What is the point of being in touch with our vulnerability, as Jews are pushed to do during the High Holy Day season? Encountering the High Holy Day Prayer Book On Rosh HaShanah it is written; On the Fast of Yom Kippur it is sealed… Who will live and who...
“On the Jewish High Holy Days, should we be praying mostly for the Jewish people, or for all humankind?” One of the innovations of the Reform Movement’s new High Holy Day Prayerbook is in the “Kaddish” and in the prayer “Oseh Shalom,” we pray for peace “on us and on...
“How can we use the month of Elul to prepare to turn the wrongs we have done into merits?” [From Mishkan HaNefesh, Yom Kippur service, new Reform High Holy Day prayer book, page 85]: “The Talmud teaches: ‘Great is repentance, for it transforms one’s deliberate sins into merit’ (Talmud, Yoma...
Torah reading: Deut 10:12-14 What does the Pope’s encyclical mean for the Jewish community? Text : The morning wind forever blows, the poem of creation is uninterrupted; but few are the ears that hear it. by Henry David Thoreau, in Mishkan Hanefesh Rosh Hashanah prayerbook, p. 145
Why I am going to Susiya | Rebecca Strober | The Blogs | The Times of Israel. (Rebecca is the daughter of Fred Strober and grew up at RS)
“Why do we confess to wrongs we have not personally committed? The 16th-century mystic Rabbi Isaac Luria teaches that the people of Israel may be likened to a body of which every Jew is a living part. The vitality of the whole depends upon the health of every organ and...
“I want to make a confession, to give an accounting to myself, and to God. In other words, to measure my life and actions against the lofty ideals I’ve set for myself. To compare that which should have been with that which was… ” – Hana Senesh (1921-1944), diary entry...
From what person or event in Jewish history or in Jewish text tradition do you draw inspiration? From the new Yom Kippur Prayerbook (p 198) In the depths of the night, by the edge of the river, Jacob was left alone. In heartfelt longing, in the temple of God, Channah...
Freedom: Breaking the Bonds: In honor of the 4th of July, we celebrate the birth of our nation when we broke the bonds of tyranny and dedicated ourselves to freedom. During the High Holy Days we ask, “What bonds do you hope to break in your life today?” We will...
Crowdsourcing Sermons: Contribute your Thoughts by Rabbi Jill Maderer For this summer’s sermons from July 3 through August 28, we’d like to incorporate your perspectives. The clergy will pose a question regarding the readings and interpretations in our new High Holy Day prayerbook, Mishkan Hanafesh at the beginning of each...
