writes. “For when a person stands and prays he must bend them all to bow. What is the basis in scripture for this”? He asks. As the proof text, he cites a passage from psalms used in the prayer Nishmat. “Col atzmotai tamrna, Hashem, mi chamocha”, “All my bones shall say, G-d, who is like you”? Our sages recognized that we need our bodies as well as our minds in prayer. We need our whole beings. I am not a big fan of the concept of resurrection of the dead; however, it is striking that in our tradition that the body as well as the soul is needed in the world to come. Judiasm is very comfortable with human physicality.

Rabbi Gershom Winkler points out that the root of the word for falling, Nun Peh Lamed, resembles the root word for prayer, Taf Peh Lamed. Falling down in response to G-d, as did Abraham, the first Jew by Choice, is perhaps our oldest version of prayer. Psalm 95, “lcoo n’ranana”, the first psalm said on Shabbat, says, “Come, let us prostrate ourselves and bow, let us kneel before G-d, our Maker.” Ask yourselves, where in the last year have you used your whole body to connect with G-d?

There is a distinction between different types of gestures. Prostration and kneeling took precedence in the temple, whereas in the Amidah the more restrained standing bowing became the practice. Prostration remained part of the regular service as Tachanun, the prayer following the Amidah. The traditional name for this is n’pilat apayim, falling on one’s face. After saying the amidah, one would put one’s face to the floor and pray spontaneously. “After raising his head from the fifth act of bowing (in the Amidah),” Maimonides wrote, “the worshipper sits immediately and falls upon his face to the ground.” Any words were acceptable at this point. Eventually, the prayers for tachanun became fixed and the prostration limited to resting one’s head against the forearm. Perhaps Judaism has gone too far in this restrained approach to worship. Falling after the amidah and communicating privately with HaShem seems an authentic addition to the communal amidah. I like the way this sets aside time for personal prayer, and incorporates that with surrendering physically. Daniel Landes, referencing the traditional sources, points out how the progression of prayer follows the sequence of Moses before Hashem. Moses says, “I sat on the mountaintop.” (deut 9:9), later, (10:10), describing his prayer for forgiveness after the golden calf he says, “I stood on the mountaintop”; finally (9:25) he says, “I fell before Adonai.” In some communities, such as the Yemmenite community, prostration appears to have remained the practice. The Karaites, who have a community in the Bay Area, also continued prostration.

When we think of full prostration, we often think of Islam. This is a ritual shared by the children of Hagar and Sarah, who we read about in today’s parasha. It is likely Muhammed was influenced in this respect by the Jewish communities around him. Within Judaism, complete bowing became limited to the High Holidays. Uri Ehrlich, in his book, “The nonverbal Language of Prayer,” suggests 3 reasons for this. One is that as prostration became popular among the non-Jews, it was phased out to define ourselves as different. Another stems from the biblical prohibition in Leviticus 26:1 “(You shall not) place figured stones in your land to prostrate yourselves upon.” That is why Jews are not supposed to prostrate on a bare stone floor, and why it is common to cover all floors used for prostration, with Jewish prayer mats, as it were. In the temple, however, bowing on the bare stone was allowed. This leads to the third reason that Ehrlich gives for the limitation of this practice. It was to differentiate these times from temple times. Perhaps this helps explain the preservation of falling on the high holidays. These are time of special closeness to HaShem, which recall the Temple service. There is a Chasidic Teaching that in Elul G-d is like a King who comes out to visit the common people in the field. All the rest of the year the King is in his throne, and can only be reached through bureaucratic channels. This is the time of the year that we have direct access to G-d, where the normal intermediaries are not needed. It is like a long distance relationship where all you do is communicate by e-mail, and suddenly the beloved is there on your door step. A quote from the prophet Ezekiel, which anticipates the Avodah service, captures this experience. “Like the appearance of the bow which shines in the clouds on a day of rain, such was the appearance of the surrounding radiance. This was the appearance of the semblance of the presence of HaShem. When I beheld it, I flung myself down on my face. And I heard the voice of someone speaking.” I bless us that we all hear that voice, and use our whole bodies to do G-d’s work. In addition to the author’s mentioned I want to thank the following for their support and inspiration in writing this drash: Rabbi Creditor, David Kasher, Lee Bearson, Jon Reynolds, Eric Seder, Meridith Trauner and the Stibl Minyan. Have a sweet new year.