Keep the Gates Open
I often complain about the holiday schedule, especially during this time of year. Why put two major holidays one week apart from each other? And then as soon as we finish the Yom Kippur fast, ask us to build a sukkah and celebrate this week long festival. And finally, command us to rejoice and celebrate with great revelry the holiday of Simhat Torah, marking the start of the Torah reading cycle all over again. Would it not have been better to spread the holidays out? Perhaps we could even have Rosh Hashanah in the fall and then Yom Kippur in the spring.
Such choices are of course not in our hands. And so one major holiday comes in quick succession, one right after another. We barely have enough time to come up for air. We turn from the beating of our chests and recounting of our sins on Yom Kippur to the banging of hammers as we put up our sukkahs and then the hosting of elaborate get-togethers in these temporary booths which signify the Israelites wandering through the desert wilderness. Why do we so quickly move from one major holiday to another? Why is this Hebrew month of Tishrei so demanding?
We only just gathered for the beautiful and concluding Yom Kippur Neilah service. As the gates of repentance are about to close, we prayed, “Open for us the gates of repentance and return, that we may enter and offer our best. Open for us the gates of forgiveness, that we may enter and offer our humanity.” This image of the closing of these gates is meant to inspire us to commit to repentance, to try to change and do better in the coming year. The gates have now closed. And so we must be resolved to commit to change.
But does the calendar, and most especially this month of Tishrei, even leave us time to do the hard work of repentance?
Perhaps the answer can be found in the somewhat obscure holiday of Hoshanah Rabbah, the seventh day of Sukkot. The rabbis suggest that these gates of repentance do not actually close on Yom Kippur but instead on this penultimate day of Sukkot. Sukkot becomes not just a celebration of God bringing us out of Egypt, but an extension of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. It’s as if the tradition reminds us that God knows the assignment is incomplete. God grants the students an extension. We have some more days to fix things, to start anew.
We are then reminded of an essential truth. The assignment is always incomplete. We always have to fix ourselves. We always have to change. We always have to recommit ourselves to repair.
Despite all the pledge to do better on the days just past, this job is always incomplete. Our commitments to do better are often just as temporary as the sukkah’s flimsy roof that cannot even keep out one drop of rain. Still God is always waiting for us to do better. And God keeps extending the deadline. God keeps hoping we can do better.
The gates of repentance remain forever open.
Such choices are of course not in our hands. And so one major holiday comes in quick succession, one right after another. We barely have enough time to come up for air. We turn from the beating of our chests and recounting of our sins on Yom Kippur to the banging of hammers as we put up our sukkahs and then the hosting of elaborate get-togethers in these temporary booths which signify the Israelites wandering through the desert wilderness. Why do we so quickly move from one major holiday to another? Why is this Hebrew month of Tishrei so demanding?
We only just gathered for the beautiful and concluding Yom Kippur Neilah service. As the gates of repentance are about to close, we prayed, “Open for us the gates of repentance and return, that we may enter and offer our best. Open for us the gates of forgiveness, that we may enter and offer our humanity.” This image of the closing of these gates is meant to inspire us to commit to repentance, to try to change and do better in the coming year. The gates have now closed. And so we must be resolved to commit to change.
But does the calendar, and most especially this month of Tishrei, even leave us time to do the hard work of repentance?
Perhaps the answer can be found in the somewhat obscure holiday of Hoshanah Rabbah, the seventh day of Sukkot. The rabbis suggest that these gates of repentance do not actually close on Yom Kippur but instead on this penultimate day of Sukkot. Sukkot becomes not just a celebration of God bringing us out of Egypt, but an extension of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. It’s as if the tradition reminds us that God knows the assignment is incomplete. God grants the students an extension. We have some more days to fix things, to start anew.
We are then reminded of an essential truth. The assignment is always incomplete. We always have to fix ourselves. We always have to change. We always have to recommit ourselves to repair.
Despite all the pledge to do better on the days just past, this job is always incomplete. Our commitments to do better are often just as temporary as the sukkah’s flimsy roof that cannot even keep out one drop of rain. Still God is always waiting for us to do better. And God keeps extending the deadline. God keeps hoping we can do better.
The gates of repentance remain forever open.