Friends, let me explain what I want to try and do today.

I want to try and say something about the book itself,

Ceremony and Celebration, is about the major festivals

and is a collection of the prefacees I've done for each of the marcerium.

So what I want to do tonight is say something I haven't said before.

And I want to explain what I'm going to try and do.

I'm always trying to look at the big picture,

you know, not just what and how, but why.

Why do we do the things we do? And can we see the forest, not just what and how, but why? Why do we do the things we do?

And can we see the forest, not just the trees?

And sometimes I try and do something, which is like a literary equivalent of being an archaeologist.

Can you dig just beneath the surface of the text to find something extraordinary, unexpected, and very beautiful

that you never saw before because you were just looking at the surface.

And I want to do that in relation to Rosh Hashanah itself, and we will see that if we peel back the layers of the texts,

we will see something extraordinary and remarkable.

A drama that happened in Jewish history,

at a particular time in Jewish history,

that I regard as personally, spiritually, and philosophically,

one of the most remarkable things in the entire history of Judaism,

and it's there lying covered just beneath the surface.

And let's do it.

And let's begin at the beginning. The simple stuff first.

...