September 6, 2018

ED: The following is a excerpt from the story, “Rabbis Share Sneak Previews of Holy Days Messages” which ran in our Rosh Hashanah Sept. 7 issue. 

Rabbi Lori Shapiro
The Open Temple

The High Holy Days liturgy is unequivocal when it proclaims: Ha-Melech yoshev al kisey ram venisah (The King: sitting upon your lofty and exalted throne). It challenges our utopian ideals. If we are supposed to imagine the world as it could be, with our hands as partners in creation, what are we supposed to do with this undeniably anthropomorphic image of God? Enter into the theater of the High Holy Days. Thousands of individuals shlepped to the desert to transform themselves through identity role-play at Burning Man. And yet, we seem to take the High Holy Days so literally, when in fact we are being invited to engage in a similar theater that asks: Who am I? How can I embrace the Other? What wreckage do I need to let burn off?

These High Holy Days, we should let our guards down. “This is real and you are completely unprepared,” Rabbi Alan Lew (z”l) implored us to recount in his book of the same title. Accept the role of servant serving a higher power and stand in radical amazement. Look around — at our houses, clothes, cars, community. There is nothing that any of us uniquely created on our own but our thoughts. There is slavery in this. These Yamim Noraim, role-play through the Gates of Repentance. Stand before that King with fear and trembling. And enter into this year dedicated to the connectivity that comes from being a part of a larger and mysterious system that demands our curiosity, commitment and awe.

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ED: The following is a excerpt from the story, “Rabbis Share Sneak Previews of Holy Days Messages” which ran in our Rosh Hashanah Sept. 7 issue. 

Rabbi Moshe D. Bryski
Chabad of the Conejo

A prevalent sentiment these days seems to be that things are “broken,” from politics to government, domestic to foreign affairs, media matters to social issues, schools to synagogues, family life to the dating scene. Spiritually, this response to events is neither healthy nor accurate. The word “broken” implies shattered beyond any hope of redemption or repair. Judaism rejects fatalism. It summons us to embrace the cracks and imperfections and use them as catapults to growth; to improving and elevating that which we can.“If you believe that you are capable of messing things up, believe that you are capable of fixing them,” says the Chasidic Master.

While things may be far from perfect, they’re even further from hopeless. There is in fact a lot of good going on in the world and in our lives. The question is wherein lies our focus? How do we frame the stories of our lives? We each have a role to play in the repair process. It begins by bringing new light into our corner of the world. Rather than “broken,” call it “under construction.” Tell an uplifting story about your life in 5779 and that will become your destiny.

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ED: The following is a excerpt from the story, “Rabbis Share Sneak Previews of Holy Days Messages” which ran in our Rosh Hashanah Sept. 7 issue. 

Rabbi Mordecai Finley
Ohr HaTorah

Many people have a feeling of being lost: sometimes acute, sometimes like a distant echo. Some people call this feeling a lack of meaning. Others feel a wounded soul. Often, people suffering within have good enough jobs, good enough spouses and children, good enough hobbies. Within pretty good lives, they ask: Is this all there is? Life presents us with existential questions and we often don’t know what to do, what to think, what to believe or what to say. Some have had wrong done to them and don’t know whether to seek justice or find some measure of forgiveness. Others have done wrong and want to repent. Some are seeking the Divine. Some are seeking a sense of the transcendent without God-talk. Some are trying to save a relationship that they know can be saved, or made better, but don’t know how.

We hold that the inner life (moral, philosophical and spiritual) traditions of Judaism are filled with wisdom and insight for all areas of our lives. At Ohr HaTorah, our teachings at every service during the Days of Awe will be devoted to some aspect of creating a life of meaning through Jewish inner life traditions. Join us!

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ED: The following is a excerpt from the story, “Rabbis Share Sneak Previews of Holy Days Messages” which ran in our Rosh Hashanah Sept. 7 issue. 

Rabbi Denise Eger
Congregation Kol Ami

Congregation Kol Ami will focus this High Holy Days on the theme of  “Imagine a New Year, Imagine a new you.” The process of teshuvah demands that we reflect and examine, confess and seek correctives to the behaviors, sins and errors that kept us from being at our best and that have kept us from fulfilling the mitzvot, our sacred obligations to God and community and family.

A significant part of the teshuvah process is also a commitment to refrain from making those errors, mistakes and sins again. But often the problem is that we cannot imagine our lives without those ingrained ways that have led us astray. So we will learn that through the unique prayers for this season how we can imagine and visualize not only a new way of being that distances us from the sins of our past but also imagining and visualizing and praying and creating a world of justice, peace and hope. We will look at the idea of prayer as visualization. We will explore reimagining our congregational mission and call on our community members to participate and engage in the transformation of their own lives and our communal life with a holy commitment to build the world anew on a foundation of chesed and emet — lovingkindness and truth.

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ED: The following is a excerpt from the story, “Rabbis Share Sneak Previews of Holy Days Messages” which ran in our Rosh Hashanah Sept. 7 issue. 

Rabbi Stan Levy and Rabbi Laura Owens
B’nai Horin

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:
A time to be reborn and a time to let old habits die;
A time to plant new seeds and a time to harvest the fruits of our labor;
A time to destroy negative scripts and a time to heal relationships;
A time to break down walls and barriers and a time to build up bridges and deeper connections;
A time to cry and a time to laugh;
A time to mourn what we have lost and a time to dance with what we have gained;
A time to throw away what we do not need and a time to gather what we do need;
A time to embrace what is affirming and a time to resist what is rejecting;
A time to seek new adventures and a time to let go of what is cluttering our lives;
A time to keep what is positive and a time to throw away what is negative;
A time to keep silent and experience the sheer awe of life and a time to speak out against injustice and mendacity;
A time to love what is good and healthy and a time to hate what is evil and destructive;
A time to wage war against what is wrong and a time to be at peace with what is right.

This passage from the book of Kohelet (Ecclesiastes) is a most profound teaching. Within its many verses, it gives us direction into navigating the passages we live through in our lives, and insights into deepening our understanding of ourselves and of our interpersonal relationships. It is a passage that captures the essence of the High Holy Days/The Days of Awe and expresses what our themes and focus will be for each of our High Holy Days services. How do we face this moment? How do we enter into this new spiritual year? What possibilities does it present to us and how do we determine what to do to make the most of this opportunity for reflection and renewal? What are we doing with the time we have and how do we access both the inner and the external resources we have been given to live our lives with meaning, purpose and joy?

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