Q&A: Uman
Uman
Question
Hello,
Doesn’t the fact that, for most of the Jewish people in Israel, the word most associatively linked with Rosh Hashanah is “Uman” indicate a major failure in imparting values and concepts, even among the religious and Haredi public? Doesn’t the fact that a large public has latched onto an event that, in my opinion, is on the borderline of idolatry, show that there is some terrible and awful failure here? The impression one hears from some of those who travel to Uman—that there is a sense of spiritual exaltation in the prayer—is genuine fake. In my opinion, a large public would feel that same spiritual exaltation even if it held its Yom Kippur prayers near Mount Azazel.
And on the margins of the question: my interpretation of the mass rush to Uman—at least the rush of most of the public that is not originally Breslov—is that the Rosh Hashanah prayers, which take place over two days, are in an oppressive and overly detailed format, and most of the public has trouble understanding why it needs the experience of reciting liturgical poems, most of which do not speak to it at all.
Answer
I assume you can predict what my answers would be about these phenomena themselves. But you are completely exaggerating their significance. It is not most of the public, but a marginal part of it. Anyone committed to Torah and commandments understands that Rosh Hashanah is not Uman. True, people are drawn after experiences, and mistakenly also identify them with religious value. Well, that is part of the era we live in.
About Rosh Hashanah and its prayers I already wrote here. Indeed, the excessive length is entirely unnecessary. And even the myth of a Day of Judgment—and certainly when we’re talking about two days—I have no faith in it.
Discussion on Answer
Does closeness to God have no religious significance at all? People experience it there.
In the Torah, only two words are written about Rosh Hashanah (unlike the other festivals): “a day of blasting.” You’d have to search in Rabbi Chaim of Brisk’s novellae to figure out how one could extract the idea of “Uman” from here.
What? Who are these “most of the people” for whom Rosh Hashanah is associated with Uman?
Besides, if it’s an experience for people, who does it bother? Is spending the holidays in Thailand better?
*Of course there’s a difference between an experience and religious importance, which we would expect at least public officials to understand, yes. But these are the same public officials who scream “we will die and not enlist,” so it’s obvious what their politics are worth… exactly politics.
I didn’t write that most of the public is caught up in it, but that most of the public will associatively connect Rosh Hashanah not with the Day of Judgment, not with the sounding of the shofar, but with Uman. That teaches that there is a serious failure in education here. Thank God, most of the public (the religious public) celebrates Rosh Hashanah in a sane way.