Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz, Rabbi of the Western Wall and Holy Sites
One of the unique traditions of the Jewish people is “sanctifying the new month” (Kiddush HaChodesh). Each month, on the final Shabbat of that month, known as “Shabbat Mevarchim,” we stand and bless the coming month, announce it, and prepare for it. This expresses the special role of the Jewish people in determining the times of holiness.
Yet there is one month of the year that we do not bless: the month of Tishrei, in which Rosh Hashanah falls. It is the only holiday in the Jewish calendar that occurs at the beginning of the month, at the time of the moon’s rebirth, which symbolizes the Jewish people, who are constantly renewing themselves.
Precisely the month in which the entire year begins does not enter the year through announcement and publicity. Rather, it seems to arrive quietly on its own. The simple reason that Rosh Chodesh Tishrei does not require an announcement is that everyone knows when it occurs, since it is also Rosh Hashanah. Another reason cited by the halachic authorities is that this is intended to confuse Satan so that he will not know when the Day of Judgment is. Jewish philosophers explain that the Creator Himself sanctifies the new year and creates it anew.
We learn that Rosh Hashanah falls on Rosh Chodesh Tishrei from the verse:
“Blow the shofar at the New Moon, at the appointed time for our festival.”
(Psalms 81:4)
Our Sages expound upon this:
“Which is the festival on which the month is concealed? You must say: this is Rosh Hashanah.”
(Talmud, Rosh Hashanah 8a)
Later halachic authorities therefore wrote (HaLevush, section 581; Magen Avraham, section 417:1) that for this reason we do not recite Birkat HaChodesh on the Shabbat before Rosh Chodesh Tishrei, so that the month will remain concealed.
The fact that Rosh Hashanah is a festival on which the month is “concealed” is not merely a detail of the calendar. It teaches something fundamental about the nature of the day and the inner work required of us on this day. Rosh Hashanah is a day of concealment, and in a certain sense, precisely because of this, it is a day of revelation. It is the day on which a person is called upon to remove the coverings that accompany him throughout the year and to look inward, toward the place where he truly exists.
Throughout the year, a person lives to a great extent in a world of outward appearances. He is preoccupied with his actions, his roles, his achievements, and his relationships with others. He moves within a world of tasks and decisions, of work and family, of successes and failures. Even when he thinks about himself, he often does so through the image he projects of himself. He knows what he does and what he says, what others think of him, and what kind of person he seeks to present to the outside world. But within every person there is an inner world that is not equally exposed, and at times the person himself hardly encounters it.
Rosh Hashanah is the time when a person is required to glimpse into his soul and not flee from what is hidden there.
This is a profound meaning of the Day of Judgment. On Rosh Hashanah, when a person enters before his Creator for judgment, the covering is removed. Each person enters judgment alone, behind the curtain, and there the truth of the past year is revealed. It is not merely a list of deeds that stands before him, but the person himself as he truly is.
What occupied his thoughts throughout the year? What was truly important to him? Where did he draw closer to God, and where did he move away? These questions are not always comfortable, because they require a person to move from the outside to the inside. Yet this is precisely the work of Rosh Hashanah: not to be satisfied with looking at what happened, but to try to understand who I was within everything that happened.
This sheds particular light on the custom of not blessing the month before Rosh Chodesh Tishrei, since the concealment itself is part of the character of the day. The “month” itself is concealed, as though Rosh Hashanah is not asking us to engage in publicity and outward appearances, but to reach a deeper inner place.
This is also one of the profound meanings of the sounding of the shofar. The shofar does not speak. It contains no words explaining what a person wishes to say; rather, it produces a simple sound.
The Rebbe of Sochatchov writes about this in his book Shem MiShmuel (Rosh Hashanah 5679): The shofar therefore seeks to reach a place that comes before words, the place where a person does not merely know, but feels. A person can know very well what he needs to correct, and can even formulate those things precisely for years, yet that knowledge can remain external. There is a distance between what a person holds in his mind and the place where something becomes part of his heart. The sounding of the shofar seeks to cross that distance and reach “the concealed point of his heart.”
This is the message that emerges from the verse that teaches us about Rosh Hashanah: “Blow the shofar at the New Moon, at the appointed time for our festival.” The month is concealed, but precisely through that concealment, revelation becomes possible. Concealment and revelation do not contradict one another. On the contrary, concealment itself makes revelation possible. A person is not required to expose himself to the world, but to encounter what lies beneath everything the world sees. The Holy One, blessed be He, does not need a person’s outward presentation. He seeks his truth.
Rosh Hashanah invites us to remove, even if only for a moment, the coverings that conceal us throughout the year, and to look inward, toward the place where our soul resides. There, in a place unseen by others and sometimes unfamiliar even to the person himself, the true work of the new year begins.
