Moves Toward Mideast Peace Add to Spirit of High Holy Days

The long blast on the ram’s horn is described as symbolically announcing: “Oyez! Oyez! This court is now in session. The Right Honorable Judge of the World presiding!”

Using the courtroom image to portray the current High Holy Days of Judaism, Rabbi Irving Greenberg suggests that the divine judge must be pleased at a simultaneous event--steps toward peace in the battle-scarred Middle East.

He said that surprise could mean “a point of renewal, new patterns and new directions,” not only for the Middle East but also for the world.

Changing attitudes and overcoming hatreds and hostilities are among the goals of the 10 “days of awe” and repentance that began Wednesday evening with Rosh Hashanah, Judaism’s spiritual New Year.

“Behold, I set before you this day life and death, blessing and curse,” goes one of the synagogue Scripture readings. “Choose life, that you and your children may live.”

The period ends Sept. 25 with Yom Kippur, God’s forgiving “day of atonement.”

The buzz word for the occasion is change--changing wrong behavior and partial outlooks, says Rabbi A. James Rudin of the American Jewish Committee.

‘Seeing the two ancient enemies in the Middle East seeking peace and making a change for renewal gives the Holy Days a special meaning for me for the first time in my life.”

After watching the White House ceremonies Monday and the handclasps among Jewish and Arab leaders, Rudin said: “It’s a time of repentance for the bloodshed, hatred, bigotry and mutual suspicion and a carrying out (of) public repentance and commitment to change. . . . For the first time, I feel the words of the High Holy Days have meaning not just personally, but nationally and internationally.”

Greenberg, president of the National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership, depicts the Holy Days as a trial in a new book, “The Jewish Way: Living the Holidays,” published by Simon & Schuster.

The courtroom image “captures the sense of one’s life being in someone else’s hands,” he said. The “judge from whom there is no hiding is now sitting on the bench. . . . The individual stands before the one who knows all.

“One’s life is placed on the balance scales.” The question is whether one’s actions have enhanced life or tilted “the scale toward death.”

As the trial wears on, Greenberg says, the “tension lightens and people relax enough to see that the judge is not an impersonal authority who will be relentless, but rather, a loving old friend. . . . “