The Man Who Asked for Nothing
Short story about rosh Hashanah — and what we are really asking for when a new year begins.
Every Rosh Hashanah his father stayed standing long after the prayers had ended.
Everyone else had gone. The children ran home to the meal. The chairs were folded. And he went on standing in front of the ark.
When he was a boy he asked him once: "Abba, what are you asking for, all this time?"
His father smiled. "I'm not asking."
"Then what are you doing?"
"I'm listening."
The boy did not understand.
Years later, when his father was gone, the first Rosh Hashanah without him arrived. He stood in the same synagogue. The same melody. The same shofar. The same ark. And nothing was the same.
When the prayers ended, everyone left. He stayed.
At first he wanted to ask. Health for the children. Quiet. Success. One more good year.
But somehow the words would not come. So he simply stood there.
And in the silence a question rose in him that he had not asked himself in years: if this year truly happens only once — how do I want to live it?
Not what he wanted to receive. Not what he was afraid to lose. How he wanted to be.
More present. Less angry. To say "I love you" before it was too late. To stop postponing the things his heart already knew.
He stayed a moment longer. And then, for the first time, he understood what his father had meant.
Maybe Rosh Hashanah is not only the time when we ask life to change.
Sometimes it is the time when we hear that life is asking something of us.
The shofar is not only a call to heaven — sometimes it is the soul calling to us: wake up, another year of life has been given to you.
A new year is not only a list of what you hope to receive. It is a decision about how you intend to live.
Ohananda.com
The spirit of Rosh Hashanah
Inspired by the spirit of Rosh Hashanah — awakening, listening, and choosing how we will live the year that opens. No wording here is presented as a quotation.
Rosh Hashanah is usually described as a day of judgement and of asking. But the tradition also calls it Yom Teruah — the day of the sounding — and the shofar is a wordless sound. It asks nothing. It wakes.
That is the quiet turn of the day: before we list what we want the year to give us, we are asked what we intend to give it. A request looks outward. Listening turns the year back into a choice.
If this year happens only once, how do you want to live it?
Another year has been given to you. That alone is worth standing still for.
