The Hebrew word hayom-היום, “today,” appears more in the book of Devarim (Deuteronomy) than it does in the entire rest of the Torah combined. Its repetition marks it as one of the motifs that runs through Moshe’s final speeches, delivered in the last month or so of his life, which comprise virtually the entirety of his final book.
We have a quite arresting oral tradition of how to read this word “today.”
Every time it says “today,” it is referring to today, as in today, today.
Meaning: we should make every effort to experience the instructive words of Torah we are reading as if they were being communicated to us in a live feed, in the present moment.1
While this is certainly an intriguing way to read the word “today,” why did our sages take the liberty to take it out of its plain meaning?
Take, for example, what Moshe famously said in the Shema:
Devarim 6:6:
וְהָיוּ הַדְּבָרִים הָאֵלֶּה אֲשֶׁר אָנֹכִי מְצַוְּךָ הַיּוֹם עַל־לְבָבֶךָ׃
These words that I command you today should be upon your hearts.
The word “today” is unnecessary. Everything that has ever been said on any given day was said “today” — on that particular day. So what is added by saying, “I am telling you today?” Whenever we speak, we speak that day!
The answer is because Moshe wanted the words he was sharing to be heard — even in the far off future — with same relevance, urgency and vitality with which they first emerged from his mouth. Moshe, who is understood through the mystical lens as embodying the energy of eternity (netzach-נצח), was acutely aware that if people didn’t learn to see God’s wisdom with fresh eyes, His words would quickly decay into antiquated relics of the past gathering dust behind a glass case.
I think of the Torah scrolls, sidurim, menorahs, mezuzahs displayed as artifacts in old synagogues in Europe and North Africa that I’ve visited, which make it seem like Judaism is a religion of a people long extinct.2 In these museums, the Judaism you and I know to be an electrifying way to live our lives is reduced to mere shells of the past.
Here is one classic rabbinic teaching in this vein:
Sifrei 33:
“These words I command you today.” Don’t regard these words as an outdated imperial decree, which no one care about. Rather, [think about them] as a fresh decree, which everyone races to read.
This idea is actually contained in the deceptively simple Hebrew word for “today,” hayom-היום.
The prefix ha-ה means “the,” and yom-יום means “day.”
Today is THE day! Every other day is just a day.
We are fast approaching big days, “awesome days” (yamim noraim-ימים נוראים), and no doubt they are. But perhaps they are meant to awaken in us awe for any given day we have the merit to be alive and make decisions in. There is no day in the history of the universe that is more today than today. Today is always the day.
Here is a well known teaching from Rabbi Nachman of Breslov (1772-1810), who would often try to awaken his students to what he saw as a key consciousness to living a good life:
Likutei Moharan 272:
This is an important rule in the service of God:
One should focus only on today. Whether with regard to his livelihood and personal needs, he should not think from one day to the next, as is brought in the holy books.
And with regard to his serving God, he should not consider anything beyond this day and this moment. For when a person wants to enter the service of God, it can seem to him like a heavy burden. He feels that he cannot possibly bear such a heavy load. However, when a person considers that he has only this day to deal with, he will find it no burden at all.
In addition, a person should not procrastinate from one day to the next, saying, “I’ll start tomorrow. Tomorrow I’ll pray more attentively and with the right enthusiasm,” and likewise with any other action in the service [of his Creator]. A person’s world consists only of the present day and the present moment. Tomorrow is a different world entirely.
This perspective on the present moment features in the Torah reading of the first day of Rosh Hashana.
It records the prayer of Abraham’s first son Yishmael, the progenitor of the Arab world, when he was only fifteen years old, and faced what seemed like an imminent death in the parched desert. The verse says that “God heeded the cry of the boy where he was.” Again, isn’t a person always “wherever he is?”
Rashi on Bereishit 21:17:
A person is judged only according to their current deeds [“where he is”], not according to what they will do in the future [“where he will be”].
The fact that Yishmael’s descendants would torment Jews was irrelevant to the way God would receive his prayers on the day he uttered them.3
Rosh Hashanah runs the risk of being dragged in two directions away from the present moment.
On this Day of Judgment, it is easy to be pulled backwards into the past to ruminate on our could-ofs, would-ofs, and should-ofs. Teshuva, often translated as “repentance,” can easily get ensnared in the past, saddling us with remorse that keeps us stuck instead of moving forward.4
Similarly, our minds can zoom into the future, planning, preparing and attempting to fix our mistakes so that we have a better year. While solution-focused forward-thinking is certainly healthier and more productive than being stuck in the past, this is also not the purpose of Rosh Hashana. Aside from the practical constraint of there not being much time in days full of prayer in synagogue and festive meals at home, Rosh Hashana is simply not about rushing to fix the problems.5 It is about being present. It is about embodying the present day with our best selves, and to allow this to mark the standard we aspire to live up to in the year to come.
A friend of mine, a truly special person, was diagnosed with brain cancer. A therapist asked him to describe what the ideal day of his life would look like — a random Tuesday, knowing his Tuesdays were numbered. He described it. This person pushed him to work out every detail about how his day would go. How he would speak to people? How he would relate to his wife? How he would spend time with his child? What bad habits would he avoid? How would he relish every moment?
This conversation changed his life. I try to let it change mine.
Machzor of Rosh Hashanah Musaf:
היום הרת עולם
Today is the day of the conception of the world.
Shanah Tova!
Jack
This is why the blessing on Torah recognizes God as the one who “gives” the Torah (notein ha’Torah — נותן התורה), not “gave” the Torah (natan ha’Torah — נתן התורה).
Incidentally, Hitler, whose name should be forgotten, had a plan to make a “Museum of an Extinct People” with the looted sacred items the Nazis were collecting as the Holocaust progressed
Here is the rest of Rashi’s commentary essentially quoted from two midrashim:
The ministering angels prosecuted Ishmael before God, saying: “Master of the Universe, will You provide a well for someone whose descendants are destined to kill Your children with thirst?”
God asked them: “What is he right now—righteous or wicked?”
They replied: “Righteous.”
He said to them: “I judge him according to his current state.” This is the meaning of the verse: “[For God has heard the voice of the youth] where he is now”—that is, in his current condition (Genesis Rabbah 53:14).
Where did Ishmael’s descendants kill Israel with thirst? When Nebuchadnezzar drove the Jewish people into exile, as it is written: “The burden upon Arabia… O caravans of Dedanites, bring water to the thirsty!” (Isaiah 21:13–14). As their captors led them near the Arab lands, the Israelites begged: “Please, bring us to the children of our uncle, Ishmael; they will surely have mercy on us.” This is why the verse mentions “caravans of Dedanites” (דדנים)—read this word not as Dedanim, but as dodim (דודים), meaning “kinsmen.”
The Ishmaelites indeed came out to meet them, bringing salty meat, salted fish, and waterskins inflated with air. The Israelites believed these skins were full of water, but when they opened them and placed them to their mouths, the air rushed into their bodies and killed them (Lamentations Rabbah 2:4).
This was the Rosh Hashana message of Ezra and Nehemiah to the Jews mourning their mistakes as they heard the Torah being read for the first time in their lives:
“This day is holy to the Hashem your God: you must not mourn or weep…Go [home], eat choice foods and drink sweet drinks and send portions to whoever has nothing prepared, for the day is holy to our Sovereign. Do not be sad, for your rejoicing in GOD is the source of your strength.
The tradition of accepting upon oneself small, concrete “kabbalot” (commitments) is itself proof that the day is not meant to be focused on the future, precisely because when is meant to choose specifically a small, tangible, achievable goal to ground one’s inspiration from the day. The future is not the focus. The present is.