Tag: High Holy Day

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High Holy Days Holiday

What an AA meeting Taught Me about Creating Sacred Space

Last week, a good friend of mine invited me to join them when they received their 2-year coin at Alcoholics Anonymous. This is not a world that I typically inhabit, and I discovered during the meeting that that world had a lot to teach me about building community, making meaning, and doing teshuva.

In the synagogue world, and especially in small-congregations, it often feels like we are one step behind in the latest trends, one marketing campaign or social media strategy or new melody away from transforming our congregations.

It was fascinating to watch people engage with a community that takes the exact opposite approach. AA meetings use no technology. There is no social media hashtag, no membership database or targeted emails. Nothing is projected on a screen or set to music. Each meeting is grounded in the same 12 steps and 12 traditions, and therefore is probably very similar to how meetings were when the group was founded in 1935.

And yet, people show up every day, because they know that they need what is offered in this sacred space. They come for the no-frills experience of sharing their stories, offering support to those who are struggling, and being seen and heard by their partners in recovery.

They come to do teshuva in the full sense of the word. Turning away from what made their lives unmanageable, and returning to the right path, even after a painful detour, even after walking a path that may have irrevocably changed their lives and their relationships.

Each person who spoke, regardless of where they were in their personal journey of recovery, essentially told the same story: I hurt myself and others with my behavior, I regretted my actions, and I resolved to make a change. Each day, I have to make the decision to live a better life, and that is not easy. But with the support of my community, I feel like it is possible.

This could have been lifted word for word from Maimonides: “I committed iniquity before You by doing the following. Behold, I regret and am embarrassed for my deeds. I promise never to repeat this act again” (Hilchot Teshuva 1:1).

As rabbis, we spend a lot of time coordinating the logistics of High Holy Day worship. But when we strip away the songs and slides and service orders, the essence of our High Holy Day experience bears a strong resemblance to that of an AA meeting. No matter what techniques we employ, our goal is to create a sacred space for our people to do cheshbon hanefesh, a “fierce moral inventory,” to acknowledge that our actions have hurt ourselves and others, and to resolve to make a change. Teshuva, like sobriety, requires an ongoing daily commitment to do better, and we are here to remind our community that none of us engages in this hard work alone. Because it is knowing that we are not alone that makes real transformation seem possible.

Shana Tovah.

— 

Rabbi Leah R. Berkowitz serves Vassar Temple in Poughkeepsie, NY.

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Books High Holy Days Holiday

High Holy Day Family Sermon Starters

Oh my goodness, are you so tired? I am so tired. Like, my leg bones ache, so tired. And oh good heavens, there is only a month left until the High Holidays begin. Between the start of the school year and the political situation and just getting to the grocery store so we can have something that vaguely resembles food in the house, I bet you might feel the same.

So let’s just get straight to it. Here are some sermon starters for family service sermons, using non-traditional picture books as the jumping off point. Hopefully, one of these will resonate with you (and make things just a bit easier)

 

Oh No, George!: Maimonides’ Laws of Repentance

Central sermon question: What do we do when we make mistakes? What constitutes true repentance?

Jewish texts you could use:

  • “Who is truly repentant? The one who, when the temptation to sin is repeated, refrains from sinning.” – Babylonian Talmud, Yoma 86b

Modern References:

 

Emma’s Poem: Privilege and Tikkun Olam

Central sermon question: How do we use the blessings we have to help repair the world?

Jewish texts you could use:

  • “Hillel said: Do not separate yourself from the community” – Pirke Avot 2:5
  • “[Rabbi Tarfon] used to say: It is not incumbent upon you to finish the task. Yet, you are not free to desist from it.” – Pirke Avot 2:21
  • 16 Circumcise your hearts, therefore, and do not be stiff-necked any longer. 17 For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality and accepts no bribes. 18 He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the foreigner residing among you, giving them food and clothing. 19 And you are to love those who are foreigners, for you yourselves were foreigners in Egypt. – Deuteronomy 10:16-19

Modern References:

Having a hard time talking about privilege? Here is one interesting, accessible resource.

 

Pout Pout Fish: Yom Kippur as the Silver Fish

Central sermon question: Can we choose happiness?

Jewish texts you could use:

  • Selection of references asking the Divine countenance to shine upon us: Numbers 6:22-25, Psalm 31:16, Psalm 67:1, Psalm 80:3, Psalm 119:135, Daniel 9:17. “We pray for God to change Her/His face; are we capable of doing the same? Can we find a way to see the positive in a situation we originally considered negative?
  • Shammai says:… meet every person with a pleasant countenance – Pirke Avot 1:15
  • “Just as the hand, held before the eye, can hide the tallest mountain, so the routine of everyday life can keep us from seeing the vast radiance and the secret wonders that fill the world” – Chasidic, 18th Century (p. 3, Gates of Repentance)

Modern References:

Gretchen Rubin’s podcast “Happier”

 

Knuffle Bunny Too:  Second Chances

Central sermon question: Can forgiveness and empathy help form new, meaningful friendships?

Jewish texts you could use:

  • “Who is honorable? One who honors his fellows” (Ben Zoma) – Pirke Avot 4:1 – Learning how to do this healthily can be hard!
  • Yehoshua ben Perachia says, “Make for yourself a mentor, acquire for yourself a friend and judge every person as meritorious.” – Pirke Avot 1:13

Modern References:

  • TED Talk about the Grant Study at Harvard (Crunched for time? Skip to about 6 minutes in)

 

The Thank You Book: Blessings

Central sermon question: What are blessings?

  • Blessings are an expression of gratitude; an opportunity to remind ourselves of what is truly important in our lives – the food we eat, the people we love, the existence of rainbows and wonders (maybe not in that particular order). What are you grateful for? Who are you forgetting? Is it someone or something that you take for granted so much that you need to break the fourth wall in order to thank?

Do you have any other favorite non-traditional children’s books that you love to use as sermon-starters? Join the conversation in the comments below!

—

Rabbi Lauren Ben-Shoshan, M.A.R.E., resides in Palo Alto, California with her lovely husband and their four energetic and very small children.

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Immigration News Rabbis Reform Judaism Social Justice

Mi Sheberach for All Immigrants and the Descendants of Immigrants

The following is a Mi Sheberach for a person who immigrated to the United States, to be used on Rosh HaShanah.  The accompanying introduction could be rewritten not for an individual but for all in the sanctuary: “I want to offer this mi sheberach for all who are in our sanctuary who immigrated to the United States and for all who have a parent who immigrated here, or a grandparent or a great-grandparent, or ancestor.  In essence, this mi sheberach is for all of us.”

Introduction.  For the first aliyah we invite (name) for the honor.  We do so not only for (name), but also to recognize him/her as someone who came to America many years ago to escape the horrors of the Shoah, the Holocaust, in Greece and built his/her life here, facing both challenges and successes.  After his/her aliyah, I will offer a mi sheberach for all who are immigrants and all who are the children of immigrants, or grandchildren, or great-grandchildren, or descendants, in essence for all of us.

After Aliyah: Mi sheberach avoteinu v’imoteinu….may God who blessed our immigrant ancestors, who left their homes because of the pain that was known and entered new lands with pains that could not be imagined, who left Egypt, who left Spain and Russia, Iraq, Greece, and Germany, bless you (name), who has come for an aliyah with reverence for God, respect for the Torah and this Yom HaDin, day of Rosh Hashanah.

May God bless you and all who came to America and found refuge, and all of us who immigrated or whose parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, or ancestors came to these shores beckoned by promise, liberty, and opportunity.

In this holy place and time we acknowledge the depth of our connection with our people’s story both ancient and modern.  We remember on this Day of Remembrance, Yom haZikaron, what it was like for us or for our ancestors to immigrate to this country and are mindful of Leviticus’ strong command repeated in similar verse 35 times in Torah: “When strangers sojourn with you in your land, you shall not do them wrong. The strangers who sojourn with you shall be to you as the natives among you, and you shall love them as yourself; for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.”  (19:33-34).

We acknowledge on this day that we live in an America where immigration policies are broken.  As we stand today before an open sefer Torah on our holy day—May we remain open to the possibility of comprehensive change in our immigration system.  May we remain open to the suffering of eleven million people who are undocumented, some say illegal, whose lives and whose children’s’ lives are limited every day because of their uncertain status. May we strive to balance our needed protections with their real, daily challenges as we work for clear, empathetic, and realistic policies.

May the Holy One of Blessing inscribe and seal you (name) and all of us into the Book of Good Life, together with all our fellow citizens, all who seek that claim, and all in our communities.  And let us say, Amen.

Rabbi Adam Stock Spilker is the rabbi at Mount Zion Temple, in St. Paul, Minn. 

Sign-on in support of comprehensive immigration reform

There are few issues that confront our country today that are more urgent or compelling than the need to fix America’s broken immigration system. This issue holds deep resonance with both the Jewish experience of migration and our tradition’s sacred texts with their repeated command to love the stranger.

We have set an ambitious goal to obtain signatures from as many rabbis and cantors as possible – of all Movements – on this letter to Congress in support of comprehensive immigration reform. Please join the over 1,200 of your colleagues who have already added their names. You can sign the letter and find more information at rac.org/clergysignon