This evening, with the prayers for Slichos, forgiveness, we anticipate and prepare for the High Holy Days which are our Jewish New Year. The first day of the year, with us Jews as with no other people, is an occasion for Kedushah, or Sanctity. The reason for this sanctity is two-fold. For not only is the coming Rosh Hashanah the first Day of the year, and therefore the Day of Judgement, but it is also the first day of the first month of the year. And Rosh Chodesh, the new moon, was always preceded by the sanctification by the Jewish courts. So that on this Slichos night, in preparation for the first Rosh Chodesh of the New Year, it behooves us to speak of the institution of קידוש החודש, the sanctification of the New Moon, the holiness of the Jewish time-cycle, the preparation for sanctity. For all our festivals, all the ceremonies and sacrifices and devotions, depended and do now depend on the beginning of the month as determined by the Molad Ha’lvanah, or the first appearance of any part of the new moon. Many years ago, before the preparation of the calendar by astronomic calculation, which was able to foretell every Molad almost unto eternity, the Jewish court announced the new moon and declared the Rosh Chodesh “al pi ha’reiah,” by “sight.” That means that witnesses would testify in court that they had seen the appearance of the new moon with their own eyes. It was the era of intimate knowledge of G-d’s world, when people would be witnesses to the birth of a month, and Beis Din – the g-dfather of the new moon. Kid a-p reiah, sanctification as a result of sight, of first-hand, intimate observation.

After the power of the courts was weakened, after exile struck at the roots of our people, after the beginnings of the advanced science of astronomy, a new method of KH was introduced – “Kid a-p cheshbon”; sanctification, not through observation, but by calculation. It was, as it is even today, a fool-proof method, intellectually conceived by using the tools of mathematics. No longer was it necessary, indeed possible, to perform kid a-p reiah. It was now kid a-p cheshbon, an alternate route to Sanctity.

Now, my friends, I have no desire or intention of going into a mathematical evaluation of these two systems. But I do want to comment on the moral content of the symbols which Reiah and Cheshbon really are. What do these two represent to us, and what is the significance of the replacement of Observation by Calculation? Reiah, observation, represented Man’s intimate contact with real life. The complexities and the superficialities of modern life were still a long way off. A Jew, in these early days, was able to be a good and dynamic and wonderful Jew even without being a scholar. He was able to feel and see and touch the life-stream of Jewish life. He was at one with the quintessence of Jewishness. Modern thinkers use a big word for that – they say that such people had an intimate “existential acquaintance” with the life they so love. But then the trunk was severed from its roots, the Jew was uprooted from his native Jewish soil, both physically and culturally. He was in all senses suddenly in exile. Jewishness by feeling it, life by actual observation, Kiddush al pi Reiah, was now only a glorious ideal. Life was becoming complex, the atmosphere they breathed was intensely un-Jewish, a thick pea soup fog of strange items and ideologies blurred their reiah, their vision and powers of observation. And once Reiah was ruled out, the Jew had to rely upon a new method to preserve his identity, to remain loyal to his heritage. And so he devised a new route on which to reach the Kiddush, the sanctity of Jewish life. He invented kid a-p cheshbon, calculation, intellectual exercise. He wrote and read his profound religious experiences. If he could not quench his thirst for Judaism through Reiah, then he took to the giant tomes of the Talmud, where cheshbon, calculation, the sublime intricacies of detailed logic, reigned supreme and gave expression to his innermost yearnings. It was cheshbon which now gave sanctity and holiness to life. Once upon a time a complete Am Haaretz, an abysmal ignoramus, was also able to be a good Jew, because he was able to see, to observe. Today reiah is obsolete. How much Judaism can one contract in Times Square? Did the Chassam Sofer ever tread on the concrete of 34th Street? Was the voice of a young scholar expounding “a Rambam” ever heard in the chambers of the 42nd Street Library? Can one indeed observe Jewishness in The Yankee Stadium or Manhattan Center? If, therefore, Reiah is a thing of the past, then Cheshbon, study, becomes the issue of the present and safeguard of the future.

The Hasidim once interpreted the Mishna in Avos, the Ethics of the Fathers, similarly: Da mah L’maalah mimcha – know what is above you, what has transpired in days gone by. “Ayin Roah,” once it was possible for a Jew to see g-dliness in his everyday existence. Then, with the degeneration which is Time’s, that wonderful faculty was ossified, and instead came “ozen shomaass," the hearing ear. People, though they saw not, at least heard from those who saw. But then this too passed, and a generation arose which neither saw nor heard. And to salvage what was left they resorted to “vechol maasecha b’sefer nichtavim," they read books voraciously, they took to study and learn and tried to gain by Cheshbon, by intellectual inculcation what they were unable to attain by sight or hearing. If the home is empty of something for the Jew to observe, and the streets supply him with nothing which he should hear, then he must turn to the Yeshivah and the Beis Hamidrash, to the Sefer and the Cheshbon.

Two prophets beheld visions, and they clearly represent these two facets of Jewish life of which we have been speaking. The vision of Isaiah was a vision of Reiah, whilst the corresponding vision of Ezekiel was one of Cheshbon. Both beheld the Merkavah, the vision of the Divine Palace, of G-dly grandeur. And each, in the lofty prophetic ecstasy, enunciated his holiest and profoundest feelings at that time. These two statements have been incorporated by us in our daily liturgy, and in one of the most sacred selections.

Isaiah, who prophesied to a people living on its own soil, serene in its security, at a time when the Temple was still in its glory, saw a vision much different from that of Ezekiel. Isaiah saw a stationary, grandiose Throne upon which the glory of G-d rested. And “veshooluv melaim ess ha’haichal,” the corners of G-d’s garment filled the palace, g-dliness was everywhere evident, it could be sensed by even the most insensitive. It was an era when the Reward and Punishment ordained by G-d was immediately evident, so that when a King Uzziah defied the Torah and put his hand into the Kodesh Hakodoshim, the inner sanctum, it immediately turned leprous as an open and unconcealed and immediate message that G-d was displeased. It was an era when ve’ha’bayis yimaleh ashan, the world was filled with the experience and knowledge of G-dliness as a closed house is thoroughly filled with smoke from a fire. It was a period of intense and intimate Reiah, observation. And so Isaiah exclaimed “Kadosh K K, etc., melo chal Ha’aretz kvodo," the entire world is filled with his holiness. Wherever you go, wherever you reside and whither you travel, G-d is to be felt.

Ezekiel too saw a vision of the Merkavah, the Divine Chariot or Palace. It was an entirely different vision, however, for he preached in an entirely different environment. Ezekiel, first of all, did not speak to a people secure in its own homeland. He spoke to a people in exile, to the Jews in Babylon. He preached to a people who no longer were able to draw inspiration from a Temple, for in its place rose the heathen temples of Bel and Marduk. A people who were becoming thoroughly Babylonized, and at best hyphenated Babylonians. And it was amongst such people that Ezekiel attempted to behold the vision of a Merkavah, a people whose “vision” was blurred, who had lost contact with the realities of Jewishness, who had forgotten the art of kid a-p reiah. And even then Ezekiel saw the great sight; he too, like Isaiah, beheld a Merkavah. But it was a different type of Merkavah. For the vision of Isaiah was stationary, rooted to the healthy soil of Israel, where Observation was still the mode of Jewish life. The Merkavah, the Chariot of Ezekiel, however had a new feature. It was fitted with Ofanim, with wheels. For great visions were not permanent in this sort of environment. Like an ordinary chariot on wheels which go rolling down the hillside with one push, the Chariot of Ezekiel too represented this shiftness, this ephemeral quality, this impermanence and transitoriness. It was not a trustworthy vision, which can survive the vicissitudes of life. “Vatisaeni ruach," the prophet's heavenly vision is swept away from him by the strange winds which blow so menacingly in his exile. A new cult of modernism and the mode of sophistication has pervaded the atmosphere of Babylonian Jewry, and these strange winds carry away the prophetic vision of glory. The Prophet now senses keenly the terrible emptiness of his people. They have lost their Merkavah, their sense of Divinity. “Vaeshma acharai kol raash gadol," he hears a great noise, rushing in to fill up the void left by the vanishing Merkavah. Nature abhors even a spiritual vacuum. Instead of the Vision of Glory, there is now only Raash, noise, empty pratter, meaningless shouting. The soft music of glory has been replaced by the grinding of machines, the hollow bellowing of “civilization." How tragic! The strange winds of the Exile have torn away the vision of the Merkavah from the Jews, and they remain only with the loud noises of the “modern” life - empty, hollow, unJewish. There is nothing left for the young Babylonian Jew to see, for the Merkavah is gone, the sanctity of his Jewry is in jeopardy. And so, the Prophet worries, there is no longer kid a-p reiah. Yet Ezekiel does not despair. For if Kid a-p reiah has proved impossible there always remains kid a-p cheshbon; if his people cannot personally, by their innate powers of observation, see Judaism, then they must study it in order to live it. And so, where Isaiah saw the spirit of G-d filling the entire Haychal, the entire land in its length and breadth, and exclaimed KKK…melo chal Haaretz kvodo, Ezekiel announces “Boruch kvod hashem mikomo," Blessed be the Name of G-d from His place, we must take to the place of G-d, to the synagogue and the school, for if we cannot see our heritage alive in our homes and our places of business, then the Beis Hamidrash, with its complicated cheshbon, must be our source of G-dliness. If not “molo chal haarez” then at least “mimkomo”; if not kid a-p reiah, then kid a-p cheshbon. And how interesting is it that this very same Ezekiel is known in history as the founder of the institution of the Synagogue.

In our day, Reiah has largely failed us. Observation is not a sufficient Route to Sanctity. Looking about me in this synagogue, I feel happy to see the Jews who are here. But, friends, how less inspiring this sight is than it should be, than it was years ago. Remember, if you will, the Slichos of many years ago. We were inspired by our observations, moved by the tightly packed synagogue, stirred by the saintly faces of worshippers wet with tears, the tears of piety and the paleness of awe. We were pitched into the mood of sanctity by the plaintive sound of venerable men with patriarchal beards crying, אל תשליכנו מלפניך ורוח קדשך אל תקח ממנו,”O G-d, cast us not away and do not withdraw thy Holy spirit from our midst." We felt the fear and awe of the season as sensitive women, trembling on the urge of oncoming old age, with its doubts and dangers and insecurities and dependency on children, wailed in prayer, אל תשליכנו לעת זקנה ככלות כחנו אל תעזבנו, “cast us not away, O G-d, at the time of old age, when our strength is spent, do not forsake us."

That was Kiddush Al-pi Re’iah. We have lost that direct, intimate approach to the Sanctity of the coming days. But there still remains An Alternate Route to Sanctity – Cheshbon.

The cheshbon ha’nefesh, calculation of the Soul, reckoning with the self, introspection – where have I erred, how have I sinned, why did I not do my G-d-ordained duty. How can I better my actions towards my religion, behavior towards family and friends.

The Cheshbon of business – The calculation of honest accounting, of integrity in finances. And finally the Cheshbon of which we previously spoke, the Cheshbon of reading and studying and listening and thinking. The Cheshbon of prayer, the Synagogue and school.

Your presence here tonight, friends, proves that you have found the Alternate Route to Sanctity. Continue on it. Be with us on the Holidays, on Shabbos, every day.

Let us hope and pray that G-d’s forgiveness will be extended to us, that His Sanctity will emanate Mimkomo and fill Kol Haaretz; and that all of us and all of Israel will be blessed with a good, happy and blessed year to come.