Arnold Schoenberg and Eric Zeisl have a lot in common. Each of the late Austrian Jewish composers is renown for their contributions to the world of liturgical music. And each is a great-grandparent of Nathan Arnold Schoenberg.
Many Jews will point to the Hebrew word het for sin, which is an archery term, and insist that Judaism teaches that sin is just “missing the mark.” That simplification does a grave injustice to the Jewish tradition.
The conversation is supposed to begin like this: “Will you forgive me for anything I might have said or done this year that has hurt you?”
Before creating the human being, according to a Midrash, God consulted the angels of heaven. The Angel of Peace argued, “Don’t create him! He will bring war into Your world!” The Angel of Compassion countered, “He will do kindness, create him!”
Not long ago, I showed up for a Friday night Shabbat service at Beit T’Shuvah in Culver City. Over the years, I have counseled a number of congregants whose adult children were saved by this addiction recovery program, and I wanted to experience Beit T’Shuvah’s spiritual Shabbat service, which I had heard so much about.
If my calculations are correct, I have listened to somewhere between 70 and 80 High Holy Days sermons. The total sounds high, but when you consider that typically four different High Holy Days sermons are delivered between Erev Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the numbers add up quickly.
I suppose that Kol Nidrei is still the best-attended service of the Jewish calendar, but surely the memorial service known as Yizkor is a close second. After all, Yizkor — which means “May God remember…” — is the moment when we are invited to recall in solemn prayer the loved ones who have passed away, a deeply poignant and sometimes painful experience that stands out in sharp relief from the other services during the High Holy Days.
I met a man on my hospital rounds with a full head of white hair, powerful arms and a purposeful gaze who was dying of leukemia. He was the president of a corporation, he told me, and his current hospitalization was a temporary setback.
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