Business as Usual? Shabbat Shuva 5787

 This piece by Rabbi Kenigsberg was first published in Hanassi Highlights, Thursday 17 September 2026. Thanks to ChatGPT you can also read it in Hebrew, here.

Shabbat Shuva occupies a unique place in the Jewish calendar: a brief pause between the two great days of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, giving us an opportunity to reflect on where we have been before taking the next steps of the journey. And perhaps there is a message for this moment hidden in a seemingly strange detail of the Torah reading we heard just a few days ago.

On the second day of Rosh Hashanah, we read the story of the Akeidah. We understand why. Avraham’s willingness to sacrifice his beloved son represents an almost unimaginable act of faith and devotion. We follow Avraham and Yitzchak up the mountain; we hear the angel call, “Avraham, Avraham,” and command him not to harm his son; and we see the ram caught in the thicket, offered in Yitzchak’s place.

Surely that is where the reading should end. Instead, we continue with what seems like an entirely mundane list of births in Avraham’s extended family: “Utz his firstborn, Buz his brother…” until eventually we are told that Betuel fathered Rivkah. Why include these seemingly irrelevant verses in the public reading of this auspicious day?

Rav Soloveitchik offered a powerful explanation. The Akeidah had just taken place. It was an earth-shattering event, an encounter of extraordinary spiritual intensity. We might imagine that after something like that, the world could never simply return to normal.

And yet it did. Utz was born. Then Buz. Then Kemuel. Another child, another day. Life carried on. For everyone else, it was business as usual. That, Rav Soloveitchik suggested, is precisely why we read these verses on Rosh Hashanah. The greatest danger of the Yamim Noraim is not that we will fail to be moved. The tefillot, the shofar and the atmosphere almost inevitably affect us. The danger is that, after being moved, we remain exactly where we were before.

On Shabbat Shuva, that challenge becomes urgent. The prophet Hoshea calls to us: “Take words with you and return to Hashem”. Do not come empty-handed. Perhaps that is also the challenge of Haazinu. Moshe Rabbeinu calls upon us not merely to hear his words, but “Take to heart all these words” (Devarim 32:46). Hearing is not enough. Inspiration must become transformation.

As Yom Kippur approaches, each of us can ask one simple question: What am I taking with me? One commitment, one relationship to repair, one area of tefillah or Torah to strengthen, one concrete step that will ensure that when these extraordinary days have passed, life will not simply return to business as usual.

The Yamim Noraim should move us. But even more importantly, they should move us forward.

Shabbat Shalom, Gmar Chatima Tova!