The Birthday of the World

We often use the High Holidays as a chance for self-reflection, but we should also look beyond ourselves and wonder at creation.

BY: Jeff Mandell

Last year, when I lived in Israel, it was impossible to overlook the approach of the High Holidays. In the U.S., where the Jewish calendar competes with many others for prominence in our lives, the holidays always seem to sneak up on me as I'm immersed in the new school year, the onset of fall, the beginning of the primetime television season, the transition from baseball to football. In the minimal time I have previously devoted to the chagim [holidays], I have always focused, as I think most Jews tend to, on self-reflection as a path to teshuvah, or repentance. The holidays are brief, usually discrete, respites in times of transition to pause and reflect. Much like the shofar blasts that usher in the holiday, Rosh Hashanah serves as a calendrical dinner bell, clamoring for me to wash up and get ready for the serious introspection demanded by Yom Kippur.

But in Israel the holidays come as no surprise. Weeks before the chagim begin, store clerks and passersby say goodbye or greet you by wishing "Shana Tova [Happy New Year]," television commercials are dominated by Rosh Hashanah-themed products, and the streets are papered with fliers advertising pre-holiday seminars of all kinds. And then, unique to Israel, there's the opportunity to visit the Jerusalem Biblical Zoo. Last year, a pre-holidays trip to the zoo was one of the most meaningful reminders of the themes of the holidays that I've ever had.

The zoo's mission is to preserve endangered species, with a particular--though not exclusive--focus on animals mentioned in the Bible. To pound the biblical message home, the visitors' center is housed in a large ark. But beyond its kitschy and touristy elements, the zoo masterfully highlights the marvels of creation.

The Jerusalem Biblical Zoo is built in a valley on the southwestern outskirts of the city, past the mall and the soccer stadium. A small man-made lake occupies the center of the valley, and the main path winds around the lake, bobbing and weaving to expose visitors to each of the habitats created for various species. Unlike the ultra-deluxe mega-zoos that feature multi-million dollar buildings to house certain species in habitats that match their native ecosystems, the Biblical Zoo, presumably like its predecessor in preservation, Noah's Ark, has a simple aesthetic. Within that basic aesthetic, the Zoo manages, in a way that is humane and accessible, to present endangered animals from all corners of the world, even those--lemurs, flamingos, penguins-- completely incongruous in the desert climes of Jerusalem. That accessibility, the closeness of the animals and the minimal structures separating us from them, allows, even standing in the desert with a repro ark looming nearby, an unusual intimacy with nature.

Standing on a walkway while a giraffe strained its neck for the few extra centimeters it needed to reach the long, lush grass near my feet; making extended eye contact with a wallabee; watching ring-tailed lemurs swing in the trees and hippos bathe, it was impossible to escape the majesty of the natural world.

There, amidst the animals, just a few days before the High Holidays, I heard a metaphorical shofar call in the trumpet of the elephants and the insistent cawing of the parrots. Rosh Hashanah came alive to me as much more than merely the start of the new year. Unbidden, from recesses of memory I did not know I had, the liturgy of the shofar service echoed in my head: "Hayom horat olam, This is the birthday of the world, the anniversary of creation." Rosh Hashanah transformed from my egg-timer view of the holiday as a time for self-reflection into an animating force for a broader understanding of repentance and renewal.

As I walked to synagogue on Rosh Hashanah days later, through Jerusalem streets redolent with the fragrance of honeysuckle, I tried to keep the zoo in mind, to see every tree, every firefly, every one of the city's countless stray cats, as a reminder of creation. Once the service started, I tried not to let its familiar words and rhythms pull me too fully back into my habitual approach to the holiday. Each time the breeze carried cool air and the sound of crickets through the window, I thought of the zoo animals and tried to take seriously the idea that Rosh Hashanah is an opportunity to celebrate creation. The logical consequence of this is that the Days of Awe--the stretch between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur--take on a new, more literally awesome, sensibility. In the face of nature, the only possible response is fundamental awe. That awe has many facets, from wondrous appreciation to befuddlement, from a joyous sense of belonging to a fearful unease in the face of the sublime. All of those aspects are part of what we mark on Rosh Hashanah, as we give thanks for creation and, in so doing, confront our place within it.

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