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High Holidays 2022

What is Evil

October 19, 2022 by Gillian Jackson

Yom Kippur Sermon 2022, Rabbi Debra Rappaport

One of my teachers in rabbinical school used to say that all rabbis have basically one sermon that they continue to give in different forms throughout their rabbinate. Of course that made me really curious about what the essence of my one sermon might be. Sometimes I think it’s some variation on “be kind” and/or “be conscious;” it’s certainly about the importance and potential of community. I also believe what Richard Bach wrote: “we teach best what we most need to learn’’ – lest you think I come in with all this figured out. I share these perspectives on my sermon writing because I do tend toward practices for wellbeing and cultivating positive traits in ourselves for the sake of the highest good for our communities and world. 

But on Yom Kippur, I find the dark side compelling. Maybe it’s the scapegoat story we just read, prodding at my psyche, wanting to know – what are those sins and what does it mean to confess them onto a goat to sacrifice to God and onto another goat to send into the wilderness? The story raises the aspect of the numinous, the aspects of forces of wickedness or evil that perhaps defy neat categories of sin and confession and the possibility of teshuvah. The trends of the past several years have also forced me to do some rethinking of my theology, that godliness is in every one of us and we just have to make good choices. Because so many humans are making bad choices – ranging from unkind to harmful to cruel. Hate-based speech and actions are on the rise; violent gun attacks on crowds and schools are on the rise; Putin’s heartless war on Ukraine is the most Euro-centric example we’ve had of stunning, inhumane cruelty inflicted on fellow human beings. There are so many more ordinary instances of human evil, including domestic violence, limiting access to voting, banning books and curriculum topics. It’s harder to be in a state of mind in which I believe these are simply differences of opinion and I believe everyone wants the highest good. 

I don’t use the word “evil” much. It seems to evoke the demonic, like there is some force, the devil out there that might get us – which I don’t really believe. Yet our tradition uses the word “evil” rasha frequently, including in today’s liturgy and Haftarah. 

Here’s my question: According to Jewish sources, is evil a force in its own right, that we can annually send away on a goat to Azazel? Or is it in each one of us, something to reckon with and integrate? What, if anything, do our sources offer to help us combat the forces of wickedness, of cruelty? It doesn’t feel like my place to tell you which places of wrongdoing or the evil of collective negligence need your attention. There are so many to choose from. But it does feel like my place to offer up Jewish sources in the hope that they can inspire you to do your part. We’ll start with some of what we encounter directly on Yom Kippur, then I’ll offer a brief survey of Jewish teachings – which have a lot to say about it! 

Specific to the High Holiday liturgy, the Unetaneh Tokef poetic prayer talks about all the ways we could die, then offers: u’teshuvah, tefillah and tzedakah (repentance, prayer, and doing justice) ma’avirin et ro’at-ha’gezerah, lessen the evil of the decree. I think this use of evil refers to our human vulnerability, or the fact of death, more than to human wickedness. Bad things just happen in the world. This is the sort of “evil” in which children develop cancer, families die in car or plane crashes, a pandemic takes millions of lives. In these instances, our clear obligation is to respond, to call upon our spiritual and material resources toward healing, loving, resilience and choosing life. Asking “why” in these moments, while a natural place for our minds to want to go, is not fruitful because we can’t know. 

In the Haftarah we just read, Isaiah 58:6-7 “No, this is the fast I desire: To unlock fetters of wickedness – rasha, And untie the cords of the yoke To let the oppressed go free; To break off every yoke. It is to share your bread with the hungry, And to take the wretched poor into your home; When you see the naked, to clothe him..” Here, rasha wickedness is equated with heartlessness toward the suffering of others. 

The Biblical story that involves human evil begins with the Tree of Knowledge of Good & Evil. When Eve and Adam ate from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, childhood innocence ended. Humans were now in a world of consequences, and even more importantly a world of self-consciousness, having to take responsibility for our actions. We have access to knowledge of good and evil, to a conscience. 

Satan, or HaSatan appears in the Hebrew bible not as a devil or evil incarnation, but as an adversary. The word’s root means to obstruct or oppose. In Job, HaSatan (the Satan, not a proper name) is translated as the prosecutor. In all cases, haSatan is one of God’s servants or angels. The notion of opposition is clear, he’s more like your partner “playing devil’s advocate” than the devil himself. Facing an adversary, we are then called to recognize that that too is God, and to bring our most exemplary selves. 

The rabbis following the Torah developed the idea of wickedness within each and every one of us. They called it the yetzer-ha-ra, the evil inclination, which we can imagine sitting on one’s left shoulder arguing with the yetzer ha-tov, the good inclination on our right shoulder, like in the Capra movie. Our job is to keep the yetzer ha-ra, our wild impulses, under the yoke of the laws of Torah. 

Medieval philosopher Maimonides understood both God and God’s Created world as essentially good. He understood evil as the privation or absence of God. “Evil in comparison with good is like darkness in comparison with light. It is not the contrast between one being and another being, but between a being and its absence. …For Maimonides, to speak of good and evil as two independent entities would have been as if we offered a child a partnership: come, let us bake a bagel: you supply the flour and water and I supply the hole. This example would face us with the absurdity of comparing a void and an entity, evil and good. The hole is not something which exists in its own right. It is merely the result, and accompanying symptom, of a certain structure of the universe, which is itself good.” (Shalom Rosenberg, p. 29) In Maimonides’ worldview, human evil is the consequence of stupidity, ignorance, blindness, and irrationality – all related to the lack of knowing God. Human evil stems from distortion of our subjective lens. Unlike God, we can never see the full picture. So in this model, because evil does not exist as an independent force or power but as the absence of God, humans have the obligation to learn about the way of the world and thereby choose good. 

Some early Kabbalistic theology actually saw sitra achra – the dark side – as a force independent of God. This dualism didn’t last. The dominant theology of the mystics emerged in a story of creation in which longing for companionship inspired God to create. Only Adam Kadmon, the original creation, could not contain God’s brightness – so sparks of God scattered throughout the world, encased in klippot, shards or shells which appear to contain evil but actually contain sparks of redemption. Our work is to free the sparks of holiness from their klippot through teshuvah, and bring more holiness into the world and thus to heaven too. In other words, in every negative encounter, every place that’s difficult or where suffering is experienced, there is a spark of holiness somewhere within that, and our job is to find and free that spark. 

Zooming forward a millennium, I want to share philosopher Hannah Arendt’s observations after covering the Eichmann trial in 1961. After living through the Holocaust, arguably the most radical evil in human history, and hearing the testimony of one of its most horrific perpetrators, she came away with the understanding of evil as banal – NOT trivial, she spent the rest of her life clarifying. What she meant by describing evil as banal is that it is not deep. Here I quote her: 

“It is indeed my opinion now that evil is never ‘radical’, that it is only extreme, and that it possesses neither depth nor any demonic dimension. It can overgrow and lay waste the whole world precisely because it spreads like a fungus on the 

surface. It is ‘thought-defying’ as I said, because thought tries to reach some depth, to go to the roots, and the moment it concerns itself with evil, it is frustrated because there is nothing. That is its ‘banality’. Only the good has depth and can be radical.” (The Jewish Writings, p. 471) 

“Precisely because these criminals were not driven by the evil and murderous motives we’re familiar with – they murdered not to murder but simply as a part of their career – it seemed only too obvious to us all that we needed to demonize the catastrophe in order to find some historical meaning in it. And I admit, it is easier to bear the thought that the victim is the victim of the devil in human disguise – or as the prosecutor in the Eichmann trial put it, of a historical principle stretching from Pharoah to Haman – the victim of a metaphysical principle, rather than the victim of some average man on the street who is not even crazy or particularly evil.” (p. 487-88) 

This is chilling. The worst human evil is perpetrated when people are being shallow, unwilling or unable to connect with the depth of our interbeing. It’s happening in our world. We can blame the explosion of social media, making everything about image and ratings. We can blame reducing communications and relationships to Twitter. We can blame late stage capitalism. But all the energy we might spend blaming is wasted. 

What Hannah Arendt said most succinctly, and all of our tradition teaches, rings true to me. Evil is simply not a force that we can sacrifice to God or send away with the scapegoat, as our Torah reading described. Rather, the story invites us to think about what wiping the slate clean might entail. We need to put our energy toward responding, and each of our sources points in a direction that supports a balancing and healing response. 

Adam and Eve brought us conscious awareness. Let’s not hide from it or bury it in business. 

Isaiah reminds us to tend to the suffering of others, now! 

Interpersonally, when we’re faced with wickedness or simple frustration, we have the choice to look for and lift up the presence God or of good, the holy sparks in husks of wickedness. I recently heard a story of a cab driver whose ride didn’t come out right away. It was a poor neighborhood, and he knew his fellow drivers would have waited the obligatory two minutes and left. But he decided to give the person the benefit of the doubt. He rang the doorbell; inside was a frail elderly woman; and all the furniture was covered as if no one lived there. He helped her out to the car. She shared that she was on her way to hospice care, and didn’t have any living relatives. He ended up taking her around to the various places that had mattered in her life; and he refused to charge her anything. That is lifting up the sparks. The driver himself was nourished, by having responded with love in such a tender moment. 

Maimonides taught that we should each consider ourselves as well as all the world half meritorious and half culpable all year long. And we should believe that if we were to commit just one sin, we would incline ourselves and the entire world toward guilt and bring about destruction; and, contrarily, that if we were to fulfill just one mitzvah we would incline ourselves and the entire world toward merit and bring about salvation and redemption. Every choice, every action can have that impact. I walked in Nichols Arboretum yesterday. I witnessed the difference made by a few people’s attention to the natural environment, generations ago. The biodiversity in there was remarkable. 

The Musar movement gives tools for practicing responding well in each moment, through cultivating middot, values. Musar acknowledges that all worthwhile values exist on a continuum. In the mussar worldview, “evil” and wickedness come from an extreme at either end of a virtue continuum. For example, at one end of a continuum of humility would be excessive pride, and at the other end, excessive self-effacement. Neither extreme is in service of the highest good; evil applies when one is off-the-charts in one direction or the other – megalomania on one end, or at the other end the kind of invisibility that leads to despair or violence. Musar, while not focused on evil, understands wickedness and harm as coming out of the extremes of good qualities each one of us has. It is our soul’s work to practice moderation where we tend to the extremes. Each one of us must find our own soul curriculum within the context of each value, like humility, patience, giving the benefit of the doubt, kindness, and so on.1 

Hannah Arendt offered this: “We resist evil by not being swept away by the surface of things, by stopping ourselves and beginning to think.” she adds, “the more superficial someone is, the more likely he will be to yield to evil. An indication of such superficiality is the use of clichés, and Eichmann, God knows, was a perfect example. Each time he was tempted to think for himself, he said: Who am I to judge if all around me – that is, the atmosphere in which we unthinkingly live – think it is right to murder innocent people?” (479-80) Again, a chilling example of what can unfold if we don’t stop some of the trends happening in the public square. 

Yom Kippur is the time to reflect on what we are mindlessly doing or colluding with. What are you willing to see and respond to you that you weren’t last year? What are you willing to speak out about? Where are you willing to put your time and other resources? As we progress through this season, may we be mindful of all the little choices that make the entire world tilt toward merit. As we are called by God, let’s Choose Life! 

L’shanah tova u’metukah! 

Filed Under: Rabbi's Posts Tagged With: High Holidays 2022, Rabbi Debra Rappaport, Yom Kippur

Fasting and Nourishment

October 19, 2022 by Gillian Jackson

R’ Debra Rappaport, AARC, Kol Nidre 5783 / 2022 

I’ve been wanting to write this sermon for a very long time. It’s called “Fasting & Nourishment.” I’ve always been curious about why so many Jewish people, especially those who don’t observe the letter of the Jewish law throughout the year, take the Yom Kippur fast so earnestly. Tonight I’m going to reflect on the layers of significance of a 25 hour fast on the holiest day of the year. 

In full disclosure, I don’t observe a halakhic, pure fast of abstention from all food and water; and I understand the appeal, and it’s complicated. At its best, fasting on Yom Kippur gives us the opportunity to bring increased awareness to the true nourishment we receive from all we consume, food and otherwise. I believe that bringing conscious awareness to all of what we take in is an important aspect of honoring the godliness in each one of us, created b’tzelem elohim, in God’s image. When we honor our own bodies and souls, we are able to show up for others at our best, and do our piece of tikkun olam. So here are some teachings from our tradition and some reflections for today. 

Why fast on Yom Kippur? 

Where does the custom of fasting on Yom Kippur originate? The Torah commands that all the Israelites on this day are to practice self-denial, bring a holy offering, and not do our ordinary work. (Lev. 16:29 and Lev 23:27-32) The Hebrew for self-denial is: נּוּ֣ע ַתְּ 

כםֶ֗תיֵשׁ ֽ ֹפ ְנַאת־ ֶThe root, ayin-nun-heh, became a word for fasting. Literally, though, t-annu et nafshotechem translates to “afflict or humble your body-soul.” While the Torah does not define what is meant by affliction, it makes clear that if you don’t observe the command, you are to be cut off from the community. Karet, being sent away by your community, was the worst possible punishment for our forebears: one could not live without community. The threat was significant; people would observe. 

In the rabbinic era, the early centuries of the common era, the Mishna – also known as Oral Torah – elaborates on what the Torah means by self-affliction, saying: “On Yom Kippur, the day on which there is a mitzvah by Torah law to afflict oneself, it is prohibited to engage in eating and in drinking, and in bathing, and in smearing oil on one’s body, and in wearing shoes, and in conjugal relations.” (Yoma 73b) 

But, lest we think that simply following the laws of the written and oral Torah suffice, the prophet Isaiah, in our Haftarah we’ll read tomorrow, emphatically adds a moral layer to our fast: (Isaiah 58:3-7) Isaiah rejects the idea of our fast as some self-wallowing thing we do just to appease God. God says, I will be appeased when you not only feed the hungry and share your home with those experiencing homelessness, and make sure people have clothing. God says, I will celebrate your fast when you “unlock the fetters of wickedness… and free the oppressed” According to Isaiah, our fast must be accompanied by acts of justice to be meaningful. 

Our tradition also has other examples of fasting. Some fasts are the physical demonstration of atonement, of teshuvah. Tomorrow’s afternoon Haftarah, the story of Jonah, tells of the people of Nineveh’s fast of atonement. Another biblical type of fast is in supplication, a way of showing God you’re serious and humble about your prayers; Our Purim heroine Esther demonstrates this type of fast for three days before approaching King Ahashueros on behalf of the Jewish people. 

The fast of Yom Kippur evokes all these and more. Rabbi Yitz Greenberg describes Yom Kippur’s fasting from all bodily functions as a way to come face to face with our mortality. By denying all our physical needs, we enact a death within life, in order to embrace life all the more passionately. Writer Penina Adelman articulated the beauty of the Yom Kippur fast in these words: “Praying when fasting feels the way I imagine it to be when one who is facing death prays. Priorities become as clear as a finely tuned radio. Feelings are sharp and at times as overwhelming as a tidal wave. The senses are more vivid and vibrant. I am inside the birdsong, the flower’s scent, the fallen leaf’s changing colors. How ironic that on a day when we are denying our physicality, we may experience the physical world more strongly than ever.” 

To recap so far, Jews fast on Yom Kippur because it’s commanded, and we fast to remember all those among us who don’t have enough to eat and who are afflicted by those in power taking advantage of those with less power; to speak out, to identify with the afflicted and to take action to support them. We fast to to physically enact our teshuvah, to encounter our mortality, to focus so deeply on our prayers, as these all speak to waking up from our sleepwalking through life and really embrace what we’re here for. And we fast in solidarity. 

Complicating factors/Other Aspects 

All of these traditional reasons we fast on YK are powerful, and perhaps even more relevant today. Yet there are complicating factors. 

Some of us have a medical condition in which fasting makes you sick or does harm to our bodies or our mental health. Some of us have eating disorders, in which case an association of fasting with holiness can truly be life-threatening, not life-affirming. 

Fasting is a striking act of asserting agency over our bodies. It’s a powerful spiritual practice when having agency over our eating and our bodies in general is the norm, but it has often not been the norm – for women, for people who are enslaved, for people who live in poverty. Today is a day to appreciate that our fast is a choice. 

Moreover, as a society, we are less than healthy in our eating habits and in our relationships with our bodies. While some among us have serious eating disorders, most of us have some level of disordered eating. With endless access to food, we eat when we’re bored, we eat when we’re anxious, we eat when we’re sad – often our eating is not connected with our metabolism. We eat without paying attention, while we’re driving, or at our computers. Families give mixed messages about when to eat and when not to eat: you should eat if it’s dinner time even if you’re not hungry, you shouldn’t snack even if you are hungry and so on. 

In this room, I imagine everyone has ultimate agency over your own food consumption, and yet we are all impacted and distorted by our culture and our inheritance. If we are descendents of survivors of Nazi camps or other severe trauma from deprivation, that trauma is literally in our cells, perhaps triggered by fasting. And possibly healed by leaning into our actual agency today. 

Further complicating our relationship with food, we can’t help but psychically consume messages from our consumer culture about body image, how we’re supposed to look, what we should eat, what we shouldn’t eat. Commercials entice us with foods and beverages that would make our doctors cringe. And then we add gendered layers of the messages around eating. Women’s relationships with our bodies, I believe, have suffered more than men’s for all who are alive today. Even as there are now a lot of body-positive messages that counter the thin and fit (and let’s not forget white and blond) expectations of the dominant culture, more and more men and certainly non-binary folks are suffering from body image expectations completely disconnected from their embodied experience. Feminism has taught us to honor our lived experiences, and sometimes prioritize them over the dominant culture’s dictates. 

So where does all this leave us with regard to fasting? 

My intention is to raise awareness and thus intentionality about our choices around what we consume. I feel like this fast – whether you’re literally fasting from food or practicing humility and self-denial in other ways – can focus our attention on all the little choices that contribute toward more sickness OR more wellbeing for our world. Our individual choices are like stones dropping into a lake – the ripples reach far and wide. I offer a spiritual take on our personal relationship with our bodies, and then a bit of reflection on the ripple effects. 

A couple weeks ago, I learned a Hasidic text from my teacher R’ Jonathan Slater, from Likutei Morohan, a collection of teachings from Rebbe Nachman of Bretslav, the great-grandson of the Ba’al Shem Tov, founder of Hasidism. “Each of us must have great compassion for our physical body, to show it every illumination and each insight that the soul attains, so that the body might know, as well, of that insight.” R’ Nachman actually uses a passage from the Yom Kippur Haftarah to support this teaching. In our passage from Isaiah, which we usually read as “don’t ignore your kinfolk’s need” The Hebrew is לּםָֽע ַת ְת ִאֹל֖￾ ֥רְשׂ ָבּ ְמ ִוּ “‘do not ignore your own flesh’ (Is. 58:7). Precisely ‘your own flesh’! Do not turn away from having compassion for your own flesh, i.e., your own body. We must have great compassion for the body, to make it transparent, so that we can inform it of all the illuminations and insights that the soul attains.” When the body attains this state of good health and feeling cared for, “it is good for the soul, as she sometimes falls from her high estate. When the body is bright and shining, the soul can raise itself up and return to her state through the body. That is, through the delight of the body the soul can remember and return to her own delights.” This interdependence of our bodies and souls rings so true for me. What I like about the teaching is that Reb Nachman suggests that we need to tend to the health of both body and soul. And when we do that, either one can return us to balance with the other. Sometimes my mind gets so caught up in ideas that I lose my connection with what is really present in the moment. Then it’s my body, a physical experience, that re-integrates my body-soul. Fasting can bring us back to connecting with our physical selves. When your stomach is literally rumbling or your head aching, it is much harder to ignore. A reminder that, not only is my body here, but my body needs attention and care. This is about recognizing that tending to our bodies is also tending to the godliness within us. 

There are so very many implications of each of our food choices – on biodiversity, on global food distribution, on waste and greenhouse gasses, on local sustainability vs corporate profits, on animal welfare, organic vs cheap, and so much more. Jonathan Safran Foer, in We Are the Weather, intimates all these implications when he writes, “We do not simply feed our bellies, and we do not simply modify our appetites in response to principles. We eat to satisfy primitive cravings, to forge and express ourselves, to realize community. We eat with our mouths and stomachs, but also with our minds and hearts. All my different identities – father, son, American New Yorker, progressive, Jew, writer, environmentalist, traveler, hedonist – are present when I eat, and so is my history.” If you’re like me, you infer various food choices from each of these markers of identity. Each of us has our own identities and communities; and each circle establishes norms of appropriate eating. Which means that each choice we make influences others’ choices. 

Foer also speaks of the even wider ripple effect of our personal food choices: “Our food choices are social contagions, always influencing others around us – supermarkets track each item sold, restaurants adjust their menus to demand, food services look at what gets thrown away, and we order ‘what she’s having.’ We eat as families, communities, generations, nations, and increasingly as a globe. Individual consumer choices can activate collective action that is generative, not paralyzing. … We couldn’t stop our eating from radiating influence even if we wanted to.” (p. 201) 

What does this day’s fast mean to you? Are there other fasts you might contemplate, like taking the day off of your device? Or off of certain apps? The day is an opportunity to bring mindfulness to all of our choices. Does this nourish? Or does it make you sick? 

My prayer in the year ahead is that we grow in compassion for our embodied selves, and for the wellbeing of our neighbors. May this Day of Atonement increase all of our awareness of what and how we consume. May we discern what is actually nourishing for our bodies in real time as living organisms. May our choices have meaningful positive impact on the healing of our earth. I won’t wish you an easy fast. Wishing you a meaningful one. May you be inscribed for good in the book of life. 

For Further Study and Action: 

● AJWS From the Sources: Texts on Social Justice; Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur: Bounty and Scarcity 

● Mazon: A Jewish Response to Hunger ● Hazon’s Jewish discussion guide to Jonathan Safran Foer’s book We Are the Weather: Saving the Planet Begins at Breakfast

Filed Under: Rabbi's Posts Tagged With: High Holidays 2022, Rabbi Debra Rappaport, Yom Kippur

Entering the High Holy Days Together

October 19, 2022 by Gillian Jackson

Rabbi Debra Rappaport for AARC, Erev Rosh Hashanah 5783

Why are you here? I invite you to please check in with yourself in this moment with
the question: why are you here tonight? If you’d be willing, please raise your hand for
as many of these are true for you:

I am here…
Because this is what Jews do on Rosh Hashanah
Because someone invited me
Because I love singing with other people
Because I love seeing my community, and this is when we gather
Because my soul needs this
Because my heart aches and I’m hoping for solace
Because it’s commanded in the Torah
Because my heart aches and this is a place I can sit with my feelings
Because this is where I talk with God or my higher power
What else? [because this is what our parents and grandparents and those
before them did]
All of the above?

There’s a story from early modernity, when Jews started having a choice about
whether to go to synagogue or not. Someone who was not so sure about whether
she wanted to go asked a couple friends: “Shmulik, why do you go to synagogue?”
Shmulek answered, “Nu, to talk to God!” Hmmm, she thought, not so sure about that
God thing, can’t be proved through modern science. “Moishie, why do you go to
synagogue?” she asked. “Nu? To talk to Shmulek!” he answered! So many reasons
bring us together for Rosh Hashanah! Jews have been gathering for this day since
the Torah (Lev 23 and Num 29), when God told Moses to proclaim to the Israelites:
בַּחֹ֨דֶשׁ הַשְּׁבִיעִ֜י בְּאֶחָ֣ד לַחֹ֗דֶשׁ יִהְיֶ֤ה לָכֶם֙ שַׁבָּת֔וֹן זִכְר֥וֹן תְּרוּעָ֖ה מִקְרָא־קֹֽדֶשׁ׃ In the seventh month, on the first day of the month, you shall observe complete rest, a sacred occasion
commemorated with loud blasts. You shall not work at your occupations; and you
shall bring an offering by fire to יהוה.

The biblical commands for Rosh Hashanah are to remember (and/to) hear, to listen
to the shofar, and to not go to work.

So what’s the significance of the shofar, and what is this about remembering? The
sound of the shofar says “wake up! This is your life, this is it!” Rosh Hashanah is also
called Yom ha Zikaron – the day of remembering. “Remember who you are!
Remember what matters!” it says; “remember, you have choices! Wake up,
remember, you can change!” It’s also Yom haDin, a day of judgment, which calls us
to the work of teshuvah – to reflection, repentance and change – so that our behavior
aligns with our values.


Over the next 10 days, we’ll spend time immersed in rituals and imagery intended to
wake us up: “This is your life,” says the shofar, “this is it!” Some of our prayer
language praises the wondrousness of Creation, some bewails our lowly state; in
some we take responsibility; in some we ask for help. We will hear members’
reflections on big questions of life. We hope that by the end of Yom Kippur (or
Sukkot and Simchat Torah) we’ve been spiritually cleansed and renewed,
reconnected with our truest selves, and can move into winter with renewed joy and
resilience.


Tonight, I want to begin with our setting, in this congregation, in the turning from
5782 to 5783. I’ll start with a little bit of my own reflection on this moment for all of us
as citizens of the planet and of this country; mostly I’ll talk about community and why
we need to do the holy work of living together.


Though we’re just meeting, and it’s my first time in Ann Arbor, we share some
context. Most of us are still figuring out how and when to come out of pandemic-
induced isolation. Isolation continues to take a concerning toll on mental as well as
physical health; our children lost the normalcy of school for too long. Loved ones
have died since this community was last together in physical space. Some of us
have had major life changes, some for the good, and some not of our choosing.
We humans are all in new terrain. With escalating disasters of flood, fire and draught
that would have been unimaginable a generation ago, not to mention all the ways
humans are violently dehumanizing one another, we need to CHOOSE LIFE like we
never have before. Not by doing ever more and faster. But by taking opportunities
like these High Holy Days to wake up to our actual connectedness and interbeing
with all humans and all life on earth.


I believe every one of us is already doing the best we can manage toward healing
and justice, and simple kindness. And, we’re confronted every day with relentless
heartbreaking news around the world, in our country, and for the earth herself. I
name some of these “headlines” as a way of naming the wider discourse from which
we arrive here, for our holy days. Many of us ache with a longing to make things
better, and at the very least to make meaning of what’s going on. Each one of us
holds part of that call, and we hold the questions together.


Very few of us, I imagine, are arriving already in a contemplative state of being. Our
lives are busy, fast-paced, governed by our fast-paced minds. It takes time to settle
into heart-space. If I invite you to hold in your mind’s eye a four-strand braided
challah perfectly roasted with golden sesame seeds on it – your mind is right there
with me, right? Our minds can see it and maybe even smell it instantly. But if I invite
you to feel the joys and the vulnerability of being human, can anyone get there
instantaneously? So we give ourselves this time, and many modalities, and many
different voices, including the shofar, to enter into this deep reflection.


Most of us are steeped in the waters of this country, the values of independence and
self-determination. We think, “Okay, I can wake up, remember, reflect and turn on
my own, or maybe even more thoroughly with some close friends and maybe a
therapist.” But can you? Will you? Why would you do that when you don’t have to?
Contemplating and taking responsibility for our lives in a real and deep way – waking
up, turning and returning – is the most important thing for our lives and our world.
And it’s terrifying. Sometimes life’s circumstances force that reckoning upon us. The
High Holy Days give us a chance to practice, to prepare, to build our support
systems – in the context of community.


The very act of questioning why Jews pray as a community goes back more than a
thousand years. Jewish philosopher Yehuda HaLevi’s The Kuzari (written in 11 th
century Spain in the Arabic language) presents a dialog, in which the king of the
Khazars (an Asian tribe that converted to Judaism in the eighth century), interviews
representatives of each of the three major religions, so he can discern which is the
true religion.


The Khazar king asks the rabbi: If everyone read their prayers for themselves,
would not their soul be purer and their mind less abstracted?

The Rabbi responds:
Common prayer has many advantages. In the first instance a community will
never pray for something which is hurtful for the individual, while an individual
sometimes prays for something that is to another’s disadvantage.
One of the conditions of prayer, craving to be heard, is that its object be
beneficial to the world, and not harmful in any way.
Another is that an individual rarely accomplishes their prayer without slips and
errors. It has been laid down, therefore, that the individual recite the prayers of
a community, and if possible in a community of not less than ten persons, so
that one makes up for the forgetfulness or error of the other. In this way a
complete prayer is gained, and its blessing rests on every person. For the


Divine Influence is as the rain which waters an area, sharing its general
abundance…

I wanted to share that complete quote, because of the authors absolute certainty that
prayer is essentially meaningful and serves to bring functional benefit to the pray’ers
and their community.

Yet there’s something deeper that calls us to community: our utter vulnerability as we
wake up to the human condition. Alan Lew says it best in This is Real and You are
Completely Unprepared.

“The first thing we do during the High Holidays is come together; we stand
together before God as a single spiritual unit. We do this out of a very deep
instinct… We need each other deeply. Here in the full flush of the reality of the
life-and-death nature of this ritual, here in the full flush of our impotence as
individuals to meet this most urgent emergency, our need for each other is
immense. We heal one another by being together. We give each other hope.
Now we know for sure – by ourselves, ain banu ma’asim, there is nothing we
can do. But gathered together as a single indivisible entity, we sense that we
do have efficacy as a larger, transcendent spiritual unit, one that has been
expressing meaning and continuity for three thousand years, one that includes
everyone who is here, and everyone who is not here, all those who came
before us, and all those who are yet to come, all those who are joined in that
great stream of spiritual consciousness from which we have been struggling to
know God for thousands of years. We now stand in that stream, and that is
first thing we do.”

Lew’s brilliance is in naming how impossible it is for anyone to feel competent in the
face of life’s reckoning AND that together as discrete communities of Jews, we’ve got
this.

Specifically, here we are as the Ann Arbor Reconstructionist Congregation. This
community is in its own tender time of transition. You said goodbye to your beloved
rabbi, Rabbi Ora, just a few months ago. “Who is this person, this rabbi, in front of us
now?” and “Who are we as a community?” might be questions you’re sitting with. I
can’t imagine the range of the questions you’re holding. But I do know that each one
of you holds an essential piece of this community’s waking up, remembering, and
returning to the essence of who you will be going forward. Singing, praying, sharing
kavanot together during our services provides a shared foundation for what will
unfold in the year ahead. I don’t want to suggest that our shared experience in
synagogue is enough to weave the fabric of real community. That requires shared
endeavors, and responsibilities toward one another, time, goodwill, and much more.
You are already a community. And from what I’ve seen over the past few months(especially with the Davening Team), you are in really good hands with your lay
leadership and engaged members.

So where are we? Each of us is here tonight for different reasons. Together, we have
entered an energetic flow of prayer and of peoplehood that extends geographically
around the world, back and forward in time. Our actions of waking up, remembering,
and turning are held and supported in the archetypal energy of holy space and time.
Facing the profound limitations and finitude of our human condition is terrifying – and
yet the process actually functions to free us up from the habits of mind and heart and
our habitual actions that hinder us from living deeply, fully, joyfully. There is deep
purpose in all this: The Torah says: “Today I place before you life and goodness, or
death and wickedness. For I command you this day to Love YHVH and walk in God’s
ways…” (Deut 30:15-16), Choose life, the Torah implores, not just going through the
motions. Be awake for it!


We begin the year with gratitude, celebration, and song. When we start with love and
connection, appreciating even the smallest good in ourselves and others, we can
create space where it is safe to feel what we need to feel – the whole range, laughter
and joy, tears and mourning. And space to know what we need to know. To make
amends where we need to make amends.


May we soften to what’s real and wake up to an ever deeper more authentic knowing
of connection and love. Shana tova.


We continue with the Aleynu, originally written for Rosh Hashanah: It is up to us to
offer praises to the Source of all, to declare the greatness of the author of Creation,
who gave to us teachings of truth and planted eternal life within us. V’Ain Od, there is
nothing else, none Other, on page 1202/1204, please rise.

Filed Under: Rabbi's Posts Tagged With: High Holidays 2022, Rabbi Debra Rappaport

Yom Kippur Community Kavanot

October 12, 2022 by Gillian Jackson

This Yom Kippur brought more opportunities to learn from the incredibly wise members of our congregation. There is enough wisdom and perspective within this blog post to keep you thinking all year! Mazel Tov to our Kavanot team on your incredible insights, your contributions are deeply appreciated.

Green sprout in parched earth

Al Heit , Sins Against Our Future

By Joshua Samuels

When speaking of different transgression we should atone for on Yom Kippur an important  learning from the Mishna states:

Sins between a person and Makom, Yom Kippur atones for, between two people, Yom Kippur does not offer atonement until the wronged person is made whole. (Rabbi Elazar Ben Azariah Mishna yoma Het Zayin)

I have left the phrase used for God in the Hebrew form, it is a less commonly used name, and also means place in Hebrew.

This teaches us those transgressions where we have sinned against the creator can be atoned through prayer, but those against our fellow person require us to make them whole again. 

If we take the word Makom in its simple everyday meaning, we can view this as sins against our place, our world can be atoned for on Yom Kippur. Unfortunately, the havoc and destruction we are wreaking on our environment is a transgression not only against Makom, in all its meanings, but against future people who will live on this planet, against our children and our children’s children.’

From those people of the future, as yet unborn, we cannot ask for, nor obtain forgiveness for the world we leave them.

While we cannot ask for forgiveness from the people of the future, we can strive for atonement through our actions.

There are many things that I do in my everyday life, that with a bit more awareness and thought would have less of an environmental impact.

It can be succinctly summed up as consuming less and producing less waste, but behind that lies a myriad of choices.

There are many things that I do out of lack of attention, quotidian things such as

I forget my reusable bags and use plastic bags from the store

I run the garbage disposal instead of collecting the scraps for the compost heap

I make multiple trips in the car when I could consolidate with some attention and so on, the list is long.

And there are changes in habits, such as changing what I eat to eat more local food and less meat.

Many choices are a question of changing habits or opting for a bit less convenience when the cost in resources is high, but some choices are far more challenging and there are things I am not willing to give up. Travel, particularly to visit family, is not something I am ready to forego. There is value in making these choices consciously, in weighing the global cost against the personal benefit

It is at times overwhelming when we feel that the actions we take are but a drop in the ocean, but the ocean is composed of drops, many drops.

So for this Al Het I will say in Hebrew:

Al Het Shehatanu neged Atid Olamaynu

For sins against the future of our world.

So let us strive to consume less, produce less waste, live with more disorganization and imperfection. Embrace entropy, it saves energy.

Releasing What Does Not Serve Us 

By: Seth Kopald 

We have finished the days of repentance when we asked our family and friends for forgiveness for our harmful deeds throughout the year. We have cleansed our actions. Yet, perhaps there’s more. Deep in our cells, our bones, our muscles, and our energy, our ancestors have transmitted to us many things, gifts and burdens. 

Our ancestors carefully crafted life rules to live by, ones that kept them safe, free, and prosperous. Perhaps these rules include: don’t shine too brightly, don’t advertise who you are, be the best at everything no matter the cost, or be alone because we get hurt when we are in numbers. Yet, they have also given us gifts. Like, the value of learning, community, singing and dancing, questioning authority, and having personal connections with G-d. 

Kol Nidre, the namesake prayer of this service, is an aramaic prayer revoking vows made before G-d and it is a call to reconnect with our ancestors. We were born into these vows and we are called to release them, the ones that don’t serve us. We are called to make a choice – to embrace life and live it fully. In order to do that, we must release the burdens that keep us from living. 

As we uncover burdens passed down by our ancestors, perhaps you may hear voices inside saying, “we can’t let it go, or we will lose connection”, or perhaps ”These burdens help us to never forget”. From my experience, when we ask our ancestors if this is true, they tell us, “You will always remember and we will always be here, but you don’t need the pain and these restrictions to life.” They want us to be free. 

We are now moving into the Amidah, a silent prayer, and in this place there is an opening, a moment to connect with G-d and our ancestors. I want to offer you a brief mediation to free us more deeply into that experience. 

So now I invite you to notice in your body any energy, beliefs, or unnecessary rules that have been passed down to you, ones that keep you from living and being your full Self. 

Now notice the gifts that have been passed down to you. 

Now, put them in two separate piles. 

See if it is ok to release the burdens. Perhaps you can send them back to your ancestors and they can be cleansed by sending the burdens over the horizon. Perhaps you need time to decide if this is ok and you want to temporarily put the burdens in a sacred container and save them, in case you do need them. Either way, you can experience what it is like to be free, to release the vows of our ancestors that no longer serve us. You can bury them with honor, like we would an old Torah that can no longer be used. You can step into a mikvah in your mind and allow the waters of Miriam to wash them away. See what, if any of this feels right for you. 

Now, embrace the gifts, and allow your natural qualities to emerge: curiosity, calmness, compassion and courage. Let them fill you up. With those qualities and gifts, let’s enter the silent Amida together, a chance to connect with G-d, one-on-one. As you do, if it feels right, invite your ancestors to be with you as we all turn toward G-d’s essence.

How To Approach The Process of Change

By Deb Kraus

Today is a day we afflict our souls.

It’s a day where we rehearse our own death.  Where we say over and over again all the sins we could have possibly committed, even ones that wouldn’t have occurred to us, and ask God to forgive them.  We beg to be written into a book of life that most of us don’t really believe exists.  We abstain from eating, from drinking even water, from bodily pleasures, from adorning ourselves.  We spend all day in shul.

In other words, it’s a day we can really “get our self-hatred on.”

So why, out of all the holidays of the year, is Yom Kippur my favorite holiday?

Possibly because I reject most of that.

Somehow, along with the orthodoxy I was raised with [which had me worrying one year about having turned on—and then immediately off—the light in my bedroom as I went to sleep after Kol Nidre (clearly I was more afraid of my mother than I was of God)] I was also brought up with the idea that to change, you had to really hate yourself.  As a clinical psychologist with 35 years of experience, I know that I’m not the only one to have gotten that message. 


But I also know that it’s not true.  You can’t self-hate yourself into self-acceptance or change.

Instead the radical notion, the one that actually works, is that we can love ourselves into changing.  I have three ideas about how we might do that:

First, if you are here trying to become a better person, in the sense of becoming someone other than you are, please be kind and know the impossibility of that.  As Nadia Bolz-Webber, the tattoo’ed Lutheran pastor of the House of Sinners and Saints in Denver says, “we can grow in wisdom but we still fundamentally remain ourselves.”  In other words, let’s try to stop being someone else or some ideal version of ourselves, and become, instead,  the best “us’es” we can become.  It’s the Rabbi Zuzya story all over again:  when asked what his main concern was in dying, he said “God won’t judge me on why I wasn’t more like Moses.  He’ll ask me why I wasn’t more like Zuzya.”

Second, we can take a lesson from one of my more self-loathing clients, who nonetheless parents very well. He says to his toddler daughter, “there’s nothing wrong with you that you can’t fix with what’s right with you.”  I love that, and I offer it to all of us.  “There’s nothing so wrong with us that we can’t fix it with what’s right with us.”

Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, I know we don’t believe in the actual book of life, but in case you do, I have it on good authority (that is, a podcast) that we come into this holiday already written in.  If we believe we need to be saved on this day, know that we already have been. 

What if we took these three ideas into our day of prayer?  As we take this deep-dive look inside ourselves, cataloging all the ways we missed the mark once again this year, what if we did it with the idea that together, with a combination of God, community and ourselves, we can fix it.  And become the best versions of ourselves that we can.

As Rabbi Ora said at this point last year,

 “…it is love – the love we receive, the love we transmit – that enables us and energizes us to change. It’s not that we will be more worthy of love if we change. It’s that love – being loved, and being loving – is precisely what enables us and energizes us to undertake the holy work of teshuvah.”

She concluded with an invitation.  “Let’s start from that loving place.” 

Filed Under: Posts by Members Tagged With: High Holidays, High Holidays 2022, Yom Kippur

Rosh Hashanah Kavanot 2022

September 28, 2022 by Gillian Jackson

What a joy it was to learn from and enjoy our community’s teachings on Rosh Hashanah. If you missed it or would like to read the Kavanot that were shared by Emily Eisbruch, Seth Kopald, Anita Rubin-Meiller or Dave Nelson you are in luck! We have posted them here on our blog to read and cherish going forward. Mazel Tov to our Kavanah writers on your profound and heart felt teachings, your contributions are deeply appreciated.

Gratitude for Community
– by Emily Eisbruch

Welcome community of
sharing, being, caring
Music, chanting, praying, dancing
Group aliyot with meaningful themes
Acknowledging our struggles and naming our dreams

Helping with the mitzvah corps
Warm congregation we are working for
August picnic at Bandemere park
Breaking the fast, after havdalah, after dark

Being together through COVID blues
Telling our stories in the Jewish news
Building thoughtful bonds on our listserv Recon chat
Where we ask each other, how about that?

Terrific book group conversations
On jews throughout the generations
Holidays – latke versus hamentashen debates
and pondering of collective fates

Creating chuppah cover squares
A gorgeous collaboration where each one shares
Ner tamid, Magillah ark, Torah Table tapestry
Members manifesting their artistry

For our youth, environmentally and ethically aware
An innovative and bold Beit Sefer
At these days of awe, let’s take measure
Of the community we are together
With gratitude, let’s look at how to nurture, how to be
In the Hebrew year five seven eight three

Praying from the Heart 

By: Seth Kopald 

As we continue deepening into our Rosh Hashanah experience, I invite you to ask yourself: Who is praying? 

Take a look inside. Is it a part of you who is going through the motions because this is what we do on Rosh Hashanah, or one who thinks we “should” be praying on this Holy day? Is it a part of you who might want something from G-d: healing, forgiveness, even a sense of ease? You may notice how much of your attention is above your shoulders, in your cognition. 

Now, slowly allow your attention to drop into your heartspace. Notice, you can sense yourself and the people around you, from your heart. From this place, perhaps we can extend warmth and love to those parts of ourselves who think we should pray, and recognize their desires and their fears. 

–

From this place of deep compassion for ourselves, we can then turn to G-d. From our heart, notice how we feel in G-d’s presence, no matter how you sense or perceive them. Perhaps you feel, or have felt abandoned, by G-d. Yet, for a moment, see if we can feel the acceptance that is there, and how we are also a part of the Divine – the life force we all share that is our true Selves? 

–

Can we for a moment, if you choose, allow yourself to be held, to sense the presence of something greater than ourselves. See how our hearts respond, how our bellies respond, and how our full bodies want to respond. Perhaps ask G-d in this moment: What do you want me to know? And see what you sense. . . 

–

As we move forward in prayer, let’s commune with G-d from this place, alive, embodied, vibrant, compassionate, and from our hearts – let’s commence in prayer.

Kavanah on the Non-Duality of the Divine

David Erik Nelson

About two weeks into the pandemic one of my kids had a question about the Kabbalistic Tree of Life diagram. I don’t recall what the question was, who asked it, or if anyone’s interest persisted long enough for me to find an answer.

But that got me looking at kabbalah, and I kept returning to it, because in those claustrophobic early days of the plague it was definitely more reassuring to read commentaries on centuries-old rabbinic esoterica than anything I was likely to see in the Washington Post.

I’m one of those people who often prefers to follow “the words of your heart” instead of the ones in the siddur. So I’m sharing this, for those who are likewise inclined.

Just a warning: at first, what I’m gonna read will come off as kind of anodyne and hippy-dippy. Then, on reflection, it will begin to seem sort of awful. That makes me nervous.

But I’m still going to share it with you. 

It starts like this:

The essence of divinity is found in every single thing—nothing but it exists. Since it causes every thing to be, no thing can live by anything else. It enlivens them; its existence exists in each existent.

Do not attribute duality to God. Let God be solely God. If you suppose that God emanates until a certain point, and that from that point on is outside of God, you have dualized. Realize, rather, that GOd exists in each existent. Do not say, “This is a stone and not God.” Rather, all existence is God, and the stone is a thing pervaded by divinity.

I don’t think that’s too earth shattering, right? I mean, it sounds an awful lot like a combination of Yoda describing the Force and the first lines from that Beatles song “I am the Walrus” (♬♫♪ I am he as you are he as you are me / And we are all together … Koo-koo-ka’choo… ♬♫♪ )

But Rabbi Moses ben Jacob Cordovero—the 16th Century Kabbalist who wrote what I read—doesn’t leave it at that. He goes on, and that’s where things get potentially…uncomfortable. Cordovero says:

Before anything emanated, there was only God. God was all that existed. Similarly, after God brought into being that which exists, there is nothing but God. You cannot find anything that exists apart from it. There is nothing that is not pervaded by the power of divinity. If there were, God would be limited, subject to duality. Rather, God… is present in everything, and everything comes into being from it. Nothing is devoid of its divinity.

That’s a little more extreme than Yoda and the Beatles. 

Because Cordovero isn’t saying “All of the good things are pervaded by God” or “All of the righteous are children of God” or “Everything in nature is God.”

His claim–which you could derive just from the words of the Sh’ma–is that “Nothing is devoid of God’s divinity.”

That’s … problematic. If I say nothing is outside of God, then I’m surely saying that the squirrel is divine and the car is divine, the meat is divine and the bullet is divine, the victim is divine, the killer is divine, the rescuer is divine, the ambulance divine, diesel is divine, the kid watching it all on YouTube is divine–

That all quickly becomes overwhelming. 

Cordovero claimed that by “Contemplating this, you are humbled, your thoughts purified.”

I don’t know about that.

But I do know that contemplating this non-duality—this complete saturation of all of reality (good, bad, and ugly) in the divine—feels simple and honest and true, in the way the Sh’ma feels simple and honest and true. 

And, on a functional level, it helps me get past the bumpier bits of our liturgy. 

A lot of us feel weird begging the forgiveness and protection of “Our Father, Our King” in Avinu Malkeinu. I feel less weird about it when I reflect that I am singing to a paternal majesty in which we all co-participate, that I’m begging me to forgive me, and for us to forgive each other, and to protect each other (and all of everything) from pestilence, sword, famine, captivity, destruction, iniquity–and all the other very unpleasant things that dwell together with us in the divine.

Zichronot

By Anita Rubin-Meiller

When my mother died in 1986 at the too soon age of 64, 3 months after my wedding, I made a decision to remember God. I was acutely aware of my choice…would I see God as this distant, all powerful entity that just took my mother’s life; or would I turn to the God of my still evolving understanding…a Divine presence shining through the loving and comforting presence of friends and family.  I chose the latter and remember gathering in my childhood bedroom with 3 of my dearest friends, sharing memories, laughter and tears. The blasts of the shofar in this Zichronot section of the Shofar service are a calling from God to us to remember we are never unseen, never forgotten; to remember the God that took care of Noah and saved the species of the Earth from total extinction; to remember that we too, are tasked with seeing the holiness in each and every living and breathing life form; that because we are remembered our actions matter.

There is an old fable, recounted in M.Scott Peck’s book…A Different Drum. It tells the tale of a monastery that had “fallen into hard times.” With only 5 monks remaining, its order was dying. Desperate for new possibilities, the aged Abbot makes a visit to the Rabbi from a nearby village. The Rabbi too was experiencing a dispirited community and so the two faith leaders conversed and commiserated. As the Abbot readied to return to the monastery, he asked if the Rabbi could offer any advice. The Rabbi responded, “ I have no advice to give, but the Messiah is among you.” You might guess what happened then…perhaps it would happen here, or anywhere…the monks, thinking that the Messiah could be any one of them started treating each other with immense kindness; started seeing the particular sparks of God each one manifested; started creating an aura of love and respect that began to attract visitors and even young men desiring to join the Order.

In my nascent meditation practice with the Awakened Heart community, I have been learning over and over again how reality is defined by what we bring our attention to. The shofar blasts of Zichronot ask us to bring our attention to God’s covenant; to the God whose image we are created in; to a God that is not only Sovereign but in the words of Rabbi Samuel Barth“a parent who has time and love for each child”. Through the teachings of Ram Daas, we are being asked to bring our attention to a God who bids us to “love, serve and remember.” What would it look like if what we were paying attention to and remembering was the Divine unfolding in the universe through the interconnection of everything? At the Awakened Heart August 2020 retreat, Sylvia Boorstein, a beloved Jewish Buddhist teacher, offered this drash to introduce the prayer: Hah-raynee m’kah-bel ahleye et mitzvat haboray Ve-ahavtah l’ray-ahchah k’mochah; translated by Rabbi Jeff Roth in this prayer chant as: I take the mitzvah upon myself of loving all who cross my path, offering kindness from my heart, loving you and loving me:  She said,“My choice of the most important commandment might be fixing a mezuzah to the doorposts of your house because when you go in and out and touch the mezuzah you are sensitive to this passage, “to love God with all our soul, all our might, all our heart”. If you took it really seriously you can’t just kiss the mezuzah and leave, you can’t take any grudges with you, so you have to stand in the doorway and think about it for a while – Ok, I can do this; Ok, heart clear – Go! And when you return, you pause, I can’t go in until I’m sure that my heart is free of negativity…may I be free of negativity and the danger it would pose to me of confusing my mind. You have to check yourself everytime you go in and out, am I fulfilling the commandment…I’m going to love everybody indiscriminately…May I have no ill will in my heart, may I have an unmortgaged heart.”

Perhaps for some of you, as it has been for me, this idea of keeping the heart clear of ill will has become particularly challenging amidst our political climate and escalation of hateful, provocative speech and actions. It has been surprisingly difficult to restrain my own hateful speech and violent wishes, albeit usually expressed under my breath or in the privacy of my own home. Still, I can feel its impact on my heart and spirit. So recently, I returned to Sylvia’s teaching and added mezuzahs to 2 other entranceways of our home. I have an earnest desire to follow her suggested practice, knowing the peace that can come to my body, mind and heart from doing so. Knowing it will help me remember that Everything, and everyone, is God. Perhaps the shofar blasts about to come will awaken the capacity to bring that intention into action; to remember to remember.

Filed Under: Posts by Members Tagged With: High Holidays 2022, kavanah, Rosh Hashanah

Sign Up For This Years Yom Kippur Break Fast!

September 12, 2022 by Gillian Jackson

With the guidance of our Health and Safety Committee, we have decided to host our community Break Fast this year after sundown and the Final Shofar. Attendees can enjoy their meal inside the social hall at the Unitarian Church, or can bring the meal into the courtyard and eat outside.

In order to make sure that we have the appropriate amount of food, please be sure to sign up today! Menu Below!

Please RSVP by September 28th.

Sign Up to Attend the Break Fast Here!

Filed Under: Upcoming Activities Tagged With: community, High Holidays 2022

Yom Kippur Workshops 2022

September 5, 2022 by Gillian Jackson

The War in Ukraine: Empire, War, Refugees, and us with Debbie Field 1:30-3pm

Our own family histories, and Jewish history in general, have been shaped by empires and their wars of conquest. In this interactive session, we’ll learn a little about the war in
Ukraine, its impact on civilians, and the creation of refugees. We’ll make some comparisons with our own experiences as Jews, and end by considering actions we might take as individuals and as a community.


Movement Workshop with Alison Stupka. 1:30-3pm

People will gain a reconnection with their bodies during their fast.


Jonah Workshop with Rabbi Debra, 3-4:30pm

During this breakout session, we will read the book of Jonah together, and share informal discussion about its themes and why the rabbis chose such a seemingly silly story for the Yom Kippur afternoon Haftarah.


Sing and Connect with Deb Kraus, 3-4:30pm

Deb Kraus will hold space outdoors if weather permits to sing together and connect.

Filed Under: Upcoming Activities Tagged With: community, community learning, High Holidays 2022, Yom Kippur

Thoughts on Elul By Rabbi Debra

August 31, 2022 by Gillian Jackson

Rabbi Debra Rappaport will be leading this year’s High Holidays services

Greetings! As I write to you, we are at the beginning of the new moon of Elul, the month that precedes the new moon of Tishrei – also known as Rosh Hashanah. ELUL is known as an acronym for the phrase Ani L’dod v’Dodi Li – I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine. Who or what is the Beloved to whom we need to return this season? 

The work of this season is called cheshbon ha-nefesh – taking stock of our own souls and our relationships. Where have my actions not been true to my values? Where do I need to make amends and/or change course? Teshuvah – making amends where appropriate and returning to our best selves, to the ineffable Beloved, is the other part of our season’s work.

Though we are new to one another, we may share some of the same sentiments… for example, wondering as the season approaches, How have I changed? What difference did all of last year’s resolve make? Or, What more can I do to stem the destruction and injustices I see around me?

Believing that we can change, and that repairs can be made, matters. It forms how we choose to show up to every moment. The Talmud (Pesachim 54a) describes teshuvah as a possibility created even before the world itself was created! The possibility of choice and change exists in our very essence. Not just regarding the big things but in every moment. Not just as individuals but collectively. Think of how a tiny course correction on an ocean liner leads a ship to a different landing place. Likewise, tiny moments of showing up differently in our own behavior can change our life’s trajectory – and hopefully our country’s and our planet’s – for the better.

MyJewishLearning.com offers some ideas for practice for the month of Elul.  If you’d like to do some learning and reflecting together, please do join one of the High Holy Days workshops starting September 18.  Sign up here!

In any event, I am truly looking forward to meeting you in person, and making the journey of the holy days together. In the meantime, may all have a nourishing Elul.

L’shalom,

Rabbi Debra Rappaport    

Filed Under: Rabbi's Posts Tagged With: Elul, High Holidays, High Holidays 2022

Elul Workshops with Rabbi Debra Rappaport

August 6, 2022 by Gillian Jackson

We approach the High Holy Days during the Hebrew month of Elul. ELUL is referred to as an acronym for Ani L’Dodi V’Dodi Li (Song of Songs 6:3) “I am drawn to my Beloved and my Beloved is drawn to me.” And so we begin with love as the foundation and container of the hard work of teshuvah, aligning our actions with our values.

Here are three invitations, three moments, to learn and reflect in community with Rabbi Debra Rappaport. Each one stands alone; each speaks to a different big question of the season. Each session support participants in preparing our hearts to arrive at the High Holy Days with clear(er) intentions. The focus is on text-based reflection (in English), so the sessions will be inclusive of all, regardless of Jewish background. Please rsvp to attend HERE.

Thursday, September 15: 7:00 – 8:15 pm Turning inward, Teshuvah (turning, returning)

How can the teachings of the season support our cheshbon ha-nefesh (taking an account of the state of our souls) and our teshuvah (making reparations and returning to our highest selves)?

Thursday, September 22: 7:00 – 8:15 Reaching outward, Din V’Rachamim (Justice/Judgment & Mercy/Compassion)

What are the implications of the Rosh Hashanah image of a heavenly court in which perfect justice is weighed against compassion and forgiveness?

Thursday, September 29: 7:00 – 8:15 Confessing together, Al Chet

By Yom Kippur, we are to have made amends with those whom we’ve harmed. What, then, is the significance of the confessional words we recite together on Yom Kippur? Why do we recite as a community when we didn’t necessarily commit all the transgressions? Do the traditional words convey all we need to say at this moment in history?

Filed Under: Upcoming Activities Tagged With: Elul, High Holidays, High Holidays 2022

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