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Day by Day towards the New Year: Dear Friends – The countdown has begun! According to the Jewish calendar, the last month of the Jewish year began yesterday. Elul has arrived, which means the “countdown” to the New Year is upon us. Count forward from today and when Sunday evening, September 16 arrives, you and I will be at Rosh Hashanah. Then we reflect. We look back on the last year and look forward to the coming year. We consider what we have done with the last year and, according to tradition, we resolve to do better and to be better. Something occurs to me, however. Can I really look back over the last year? Can I really remember what I did and didn’t do? Let me be honest: In many cases, I can’t remember too fully what I did last week, let alone last January or October. I need some help. For the holidays to work, I need to jog my memory and really work at summoning up the last year. That is one reason for the month of Elul, which we now enter. Elul is our time for beginning to remember. Elul is preparation time. Elul is like the preparation you do before a big race or a big climb. You get those muscles stretched and limber so that you are in shape for the big event when it arrives. Task #1 – Look back over this year…5772… September 2011 By the way, in its newest ads, Chevrolet now claims that “Chevy runs deep.” Shalom, p.s. During the coming four weeks, the Cantor and I will be in more frequent contact with you. Our “regular” e-vents with Temple news will usually arrive on Tuesdays. Our ELUL THOUGHTS AND INSIGHTS will arrive on other days.
Day by Day towards the New Year: An introduction from Rabbi Shapiro… Dear Sinai - As we continue the journey into Elul and the end of summer, I found this commentary by Rabbi Lisa Goldstein, Executive Director of the Institute for Jewish Spirituality. She offers a beautiful image for this time of year. Imagine “walking in the field” and encountering something/someone ultimate…. There is no more transformational time of year than the season we have just entered - of Elul and of Tishrei - of preparation, reflection, and teshuvah. I once heard a story from Rabbi Sholom Rivkin, who told that in the old days, if you wanted to go talk to the king, you had to think about who could help you get invited to the palace. You had to wear your best clothes and learn the court etiquette - how to enter the throne room, when to bow, what to say, where to look. It was all very complicated and very serious. But sometimes, the king just went for a walk in the fields. And at those times, you could just start walking along next to the king and share whatever was on your heart. Elul is the season when the King goes walking in the fields. I love this imagery, the intimacy, the hope it conveys for coming close to the Divine. I feel my heart leap up: Yes! I too want to go for a walk with the King! (or the Queen - pick your metaphor of royalty.) I want that immediate access, the instant connection. So often I focus on learning the court ritual, or, as we say, "preparing the vessel" - committing to the form of the ritual, dragging my attention back over and over. I know that the practice is a tool that can create the possibility for those moments of awareness. Yet I yearn for those moments of grace. I also love this story because the High Holy Days themselves are like the throne room, not like the open fields. They are arguably the most formal, complicated and serious days of our whole year. We could get seduced into thinking that the preparation for these Days of Awe is mostly involved with liturgy and choreography. But this is precisely when God invites greater accessibility of a very different kind. And so part of my preparation for the Holy Days includes imagining:
Wishing you an inspiring, heart-opening beginning to these most holy of days! ******** You may enjoy visiting (even relaxing) with the website of the Institute for Jewish Spirituality. One of the Institute’s leaders, Rabbi Sheila Weinberg, will be teaching at our own Sinai Temple this coming Saturday, October 20. http://www.jewishspirituality.org/ Day by Day towards the New Year Reflections from Sinai Temple 9 Elul 5772 August 27, 2012 It’s Elul: What have you been doing with your time? According to Pirkei Avot, the Mishnah text from almost 2000 years ago, Rabbi Eliezer would say: "Repent one day before your death." His students asked him: "How does a person know on which day he will die?" He said to them: "Since this is the case, a person should repent today, for perhaps tomorrow he will die."(Pirkei Avot 2:10) I watched an interesting movie this weekend: In Time. It was released about a year ago, starring Justin Timberlake. It’s not a great movie, but it has an absolutely incredible science fiction premise: in a dystopian near future, human beings have been genetically engineered to stop aging when they are twenty-five years old. Once you turn twenty-five, your biological clock literally begins to tick down. You have one year to live, and how much time you have to live is displayed by glowing digital clock numbers on your arm continually counting down towards zero. You can earn more time by a variety of ways, legal and illegal, and in this world, time is the only currency. You want to buy a cup of coffee? That’ll be 4 minutes. The poor never have enough time, and literally live day to day, while the very wealthy are essentially immortal: they have all the time in the world. The people in this movie don’t need to worry about Rabbi Eliezer's teaching on repentance; they know exactly how long they have until they die! We don’t have the benefit (or curse) of a clock on our arm telling us how much time we have left, but every year, the month of Elul and the sound of the shofar nudge us to think about what we have been doing with our time. What have we done the past year? Are we better people than we were a year ago? Have we tried to make the world a better place than it was a year ago? Another year has almost passed, how have we used our time? There is a scene in the movie where a wealthy (over one hundred years on his clock!) but world-weary man asks Justin Timberlake’s character: “If you had as much time as I have, what would you do with it?" Justin looks at his arm, at the numbers ticking down, and replies: "I can tell you one thing. If I had all that time, I sure as hell wouldn’t waste it. It’s almost Rosh Hashanah. What have you been doing with your time? -- Cantor Martin Levson Day by Day towards the New Year Reflections from Sinai Temple 13 Elul 5772 August 31, 2012 Dear Friends of Sinai – A friend of mine suggests that the month leading up to Rosh Hashanah is designed for asking questions. He suggests that Elul is the time for asking if we have lived the life we intended to live since Rosh Hashanah last came our way.
I know the questions are heavy. Since most of us probably have to acknowledge we haven’t done all that we wanted to do, the temptation is to turn away from the questions. On a sunny day like today the probing begins to feel almost depressing. Or, you might say, a sunny day like today is exactly the kind of day for asking questions. Clear skies might be the best skies under which to take a deep breath and resolve life can be different. A missed opportunity for change is not the end of the story. It represents only a page in the much longer book of life each of us can write. Perhaps the following two quotations can inspire you to see this day and the whole month of Elul as creative possibilities. Shabbat shalom.
Day by Day towards the New Year Preparing for the NEW YOU… Rabbi Lawrence A. Hoffman (Professor of Liturgy, Hebrew Union College) I am increasingly moved by Psalm 27:4, which we sing every day during Elul services at HUC and which I try never to miss: “One thing I ask of Adonai. It alone do I seek: to live in Adonai’s house all the days of my life.” For the psalmist, Adonai’s house was the sacrificial Temple in Jerusalem. Today it is the synagogue. So as I sing the psalm, I look forward to High Holy Day worship in a synagogue. I focus on the possibility of experiencing God’s presence there, and—knowing the blessing of starting all over again—my slate cleared of sin, resentment, and fear. In a broader sense, I interpret “God’s house” as encompassing the whole world. So, I pray for regularized moments of eternity—by which I mean daily reminders of God’s reality. I have, more or less, somehow managed to attain the ongoing serenity that silences the cacophony of daily life; and I want to retain that gift. High Holy Day preparations remind me that regardless of where I am and what day it happens to be, I am sustained by God, directed to a higher vision, and able to face whatever comes my way. Theodore Bikel (Actor, musician, activist) The Hebrew phrase that describes the High Holidays is to me deeply troubling. The common English translation is a euphemism, a softened version of what the Hebrew actually says. Yamim Noraim is rendered as “days of awe.” Awe denotes wonder, admiration, respect, veneration. But the accurate rendition of Yamim Noraim is “days of dread,” and that denotes fear, terror, trepidation, and anxiety. If God is real, a higher being with anthropomorphic features and faculties, then I owe an accounting to God, a retelling of the year’s transgressions so I can take my punishment as the boys did in cheder (old-world Jewish elementary school) at the hands of the rabbi. But if God is a concept, an idea, an omnipresence, undefined by shape and substance, then I owe the accounting to a much harsher judge: myself. And I can’t lie. Denial does not work when you are submitting to the inner judge. You know very well what you did; and you also know what you failed to do. I myself have such attachments. The places of worship where the sounds of prayer speak to me are those that still use the Ashkenazic Hebrew rather than the Sephardic. I speak, read, and write modern Hebrew, and I lived in what is now Israel for eight years. Might I not be forgiven for relating less to liturgy and prayer in the language that I also employed while ordering scrambled eggs? My attachment to Ashkenazic Hebrew—and to Yiddish—is a tribute to my grandfather Reb Shimen Bikel Hacohen z”l and to my father, the socialist, the Hebrew and Yiddish scholar Joseph Bikel z”l. The questions of “who I am” and of “what is owed to whom” get to be in sharper focus on the High Holy Days. Rabbi Stacia Deutsch (Temple Beth Sholom of Orange County, California) Last summer I took a life-changing trip to Malawi, Africa. I witnessed safari wildlife and native culture I’d never before seen—along with abject poverty (70% of the people live on a dollar a day), cemeteries for those who die of HIV/AIDS, and food shortages. My friends own a restaurant where the cooks steal pizza dough in their pants and cheese in their shoes. People are desperate. I’ve kept trying. Sometimes I feel like Abraham negotiating with God for the lives at Sodom and Gomorrah, only I’m negotiating blessings. “So God, 100 blessings a day is too many, how about 40…30…20? What if I brought you one heartfelt thank you every day?" Blessings are a call to action. If we could each achieve 36,500 moments of gratitude each year, the sheer number would uplift our souls. From that joy would come the desire to help others obtain one hundred blessings in their lives. September 12, 2012 The High Holidays are a fascinating time musically. There are some melodies that are only used twice a year, and some melodies that are over five hundred years old! There are melodies that literally define the feelings of the holiday: the haunting Kol Nidre, and the majestic Avinu Malkeynu of Max Janowski. You can find a number of the melodies we use for the High Holidays on our Sinai Temple website. Today, I would particularly like to call to your attention a new and an old melody. This summer, I learned a lovely setting for Psalm 89:3 – Olam Chesed Yibaneh, “Your steadfast love is confirmed forever.” The melody is very easy to learn, has only three words of Hebrew, has a nice paraphrased English section, and is quite powerful when sung by a large group of people. I have been singing this piece at every Friday night service for the past few weeks in preparation for the beginning of the Rosh Hashanah evening service, where I hope to have our entire congregation singing this melody together. You can hear it (and practice it!) here: http://www.sinai-temple.org/Cantor/High_Holidays/olam_chesed_yibaneh.php One of the most familiar motives of the High Holidays is the “L’shana Tovah” leitmotif, G-A-G-E-F-G. But here’s something you may not have realized: that melody is traditionally only for the evening services of yontif. Therefore, this year I am introducing the traditional melody for the Bar’chu for the morning services. It’s quite majestic, and I hope everyone will join together in the congregational refrain. You can hear (and practice it!) here: http://www.sinai-temple.org/Cantor/High_Holidays/barchu_high_holidays_morning.php Finally, I would like to call your attention to a fascinating article that crossed my computer screen this past week. It’s worth reading, and worth discussing. http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-life-and-religion/111260/make-some-noise-in-synagogue?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=make-some-noise-in-synagogue And in the spirit of this article, when we all gather together this Sunday evening to begin our celebration of the High Holidays, I have one humble request of you: Don’t just sit there passively, SING! Raise your voice in song with me, with the choir, and with the congregation. Let’s make some joyful noise together! Shana Tova U’mitukah, a good and sweet New Year!
Dear Sinai - We’ve almost arrived at Rosh Hashanah, and I do hope you have enjoyed the e-mails that have arrived during this last month. As Elul concludes I am excited to offer you a very 21st century way to continue the High Holiday process followed by some holiday suggestions. L’shana tova tikateyvu…May you all be written into the Book of Life for a good year. Rabbi Mark ShapiroFor the 21st Century ------ Life's Biggest Questions. Answered By You. Answer one question per day in your own secret online 10Q space. Make your answers serious. Silly. Salacious. However you like. When you're finished, hit the magic button and your answers get sent to the secure online 10Q vault for safekeeping. One year later, the vault will open and your answers will land back in your email inbox for private reflection. 10Q begins Sept 16th, 2012 How It Works Each day, from September 16th, a 10Q question will land in your inbox along with a link. When you click on the link, you will be taken to a private and personal space where you can answer the question. Your answer will be stored. The next day, you will receive another question and a link. And so on, for ten days. At the end of the ten days, you will then be invited to hit the magic button and send your answers to a locked online vault. Next year, on the eve of Rosh Hashanah, your answers will magically appear in your inbox. (Note from Rabbi Shapiro – I have now done 10Q for two years and my answers from both years did arrive in my inbox earlier this week. It was remarkable and fabulous! Try this out. I think you’ll be impressed.) Click www.renewyear.com to get your 10Q on. ****** The following is a pre-holiday bulletin article I wrote a few years ago. I hope it will be helpful to you now in 2012 as well. Dear Friends - Let’s imagine that someone said the following to me, “I belong to Sinai. I’m a Reform Jew. Are there guidelines for me in observing the High Holiday?” Here is my vision for giving the holidays Jewish meaning this year. First, use the home services that are on our Temple website. You should recite the blessings before the Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur meals because Judaism begins in the home and because Jews ought to welcome great occasions with gracious thanks (blessings!) for life. Secondly, attend all the services on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Although you may not believe it, I really don’t take attendance during the rest of the year. However, when it comes to the holidays, I think attendance is required. It’s like going to Tanglewood. You wouldn’t arrive for the second movement of the symphony, and you also wouldn’t skip the third movement. You wouldn’t do so because you know that a piece of music is an organic whole. Missing part of it means missing its meaning. Dear friends, the same holds true for High Holiday services. Although I do understand why some people may stay home with family on Erev Rosh Hashanah, every other service is crucial. The whole of the services is what makes the holidays whole. And while I’m offering commentary, you may have forgotten the custom of lighting a yahrzeit/memorial candle before coming to Temple for Kol Nidre. Just as the Yom Kippur Yizkor service is a critical part of entering the New Year, Jews prepare for Yizkor by lighting that small 24-hour candle at home when Yom Kippur begins. Fasting is also a necessity on Yom Kippur. I do assume that almost every Sinai congregant fasts, but just in case that’s not so, let me remind you that fasting is important because it truly makes the day different, because it reminds us how much we usually take for granted, and because fasting is a small form of deprivation that goes along with the day of introspection. Fasting is also important because it requires discipline and challenges us in one small way to overcome our body’s needs and reach for something beyond. Finally, there is one more Sinai necessity. Everyone needs to bring food to the Yom Kippur Food Van. It’s not hard to do. It’s actually an opportunity for goodness which the congregation drops in your lap. While you’re not eating voluntarily all you need to do is bring some food for those who go hungry daily. And that’s it. As a Reform Jew, these five directives should give shape to the next few weeks. Together we have a wonderful journey before us. I look forward to all of it from Erev Rosh Hashanah through to the final tekiah of the Neilah/Closing Service
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