SACRED TIME
Each one of us knows what it is to be ruled by Time – from the time we get up in the morning until the time we go to bed – and not just the days; the weeks; the months; the years – and we are always running out of it; in fact, that is our destiny as mortal creatures: whatever the scientists say, on a human level, Time is finite.
Sounds depressing? It could be. But if we put ‘Time’ in a Jewish context, something rather wonderful happens. In an important sense, the Jewish people invented the skill of making Time meaningful. If you look at the account of Creation in the beginning of Genesis, you will discover that the first occasion when the concept of ‘sanctity’ is used is in connection with Time – and so we read: ‘God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it – va-y’kaddeish oto (Genesis 2:3). As Abraham Joshua Heschel puts it in his gem of a book, The Sabbath, Shabbat is a ‘Palace in Time’ (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, 1951, pp.12-24).
Before the seventh day was set apart from all the others – that’s what sanctity means in Hebrew, setting apart – before it became a ‘Palace in Time’, every day was just like all the others, day after day, after day. So, within Jewish life the everyday is interrupted every week by sacred time. And then, of course, across the year, there are Moons and Seasons – Nature’s special markers – and within the Moons and Seasons, more sacred times, reaching a ‘high point’ at the beginning of the seventh month, as the year turns, with a series of sacred days: the Days of Awe, which open with Rosh Ha-Shanah – literally ‘the Head of the Year’ – and conclude with Yom Kippur; followed swiftly by the seven day festival of Sukkot, and finally, Sh’mini Atzeret, the ‘Eighth’ Day of Closure, which is when Progressive Jews celebrate Simchat Torah – ‘the Joy of Torah’.
Yes, Judaism has the gift of making Time sacred. And it is a gift made all the more special because for the past two thousand years since the Temple was destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE, Jewish life has not centred on sacred space; which means it’s not just that the year is a cycle of sacred times; it is sacred time that brings us together as a people. And so, while we may be scattered across the world, we share sacred moments; we are a people, who meet in Time; and for whom the sacred can never be grasped and owned – this is also a special gift. Heschel writes: ‘Space is exposed to our will… Time, however, is beyond our reach, beyond our power. It is both near and far, intrinsic to all experience and transcending all experience… it is only within time that there is… togetherness of all beings’ (p.99). Shanah Tovah!
Rabbi Elizabeth Tikvah Sarah