Rabbi Daniel Siegel – Head of Jewish Life

This too shall pass
גם זה יעבור

This year, as we enter the new Jewish year, on Rosh HaShanah, and contemplate our future, on Yom Kippur, we wonder when and hope that גם זה יעבור/gam zeh ya’avor – This Too Shall Pass.

We begin our Kol Nidre service asking permission to pray with the עבריינים/avaryanim – the transgressors, those who have “passed” beyond the boundary of acceptable behaviour. The word עבריינים/avaryanim, however, can also mean those who are but transitory beings.

On both days of Rosh HaShanah (and in some traditions, on Yom Kippur) we read the prayer that has made Jews, throughout the generations, shudder, U-Netaneh Tokev. The root word עבר/avar is repeated throughout this prayer, as we intone – “Who shall pass”?

We are all said to “pass” before God on this Day of Judgement, and in the New Year we will come to know if we shall pass out of this world. Yet, this same prayer ends with our reminding ourselves that it is we who are מעבירין את רוע הגזירה/ma’avirim et ro’a ha-gezeirah – only we can transcend a life which we but hope to move past.

This Rosh HaShanah, perhaps we can grant ourselves permission to pray and become one with the עבריינים/avaryanim, those who can pass beyond the present in working towards an unbound future. As עברים/ivrim, Hebrews, but more literally “boundary crossers” may we work together in moving beyond a COVID world.

May we all be blessed with a שנה טובה- מעל ומעבר, a New Year in which we move past and beyond our present, renewing ourselves within, and experiencing together, a life-affirming world.