EVENING SERVICE Ma’ariv is the prayer associated with Jacob, the man whose greatest encounters with God were at night. At night he had a vision, symbolic of prayer itself, of a ladder stretching from earth to heaven. Awakening from that vision he gave the most profound description of the effect of prayer: “Surely God was in this place and I did not know it” (Gen. 28:16). At night he wrestled with an angel and was given the name Israel, one who “struggles with God and with men and prevails” (Gen. 32:28). Judaism has known its dawns, its ages of new hope, associated with Abraham. It has known the full brightness of day, its ages of peace and continuity, associated with Isaac’s life after the binding. But it has also known its nights. Night is when we take with us the spirit of Jacob, a man who knew fear but was never defeated by it.

NIGHT AND ROSH HASHANA There are two cycles of time in Judaism: religious-historical time, which begins in spring with Pesaḥ and the month of Nisan, and natural time which begins in the autumn with Tishrei and Rosh HaShana. Nisan is the anniversary of the birth of Jewish history; Tishrei is the anniversary of the creation of the universe. These correspond to the two concepts of day in Judaism: the natural day, which begins with night (“And it was evening and it was morning, one day,” Genesis 1:5), and the daily cycle of prayer – Shaḥarit, Minḥa, Ma’ariv, corresponding to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob – which begins with morning. Nature begins in and returns to darkness. Faith begins in and returns to light. (Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch) THE BLESSINGS OF THE SHEMA The blessings that surround the Shema, evening and morning, are a precisely articulated summary of the three basic elements of Jewish faith: (1) creation – the existence and unity of God, Author and Architect of all; (2) revelation – God’s word to us through Moses and the prophets; and (3) redemption – God’s interventions into history, especially the exodus from Egypt. The Siddur and Maḥzor are the supreme expressions of Jewish faith. For the most part Jews did not write books of theology; they wrote prayers. In Judaism we do not speak about God; we speak to God. We do not discuss faith; we express faith. Faith is our relationship with God made articulate in the words of prayer.

אַהֲבַת עוֹלָם *With everlasting love.*This short but intensely moving paragraph refutes the calumny directed against Judaism that it is a religion of law, not love. In Judaism law and love go together, for when we obey God’s command we are united with Him at the level of deed, and when we study God’s word we are united at the level of mind. Law brings us close to God. It is a supreme expression of love. When we love someone we seek to do their will. That is what happens when a Jew observes the Torah, keeping its laws. וּבָהֶם נֶהְגֶּה יוֹמָם וָלָֽיְלָה On them we will meditate day and night. No religion has placed greater emphasis on lifelong study than Judaism. Joshua, Moses’ successor, was told by God, “Keep this Book of the Torah always on your lips; meditate on it day and night” (Joshua 1:8). Kings of Israel were commanded to write their own Sefer Torah and keep it with them: “He is to read it all the days of his life” (Deut. 17:19). The first psalm says, “Happy is the one …whose delight is in the Torah of the LORD, and who meditates on His Torah day and night” (Ps. 1:1–2). Theophrastus, a disciple of Aristotle, spoke about the Jews as “a nation of philosophers.” Josephus, in the first century, wrote, “Should any one of our nation be asked about our laws, he will repeat them as readily as his own name. The result of our thorough education in our laws from the very dawn of intelligence is that they are, as it were, engraved on our souls.” The house of study was no less holy than the house of prayer. Jews were the people whose citadels were schools, whose heroes were teachers, and whose passion was learning and the life of the mind.

SHEMA The first line of the Shema is among the first we learn as children and among the last we say at the end of life. Rabbi Akiva pronounced it as he went to a martyr’s death (Berakhot 61b) as did countless others over the centuries, especially during the Holocaust. It is the supreme declaration of Jewish faith. Metaphysically it tells us that there is only one God, that unity is at the heart of the cosmos and that conflict is not written into the fabric of the universe. The diversity of the created world points to the unity of its Creator. Existentially it says that God is our only ultimate Sovereign, our only focus of worship, and that by these words we pledge our loyalty to Him. This is what the sages meant when they called the first paragraph of the Shema, “acceptance of the yoke of the kingdom of heaven.” (Mishna, Berakhot 13a) It is our twice-daily oath of allegiance, our declaration of commitment and love. On the face of it, the presence of this prayer here breaks the rule that there should be no interruption between ge’ula, “redemption” (the end of the previous blessing) and the Amida itself (Berakhot 30a). However, the sages ruled that it, too, deals with the subject of redemption and therefore does not constitute an interruption (Berakhot 4b). There is, nevertheless, a significant difference between the subject matter of the two paragraphs. The first deals with the historic redemption of the nation as they stood trapped between the chariots of the Egyptian army and the Sea of Reeds, which miraculously parted so that the Israelites were able to cross to safety. The second is a simple, intimate personal prayer about lying down in peace and rising up in peace. God the Redeemer is not only present in the great miracles of our people’s past but also in the simple trust with which we go to sleep at night. God’s everlasting arms continue to embrace us. Redemption does not have to be miraculous or public to be redemption.

בָּרוּךְ שֵׁם Blessed be the name. This was the response said in the Temple after blessings (Ta’anit 16b), and most dramatically, the response of the people after the High Priest’s declarations on Yom Kippur (Mishna, Yoma 35b). It is said quietly because it is not part of the biblical text (Pesaḥim 56a).

וְאָהַבְתָּ אֵת יהוה אֱלֹהֶֽיךָ Love theLORDyour God. Judaism is the supreme example of a moral system based on (personal, not impersonal) love. Almost all moral systems have a principle of justice – act toward others as you would wish them to act toward you. None, except for Judaism and the monotheisms that borrowed from it, regards love (of God, of the neighbor and the stranger) as a moral imperative. This was and remains a revolutionary, transformative idea. וְשִׁנַּנְתָּם לְבָנֶֽיךָ Teach them repeatedly to your children. In Judaism to be a parent is to be an educator. In the sole place in which God explains why He chose Abraham to be the founder of a new faith, He said: “For I have chosen him, so that he will direct his children and his household after him to keep the way of the LORD by doing what is right and just” (Gen. 18:19). Abraham was chosen, not as a saint or hero, but as a parent who would teach his children. Indeed, the Ab in Abraham’s name means “father.” The highest duty we have as parents is to hand on our beliefs, ideals and way of life to our children. Education, in Judaism, happens primarily at home within the matrix of the family, and only secondarily in the school and house of study, sacred though these institutions are.

וְנָתַתִּי מְטַר־אַרְצְכֶם בְּעִתּוֹ I will give rain in your land in its season. At the end of his life Moses spoke to the next generation about the special character, the geography and climate, of the land of Israel. “The land you are entering to inherit is not like the land of Egypt, from which you have come, where you planted your seed and irrigated it by foot as in a vegetable garden. The land you are crossing the Jordan to take possession of is a land of mountains and valleys that drinks rain from heaven. It is a land the LORD your God cares for; the eyes of the LORD your God are continually on it from the beginning of the year to its end” (Deut. 11:10–12). Unlike the Tigris-Euphrates Valley and the Nile Delta, the water supply of the land of Israel is limited and unpredictable, subject to periodic droughts, as happened in the days of the patriarchs and still happens today. It is therefore a land that encourages its inhabitants to look up toward the heavens, one that constantly reminds them that their destiny is dependent on God.

פְּתִיל תְּכֵֽלֶת A thread of blue. Tekhelet and lavan, blue and white, represent two approaches of man to himself and to the world. In Hebrew, lavan signifies not only the color white but also clarity, rationality and openness. The Torah wants us to understand the world, exploring natural phenomena with the methods of science, not to live in ignorance and obscurity. Tekhelet represents the opposite. The sages said that it resembles the sea, which is like the sky, which represents the celestial throne (Sota 17a). Blue represents distance, inapproachability, the ineffable. There are elements of reality beyond our rational understanding and control and these are symbolized by tekhelet, which represents the numinous and awe-inspiring. We seek to understand what can be understood, but also to interpret through an act of faith what lies beyond the horizon of human understanding. (Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik)

הַשְׁכִּיבֵֽנוּ…לְשָׁלוֹם *Help us lie down…in peace.*A sublime expression of trust as we prepare for sleep. It recalls the line, incorporated into Adon Olam, “Into Your hands I commit my spirit.” (Ps. 31:6). As long as there is daylight, we feel ourselves masters of our situation. We become what Rabbi Soloveitchik called “majestic.” But as the day nears its end we become “covenantal.” We recognize our vulnerability. We place ourselves in God’s hands.

...תִּקְעוּ בַחֹֽדֶשׁ שׁוֹפָר Sound the shofar…on our feast day when the moon is hidden. Rosh HaShana is the only biblical festival that takes place on Rosh Ḥodesh, the New Moon, so it became known as Keseh, “Hidden” (Vayikra Raba 29:6). Some relate the word keseh to kiseh, “a throne,” and thus to Rosh HaShana when God is enthroned as King (Meshekh Ḥokhma to Num. 29:1).

KADDISH During the Ten Days of Repentance the word לְעֵֽלָּא, “beyond,” is repeated, as if to say that God is doubly beyond the reach of human understanding. Such is the paradox of these holy days that God is closer and at the same time more distant than at other times; more distant than the most distant star, closer to us than we are to ourselves. How can the Creator of a hundred billion galaxies, each of a hundred billion stars, care for us individually? Yet He does. He knows us, loves us, believes in us, and if we are honest in our turning to Him, He forgives us all the sins we committed against Him.

זָכְרֵֽנוּ לְחַיִּים Remember us for life. This is one of four additions made to the first two and last two blessings of the Amida during the Ten Days of Repentance. There was initial opposition to their inclusion, since we do not normally make requests during the first and last three blessings, whose themes are, respectively, praise and thanksgiving. Nor do we make requests on Shabbat or Yom Tov. However, since these were deemed to be collective, not individual, requests they were eventually permitted (Abudarham). They lend to the prayers a tone of entreaty distinctive to this time. וְכָתְבֵֽנוּ בְּסֵֽפֶר הַחַיִּים Write us in the book of life. “Rabbi Kruspedai said in the name of Rabbi Yoḥanan: Three books are opened on Rosh HaShana, one for the wholly righteous, one for the wholly wicked and one for the intermediates. The wholly righteous are immediately inscribed and sealed in the book of life. The wholly wicked are immediately inscribed and sealed in the book of death. The judgment of the intermediates is suspended from Rosh HaShana to Yom Kippur. If they are found worthy, they are inscribed for life; if unworthy, they are inscribed for death” (Rosh HaShana16b). The idea that our lives are written in a book by God goes back to the prayer of Moses at the time of the sin of the golden calf. Moses prayed: “But now, please forgive their sin – but if not, then blot me out of the book You have written” (Ex. 32:32). When Jews – the People of the Book – think of life, they think of a book. Our lives are each a chapter in the book of Jewish life, of which we, with God, are the co-authors.

וּבְכֵן תֵּן פַּחְדְּךָ And so place the fear of You. The word paḥad is associated in the Torah with Isaac (Gen. 31:42) and with the binding (Radak, Nahmanides). Used here it sets up an association with the binding of Isaac which, according to the Talmud, is why we blow the shofar on Rosh HaShana, in memory of the ram that was caught in a thicket by its horns. וּבְכֵן תֵּן כָּבוֹד And so place honor. Note how the three paragraphs beginning with uvkhen move from the universal to the particular: first all humanity, then Your people, then the righteous and upright. This direction, beginning with the universal and progressively narrowing the focus to the particular, is characteristic of Jewish thought. Similarly in the Torah we move from all humanity (Adam, Noah) to Abraham and his descendants, not all of whom are part of His covenant (Ishmael, Esau), then to the bearers of the covenant, the children of Jacob. So, too, in Grace after Meals we move from the world (first blessing) to the land of Israel (second blessing), and then to Jerusalem (third blessing). This is the opposite of the Greek way of thinking, that of Plato especially, which moves from the particular to the universal. In Judaism, what is precious to God is our particularity, our uniqueness.

וּבְכֵן And so… The threefold repetition of the word uvkhen, a distinctive feature of the Amidot of Rosh HaShana and Yom Kippur, recalls the words of Esther to Mordekhai: “Go, gather together all the Jews who are in Shushan and fast for me. Do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. I and my attendants will fast as you do. And so [uvkhen], I will go to the king, even though it is against the law. And if I perish, I perish” (Esther 4:16). So here the word evokes the fear and trembling we feel as we stand before not a human ruler but the divine King. (Abudarham)

עַל כָּל מַעֲשֶֽׂיךָ Over all that You have made. The prayers of Rosh HaShana have a universality unlike those of Pesaḥ, Shavuot and Sukkot. They refer not just to the Jewish people but to all humanity, for on Rosh HaShana “All who walk on earth pass before [God]” in judgment, like sheep before a shepherd (Mishna, Rosh HaShana 1:2). Rosh HaShana is the anniversary of creation and of the birth of humanity. The God of Israel is the God of all.

הַמֶּֽלֶךְ הַקָּדוֹשׁ The holy King: During the Ten Days of Repentance we substitute this phrase for “the holy God,” to emphasize that these are days of judgment in which we are especially conscious of Divine sovereignty over all humanity. For this reason too, in the eleventh paragraph we substitute “the King of justice” for the usual ending.

אֱלֹהֵֽינוּ וֵאלֹהֵי אֲבוֹתֵֽינוּ Our God and God of our ancestors. This prayer, originally said in the land of Israel on all festivals, was deemed especially appropriate to Rosh HaShana and Yom Kippur, because of its universality. The corresponding prayer said on other festivals, “Vehasi’enu, Bestow on us, LORD our God, the blessings of Your festivals,” is not said on Rosh HaShana and Yom Kippur because it refers to “joy and gladness,” which are not the primary mood of the Days of Awe (see the discussion in Tur and Shulḥan Arukh, Oraḥ Ḥayyim 582).

וּדְבָרְךָ אֱמֶת וְקַיָּם לָעַד *Your word is truth and holds true forever.*Based on Psalms 119:89, “Your word, LORD, is eternal; it stands firm in the heavens.” Even as You judged Adam, the first human, with compassion, so judge us with compassion (Mordekhai). Adam was told that if he ate of the Tree of Knowledge he would die (Gen. 2:16). Yet, though he ate, he did not die immediately. He lived a long life. It follows that Adam and Eve were forgiven their sin. Rosh HaShana is the anniversary of the day the first humans were created, sinned, and were forgiven. So may it be a day of forgiveness for us.

לְדָוִד Psalm 27. A magnificent statement of trust in God who is with us at all times if we are with Him, who will never reject us even were our own parents to do so, who gives us confidence in hard times and the courage to face our enemies without fear. The words, “The Lord is my light,” in their Latin translation, Dominus illuminatio mea, form the motto of Oxford University and appear on its coat of arms.

לְשָׁנָה טוֹבָה תִּכָּתֵב וְתֵחָתֵם May your name be written and sealed for a good year. According to the Talmud, only the perfectly righteous are immediately written and sealed in the book of life. By giving this greeting, we therefore pray that those around us be considered perfectly righteous – for as we judge others, so are we judged. Those who judge others harshly are judged harshly. Those who judge others favorably are judged favorably.