So the basic shape of Rosh HaShana emerged from potentiality to actuality. What was originally a festival of divine creation and ­sovereignty, accompanied by the shofar as a clarion proclaiming the King, became also – through the prophets, the Babylonian exile and the return – a day of national and individual rededication, a remembrance of sins and a turning with new commitment to the future.

The rabbis fleshed out this sketch with detail and color. First was the name Rosh HaShana itself. The sages knew of four New Years: the first of Nisan as the New Year for kings and festivals, the first of Elul for the tithe of cattle, the first or fifteenth of Shevat for trees, and the first of Tishrei for “years, and Sabbatical years and Jubilees” (Rosh HaShana 1:1). However, it was the first of Tishrei that became known as the New Year per se.

The Mishna states that on Rosh HaShana all creatures pass before God (ibid. 1:2). How they do so depends on the precise text of the Mishna, which exists in two variants: kivnei Maron or kivenumeron. Numeron is thought to be derived from a Greek word meaning “a troop of soldiers.” Accordingly the Talmud reads this as meaning “like the troops of the house of David.” The alternative reading, “like the children of Maron,” is given two interpretations in the Talmud. One is “like a flock of sheep” passing one by one through a wicket so that they can be counted by the shepherd, or “like the ascent of Beit Maron,” a narrow pass through which only one person can go at a time.

The first reading, “like the troops of the house of David,” sees the primary meaning of Rosh HaShana as a festival of divine kingship. God is King, the shofar proclaims His presence, and we, His retinue, gather to pay Him homage. The second and third see it as a day on which God judges us, one at a time. The biblical phrase about the land of Israel – “The eyes of the Lord your God are continually on it from the beginning of the year to its end” (Deut. 11:12) – was understood to imply that “from the beginning of the year, sentence is passed as to what the end shall be” (Rosh HaShana 8a).

The rabbis also articulated the concept of a book of life. Moses, pleading for the people after the making of the golden calf, says, “But now, please forgive their sin, but if not, then blot me out of the book You have written” (Ex. 32:32). In Psalms 69:29, David says about the wicked, “May they be blotted out of the book of life and not be listed with the righteous.”

The book of Esther contains a famous episode: “That night the king could not sleep; so he ordered the book of records [sefer hazikhronot]…to be brought in and read to him” (Est. 6:1). There were times when the king read a record of events that had happened and passed verdict, whether for punishment or reward.

Rabbi Yoĥanan taught that on Rosh HaShana three books lie open in heaven: one for the completely wicked, one for the completely righteous and one for the intermediate. The completely righteous are immediately inscribed in the book of life; the thoroughly wicked are immediately inscribed in the book of death; the verdict on the intermediate is suspended from New Year till the Day of Atonement. If they deserve well, they are inscribed in the book of life; if they do not deserve well, they are inscribed in the book of death (Rosh HaShana 16b). It became a particularly beautiful custom to wish people, on the first night of the year, that they be written and sealed immediately for life, implying that those around us are completely righteous. Those who judge others favorably are, we believe, themselves judged favorably.

Both the Babylonian Talmud and the Jerusalem Talmud specify that, whatever the decree, there are certain acts that have the power to avert or annul it, or at least mitigate its harshness. The Babylonian Talmud lists four: charity, prayer, change of name and change of deed; some add a fifth: change of place (Rosh HaShana 16b). The Jerusalem Talmud lists three: prayer, charity and teshuva (Yerushalmi, Ta’anit 2:1), deriving all three from God’s answer to Solomon’s prayer at the inauguration of the Temple:

If My people, who are called by My name, will humble themselves and pray [= prayer] and seek My face [= charity] and turn from their wicked ways [= teshuva], then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and heal their land. (II Chr. 7:14)

All of these motifs – God’s kingship, His sitting in the throne of judgment, opening the book in which our deeds and signatures are written, the sound of the shofar that makes even the angels tremble, the shepherd counting his flock, the verdict written on Rosh HaShana and sealed on Yom Kippur, and the power of repentance, prayer and charity to avert the evil decree – are brought together in the liturgical poem Untaneh Tokef, one of the great prayers and the most vivid image of Rosh HaShana as we might imagine it in the heavenly court.

We have traveled a long way from the starting point of Rosh HaShana as the anniversary of creation, yet there is a fine rabbinic midrash that brings us back to our starting point. According to Rabbi Eliezer, creation began on 25 Elul, making the first of Tishrei the day on which humanity was created. That day, Adam and Eve were made, and that day they sinned. Yet God forgave them, or at least mitigated their punishment. Initially He had said, “You must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die” (Gen. 2:17). Adam and Eve ate but did not die. Evidently they were forgiven. The midrash continues:

God said to Adam: This will be a sign to your children. As you stood in judgment before Me this day and were pardoned, so will your children in the future stand in judgment before Me and will emerge from My presence pardoned. When will that be? In the seventh month, on the first day of the month. (Leviticus Raba 29:1)

On Rosh HaShana we are like Adam and Eve, the quintessential representatives of the human condition. We may have sinned. We may have lost the paradise of innocence. We all do. But we are alive. We live in the radiance of God and the generosity of His compassion. In the simplest yet most moving of prayers, Rabbi Akiva turned to God and said, “Avinu Malkeinu,” “Our Father, our King” (Ta’anit 25a). God is our King, Sovereign of the universe, Author of our laws, the Judge who administers justice. But He is also our Father and we are His children, and can a father withhold compassion from his children? Time and again He forgives us and never loses patience. Human parents may lose faith in a child, but God never does: “Were my father and my mother to forsake me, the Lord would take me in” (Ps. 27:10).