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From the Rabbi's Desk
Dear Friends,
Today is the 11th day of Elul…Elul is the Hebrew month preceding Rosh Hashanah, the time that we are called upon to prepare for the coming days of Awe. To engage in our own acts of Cheshbon ha Nefesh, a personal accounting of our souls. This is indeed hard work and as Alan Lew writes, “this is real, and you are completely unprepared.”
As we work to prepare, we must look back over the year, both with a sense of justice and a sense of compassion. Try to remember not only the times that you have missed the mark. We are all human and this happens, but we must as well, consider the beautiful moments, the times that we reached out to help another, or acted with grace and forgiveness.
We must remember and underscore the actions and steps that we have taken to make our lives a blessing.
In addition to the physical acts of confession and remembering, which we will share together over the holidays, there is a gorgeous ritual of tashlich that follows the morning service on Rosh Hashanah. As one community, we will gather on the riverbank (under the Lincoln bridge) and literally cast our sins into the river, modeling for our children and for ourselves that the new year holds the promise and potential for a new beginning.
Looking back just over the last few weeks, our community has engaged in so many forms of blessing. How can this not tip the scales? We had the gift of blessing one of our four newborns at Silver Lake, welcoming this unfathomably small human into the brit. This past Shabbat, we were all witness to two magnificent teenagers becoming bar and bat mitzvah in our sanctuary, surrounded by love and family and joy. Sunday, we remembered Judy Intraub ז׳׳ל, by encircling her children and grandchildren at the unveiling of the stone. Then, Monday morning, we had the blessing and honor to share in the mitzvah of hanging a mezuzah on the door post of Jesse and Elliot’s new home, and yesterday we buried Franklin Fiedelholtz ז׳׳ל. This was the gamut of joy and mitzvoth, the sine curve of life, cycling and engaging us. Our work in seeking refuge for our Ukrainian family is deeply sustaining – bearing witness and repairing the world, tipping our communal scales in the profound and sacred nature of our work.
Our community is so full and so blessed. We look forward to sharing Yom Tov with you and with your family. Returning to the sanctuary after so many years away, may this teshuvah, this return and this new year be one of blessing and wonder for us all.
L’Shanah Tovah with love from our home to yours,
Rabbi Ilene Harkavy Haigh
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