Sometimes, you Need to Get Over Yourself: A Sermon about Bowing for Rosh Hashana

In preparing for the High Holidays, I had the opportunity to watch a recording of the live-stream of some our services here from 2020, during the pandemic. I got to learn some of the traditions here, although of course there were many differences that were specific to covid era gatherings. As I watched, the musaf came along, and the video came to the aleinu prayer. If you’ve been to services with any regularity, you are probably familiar with the aleinu as the prayer at the end of services with that long bow when we say vanachnu korim umishtachavim, which means “we bend our knees and bow,” describing what we are doing. An interesting historical fact is that the Aleinu was not written for the end of services. It was actually composed for the high holiday mussaf itself, but was popular and was moved to the end of the regular daily services in the medieval period, possibly developing along with the custom of saying mourner’s kaddish.

Anyway, I was watching and I became curious to know, was the custom here to do a full bow during the aleinu. Anyone here familiar with what I am talking about? During the Aleinu on the high holidays, some people have the custom of kneeling than bowing their heads to the ground, prostrating, which is probably what the words in Aleinu were originally imagining.

So, I kept watching the live stream on you tube and I see that Rabbi Fried, of blessed memory, just does the regular Aleinu long bow, but the cantor at the time did the full bow. This fits with the way the practice has basically spread today. Some synagogues don’t do the full bow at all, in some, everyone does it, and others only the clergy does it. Still others just have a mix of people with different personal preferences. And of course, some synagogues customs vary according to the knees and other joints of both congregants and clergy.

I remember the first time as a kid I really noticed the tradition of fully bowing, during Aleinu in the mussaf. My first thought was, “what the heck are people doing?!” It was nothing like the standing bows I was used to. To be honest, it made me very uncomfortable. To me, kneeling and prostrating in prayer didn’t feel very Jewish. And frankly, I have been in non-Jewish religious settings where prostration is taken seriously. In the winter of 2000, I got to join a group of Tibetan devotees in North India for a nine-day teaching by the Dalia Lama. Even the most traditional Jewish community bowing on the high holidays looks obviously uncomfortable by comparison to the practiced ease of these religious Buddhists.

 

Surprisingly, however, it was once common for Jews to bow in all sorts of ways, including fully down to the ground. But Jewish communities generally abandoned this type of bowing, only leaving traces in our prayers. The Aleinu is of course one place where we find traces of the original practice of bowing down to the ground. Another is the weekday prayer, tachanun. Some of you may have recited the tachanun prayer, or seen it recited. A common name for this prayer in Hebrew is “Nefilat Apayim” which literally means “falling on ones face,” which, itself literally describes the physical movement for the prayer. Bowing all the way down putting your forehead to the ground. In our siddur, it is recited right after the “Amidah” which literally means standing. If you think about it, the original choreography, the movements of our entire prayer service, was a bit closer to a yoga style “Sun Salutation,” at least by comparison to what most Jewish communities do today. What you will find, maybe some of you have seen it if you have ever been to a weekday synagogue service, some people will say the tachanun while leaning on their left arm on a table or maybe the back of the pew in front of them. Something changed and the regular, daily practice of fully bowing, literally falling on one’s face, was reduced to putting your head down on your desk.

 

For today, I am less interested in exactly why the change happened than I am in what meaning people have attached to it and how we can interpret it. Our sages believed that there was meaning to the practices adopted by the community. They would sometimes resolve disputes by saying, “go out and see what the people do in this situation.” The sages would often say about the practices of the community, “even if they aren’t prophets, they are the children of prophets.” What may have pushed us as a religious community to largely drop a practice that many other religious traditions keep to this day? Why is there an exception made for the High Holidays? And how can that help us connect more deeply to what we are doing together here this day, whether your custom is to fully bow or not.

 

First, let’s just think about the physical act itself, especially when we compare it to standing. Unlike most animals, humans usually walk upright. According to the rabbis, God "stood Adam up on his legs" at roughly 1:00 PM Eden Standard Time on the Friday of the first week of creation, meaning at least according to tradition, the anniversary of that moment is in a few hours. Standing is also the posture of people standing before a Jewish court, as well as those who pray during the Amidah. When you give testimony, you stand. It is an expression of power and dignity.

 

Falling on one's face is the opposite of standing. It's an act of submission. It hides our identity and individuality. We cover our faces.  But it implies awe and trust as we bury our eyes, leaving ourselves defenseless. In many martial arts classes, you bow at the beginning. I once had a teacher who would hit you on the head if you ever lowered your eyes while bowing. He would say that you shouldn’t take your eyes off your enemy. Symbolically, by prostrating, you give yourself into divine hands, surrendering and relying completely on God in that moment rather than advocating or acting for yourself.

 

One major concern about fully bowing appears in the Talmud, which states that important people, like community leaders, shouldn't bow down to the ground unless they know that God will answer them immediately, just like God answered Joshua in the Bible. This Talmudic passage is meant to be ironic. Especially if you look at the story in the bible.  The very first thing God says to Joshua is "Get up! Why are you bowing?!" Instead, God demands Joshua deal directly with the problems as the leader of the people. The problem is that submission to God can lead to a lack of responsibility as we put everything at God's feet. Piety can't take the place of action. Thoughts and prayers simply aren’t enough. People with responsibilities need to have their eyes open, looking toward others, not burying their heads in the sand.

 

On the other hand, the Jewish mystical tradition has the opposite concern—a lack of sincerity. According to the Zohar, the great medieval work of Jewish mysticism, bowing down to the ground is incredibly powerful. It "moves" God. But the kind of submission the Zohar demands involves completely abandoning oneself to God. If you don’t do it sincerely then, according to the Zohar, it’s like leading God on romantically. Maybe the reason for generally dropping the practice of fully bowing is because it's a false reflection of who we are. For better and for worse, we have egos. We can be selfish.

 

This leads us to our main question. Why do some people make an exception for this type of bowing during the high holidays, and in some communities, specifically the clergy, the religious leaders who are otherwise told not to do it. And what can we learn from it especially, since the Jewish community commonly rejects the practice for the rest of the year?

 

I believe the high holiday bowing is, not surprisingly, about teshuva, repentance, and teshuva isn’t selfless. It can’t be, otherwise it would be impossible for most of us. These particular bows cannot be about giving yourself up.

 

So what might they be about? I would like to suggest that rather than giving yourself up, they are about getting over yourself. Sometimes, when we get stuck in a rut, repeating the same mistakes, when we have a hard time admitting the reality before our eyes but can’t afford to ignore it… at some point we have to get over ourselves so we can move on and find a better way forward.

 

I would therefore like to offer the following kavvanah, the following intention, as we enter into the mussaf prayer. Whether or not your custom is to fully bow, or to just bow at the knees, or whether you need to sit down because that is what your body allows… When we come to the aleinu, I invite you to take the time, without self-criticism or guilt, I invite you to recognize some truth or simply that that there are truths that you know deep down you tend to disregard despite the problems ignoring them causes. We all have them. None of us are God. We know there are times when we are the ones who place obstacles in our lives. Maybe for this moment, give yourself a break from that. Lay that burden on the ground as you bow your body or, if bowing is not option, imagine placing that burden down on the ground before God as you say the line va-anachnu korim u-mishtachavim u-modim, “and we bend are knees, bow and give thanks.” Because we know there is another way, a better way.

 

 

Shanah Tovah

Rabbi Dave Almog

Congregation Anshe Emeth

Rosh Hashanah

10-3-2024a