What Rosh Hashanah Means to Me

Last week was the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah. The Rabbi of my synagogue asked me if I would do a teaching related to Rosh Hashanah. He said it didn’t need to be more than two or three minutes.

In the spirit of Mark Twain, who said that,

“If I had had more time, I would have written you a shorter letter.”

this is what I wrote and presented, which is clearly much longer than the suggested time.

In my defense, when the Rabbi asks if he can stop by for two minutes, it almost always turns out to be a minimum of 15 minutes, so I turn the tables on him with great delight!

Rosh Hashanah

Since Rosh Hashanah is not specifically mentioned in the Torah, I will use poetic license and apply my own very personal and modern interpretation of its significance. And if my references to sources of inspiration that have nothing directly to do with Judaism are deemed to be offensive and sacrilegious, then I’m very sorry.

It’s hard to argue with the remarkable achievements and resilience of the Jewish people. Never have so few done so much. And these monumental accomplishments came about while constantly facing hate, persecution, expropriation, isolation, exile, pogroms, and genocide.?

As historian Barbara Tuchman once wrote, Israel is ‘the only nation in the world that is governing itself in the same territory, under the same name, and with the same religion and same language as it did 3,000 years ago.’

What is it about the Jews? God supposedly offered other people to be his chosen ones but they turned it down because they didn’t want the responsibility. The Jews accepted the honor and, more importantly, the responsibilities.?

I am in the world of investments, and I love to study the masters who have done so well for so long. Charlie Munger is one of the intellectual giants from whom I have learned so much. Interestingly, Munger invested heavily in an asset class in which I’m involved: apartments. This is how he got into it :

Billionaire investor Charles Munger made a well-timed bet on suburban apartments — thanks to a neighborhood teenager who showed up at his house with a Hebrew Bible.

Munger couldn’t read it. But the encounter led to an improbable friendship and, more than a decade later, an investment in California apartment complexes before the pandemic sent values soaring.

Compounding one’s investment is an unbelievably powerful force such that Munger has said the first rule of compounding is to not interrupt it. When you are riding a wave that has durability, don’t get off of it. Of course you have to first recognize what wave to ride, have the courage to get on it, and the patience and emotional fortitude to stay on it.

The same goes with compounding our personal lives, whether our skills, health, or relationships. Judaism is the ultimate human capital compounding machine. Every moment of every day, it recognizes that we are engaged in a great civil war between our animal souls and Godly souls. It takes great training, discipline, and the development and cultivation of good habits to have our Godly souls rule the roost. Judaism , particularly Chabad , and its core educational body of work, The Tanya, recognize human nature better than any other religious text that I have come across. It knows how important it is to have guardrails in our everyday lives so that the decisions we make are viewed through the filter of the mitzvot, the Torah, and the teachings of our sages.?

When our animal souls are in charge we can be all consumed by our desires, compulsions, and short-term thinking. These are risks that can interrupt our compounding because it’s easy to break the chain, but it’s much harder to keep adding links to it. On the other hand, once we add a certain number of links and we have habituated such behaviors, then it becomes much more ingrained in our subconscious and our defenses against those forces that want to derail us become that much stronger. When I feel those feelings welling up inside of me that are enticing me to take actions that are counter to my best interests or others, I think about the song by the great band Boston and tell myself that I’m more than a feeling.?

I think this radically realistic understanding of human nature built into all of the great canonical works of Judaism help us realize we are more than a feeling and that we are God’s creation, built in his image, and here to not only find holiness in the mundane, but to live out our unique, powerful purpose to leave the world better than how we found it.

And yet, while the mitzvot are incredibly important to help us make the innumerable decisions that are required each day, it can also be overwhelming to feel like we’re just doing the do. We also have to take a step back and really connect with something more powerful than ourselves to give us the strength, inspiration, and energy to overcome obstacles and keep us on track knowing we are here for very particular and powerful reasons. Besides Charlie Munger , another love of mine is music. I learn so much from powerful lyrics.?

Oasis, the very popular U.K. band is led by the Gallagher brothers , who are somewhat akin to Cain and Abel and Jacob and Esau. After 15 years they are going to turn their swords into plowshares and reunite in 2025. One of my favorite songs of theirs is Acquiesce and I think the lyrics at the beginning of the song are incredibly powerful and speak to taking a step back and trying to connect with the stirrings of our souls.

I don’t know what it is that makes me feel alive I don’t know how to wake the things that sleep inside I only wanna see the light that shines behind your eyes

I hope that I can say the things I wish I’d said To sing my soul to sleep and take me back to bed Who wants to be alone when we can feel alive instead

Because we need each other We believe in one another And I know we’re going to uncover What’s sleepin’ in our soul

Judaism seeks to bring holiness to the mundane because, let’s be honest, most of our lives require us to do those mundane tasks to manage our daily existence. At the same time it also recognizes, like in the song, that our souls have powerful messages for us. We want to tap into those things and ways of living that make us feel alive. And, just as God says that man should not be alone, Noel Gallagher recognizes this as well in the song. The narrator says “Who wants to be alone when we can feel alive instead” while, also yearning to “see the light that shines behind your eyes.” Like most works of art, it can be taken on multiple levels. It can be the light of one’s partner or to see the light of God who created humans so he could have a partner in creation. And when we can catch a glimpse of God’s light, there is nothing more powerful and inspiring.

So what does this have to do with Rosh Hashanah? The success of Jews can be directly tied to the values Judaism espouses as well as the system of living it has devised. It recognizes the pitfalls and risks our animal souls can create for us while also recognizing that this very important part of ourselves should not be repressed, just subordinated to the much more powerful, eternal, and gratifying part of our nature, our Godly souls. And a critical part of this system is the opportunity for us to gather in community each year to reflect on the year that has transpired and what we did well and where we fell short.?

And while most people think of sin as a very bad thing and shameful act, the biblical connotation is actually “missing the mark.” So when we sin, we’re not necessarily bad people, it’s just that we have missed the mark. Recognizing this, there is always hope provided we approach our shortcomings as opportunities to reflect, atone, and course correct so we can get back on track. And while this very micro aspect of personal reflection and improvement is critical to Rosh Hashanah, it’s not the only thing. It also provides us with the opportunity to take a step back from our daily lives and reconnect with God, our creator, and to acknowledge his centrality to not only all of our lives, but to celebrate the birth of his greatest creation, which is mankind.?

And while Shabbat each week is intended to do this for us, we all know that not every Jew adheres to Shabbat, so Rosh Hashanah offers every Jew the annual opportunity to take an even bigger step back from the day to day and week to week to truly reflect on on our lives and the year that has come to pass to lay the groundwork for a more fruitful year ahead powered by a deeper connection to God.

I mentioned Charlie Munger earlier and I thought I would close with him because this quote of his I think also goes to the heart of what Judaism is all about and how it has done so much good for the world.

“It’d be nice if I were Mother Teresa and did something I didn’t like doing, because I’m a noble soul,” Munger said. “But my life is organized so that time after time, what works for my pocketbook works for every moral teaching that I’ve been taught.”