An Extraordinary High Holy Day : Judaism: Mideast peace accord has rabbis busy rewriting Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur sermons. Not all see it as reason to celebrate.

After the documents had been signed and the hands shaken, after the pundits had their say and the chairs had been cleared from the White House lawn, rabbis across Orange County knew there was only one thing they could do in response to the remarkable peace agreement between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization:

Rewrite their High Holy Day sermons.

As Jews gather in synagogues for their most solemn holidays--Rosh Hashanah began Wednesday night and Yom Kippur begins at sundown Sept. 24--thoughts of the Middle East are sure to be on their minds and in the messages of their religious leaders.

“I don’t think you could have a better political event that dramatizes the themes” of the holidays, said Rabbi Arnold Rachlis of Irvine’s University Synagogue. “There’s this euphoria and ecstasy, and there’s also the sense that now the hard work begins.

“It parallels Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur: You begin with the joy and the ecstasy and then you begin to slowly look within and reconcile.”

In the wake of the Israeli-Palestinian accord, rabbis and other leaders in American Judaism have issued an unprecedented string of appeals for U.S. government aid and private financial support to Palestinians to build self-rule on the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

The requests, which came in statements by leading Jewish groups and holiday sermons by rabbis, also included calls for continued support of Israel.

The accord signed Monday in Washington provides for the establishment of an interim Palestinian self-government authority in the disputed West Bank and Gaza, leading to a permanent settlement within five years. The Israeli-occupied territories were seized by Israel during the Six Day War in 1967.

Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, and Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, focus on renewal and repentance. The period, known as the Days of Awe, is the holiest time of the Jewish calendar and the two holidays typically draw the largest crowds to synagogues worldwide.

Though Rosh Hashanah is largely a festive occasion, both holidays are solemn. Jews apologize to other people and to God for sins committed over the past year. The repentance-- t’shuvah , in Hebrew--along with prayer and charitable deeds allow Jews to be inscribed for the coming year in God’s “Book of Life,” which is said to be sealed at the close of Yom Kippur.

Orthodox, Conservative, Reform and Reconstructionist rabbis--both for and against the peace accord--said they went back to their word processors this week to incorporate the news into their holiday messages.

At the Conservative Congregation Eilat in Mission Viejo, Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson said he will tell prayer-goers that if the Israelis and Palestinians can make peace, Americans can also overcome seemingly insurmountable problems of racism, homophobia and poverty.

At Irvine’s Orthodox synagogue, Beth Jacob, Rabbi Joel Landau said he will speak about sacrifice, offering the peace accord as an example of “people sometimes making tough decisions in order to do what’s right.”

During services Wednesday night at the 1,000-person Reconstructionist University Synagogue, an American, an Israeli and an Arab were scheduled to read the speeches President Clinton, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat had given at Monday’s signing ceremony. Rachlis, the rabbi, planned to retell the biblical stories of Abraham’s banishment of his son Ishmael--said to be the father of the Arab nation--and Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son Isaac--the ancestor of the Jews--to show contemporary connections.

“These stories deal with the pain we cause by turning away from the other which is really a part of us,” Rachlis said. “It’s the children of Isaac and the children of Ishmael who have been estranged, who have been afraid of each other, afraid that the other would inherit the birthright.

“Now they realize that the compromise can lead to everybody getting more than half a loaf. A compromise can lead to everybody living together.”

At Monday’s White House signing ceremony, Clinton, Rabin and Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres all referred to the parallels between the dawn of a new year and the prospect of a new epoch in the saga of the Arabs and Jews.

Local rabbis said they would hardly be able to avoid the comparison.

“I should always have such good reasons to rewrite,” joked Rabbi Shelton Donnell of Temple Beth Sholom in Santa Ana, who switched his Rosh Hashanah sermon from one discussing the use of time to a talk on the new prospects for peace. “I can’t imagine a rabbi not speaking about it.”

Even those who oppose the new peace plan said they, too, would discuss it from the pulpit.

Rabbi David Eliezre, leader of Orange County’s Orthodox Chabad movement, said he almost never talks politics on the High Holy Days. This year, though, Eliezre plans to invoke the Jewish concept of p’kuach nefesh, which permits someone to break religious laws in order to save a life, and speak about the peace accord he so despises.

“Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur is the time when God judges the world,” Eliezre said. “We hope and pray that His judgment will be a good one on the Jewish people, and I am afraid that we put ourselves at great risk (this year).”

Most local rabbis said they are jubilant about the accord, and plan to offer hopeful sermons with only slight warnings about potential hazards of the new agreement. The complexity of the Arab-Israeli relationship, many said, only heightens the parallel between current events and the themes of the holiday.

“On Rosh Hashanah, you don’t just make New Year’s Day resolutions in a secular sense. It comes with careful introspection,” Donnell pointed out. “We have to turn inward in order to turn outward. It’s done very carefully, very pragmatically. The same could be said for the events that are now unfolding. We can’t afford naivete.”

For Rachlis, the peace agreement exemplifies the challenge of religious observance.

“It’s not easy to forgive people, and there are a lot of people who are finding it hard to forgive Palestinians for terrorism, but that’s what the holiday means,” he said. “The true test of religiosity is when . . . you have to struggle to forgive, and struggle to reconcile, and struggle to apologize. Then you have a profound cathartic experience.”

High Holy Days

The holiest days of the Jewish year are Rosh Hashanah, the New Year, and Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.

ROSH HASHANAH

Sundown Wednesday marked the beginning of the Jewish New Year 5754.

* Celebratory time, when new year’s greetings are exchanged and apples are dipped in honey.

* Begins period of introspection when Jews are asked to seek forgiveness from those they may have offended or wronged.

* Services include retelling the Genesis story of Abraham being asked by God to sacrifice his son.

* Principal symbol of High Holy Days is the shofar, a hollowed ram’s horn, which is sounded at Rosh Hashanah services and at the end of Yom Kippur. Medieval sage Maimonides called the blasts from the shofar a call to the Jews for morality.

YOM KIPPUR

Sundown on Sept. 24 marks the beginning of Yom Kippur.

* Observant Jews refrain from eating and drinking for 25 hours and attend synagogue during this solemn holiday.

* Yom Kippur ends the period of introspection and atonement that began on Rosh Hashanah.

* Services include admonitions from the 58th chapter of Isaiah in which ritual and devotion are praised only if they are matched by right conduct and proper ethics.

Los Angeles Times