Time For The Holidays

The holidays mean different things to different people. For many it is a return to their synagogue to join with their family and friends in prayer. For others an obligation to God and spirituality and others a powerful tradition built by generations of strong Jewish family values.

Whatever your reason for coming, or meaning, we look forward to seeing you this year in Shul for the High Holidays. You will find several changes to the synagogue we hope you will find to your liking. Your leadership has been hard at work to make it a pleasant experience for all.

I found this brief overview of the High Holiday which I edited down to help give a quick overview of  the holidays before us.

The High Holiday period actually begins in Elul, the Hebrew month preceding Rosh Hashana. Elul is an important period of introspection, of clarifying life's goals, and of coming closer to God. Because when the big day of Rosh Hashana comes, and each individual stands before the Almighty to ask for another year, we'll want to know what we're asking for!

During Elul, many people perform a daily cheshbon - a spiritual accounting -- where we step back and look at ourselves critically and honestly, with the intention of improving.

High Holiday preparations intensify on the Saturday night before Rosh Hashana, when we recite "Slichot," a special series of prayers that includes the powerful "13 Attributes of Mercy."

ROSH HASHANA

Rosh Hashana is the Jewish New Year, commemorating the creation of Adam and Eve, the first human beings. On Rosh Hashana, the Books of Life and Death are open on the heavenly desk. On this "Day of Judgment," we each stand before God and offer our best case for being "created anew" -- i.e. granted another year of life.
The morning before Rosh Hashana, we perform "Hatarat Nedarim" -- annulling all vows. This enables us to enter the new year with a clean slate.

The essential mitzvah of Rosh Hashana is to hear the sounding of the shofar.The shofar blasts represent three distinct themes of the day:

The shofar is also mindful of the biblical story of Abraham binding his son Isaac, when a ram was caught in the thicket and sacrificed in Isaac's stead. We blow a ram's horn to recall the great act of faith in God performed by Abraham and Isaac; tradition records that this event occurred on the day of Rosh Hashana.

During the High Holidays, a round challah is used -- symbolizing fullness and completion. We dip the bread into honey, and also an apple into honey, symbolizing our prayer for a sweet new year. On Rosh Hashana, we also eat a series of foods that symbolize good things we hope for in the coming year.

The "Tashlich" prayer is said between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur by a pool of water that preferably has fish in it. These prayers are symbolic of the casting away of our mistakes.

While the decision for "another year of life" is handed down on Rosh Hashana, the verdict is not "sealed" until Yom Kippur. Therefore, the 10 days from Rosh Hashana to Yom Kippur are a crucial period when most peoples' judgment "hangs in the balance." During these "Ten Days of Repentance," we engage in intense introspection, and are particularly careful with our speech, actions, and mitzvah observance.

YOM KIPPUR

Following the Golden Calf, Moses pleaded with God to forgive the Jewish people. Finally, on Yom Kippur, atonement was achieved and Moses brought the second set of Tablets down from Mount Sinai. From that day forward, every Yom Kippur has carried with it a special power to cleanse the mistakes of Jews (both individually and collectively) and to wipe the slate clean.

Yom Kippur is thus the holiest day of the Jewish year. In order to help us achieve a high spiritual level, there are five areas of physical involvement which we remove ourselves from on Yom Kippur:

The Yom Kippur fast begins at sundown, and extends 25 hours until the following nightfall.

Though Yom Kippur atones for transgressions against God, this does not include wrongs committed against our fellow human beings. It is therefore the universal Jewish custom -- sometime before Yom Kippur -- to apologize and seek forgiveness from any friends, relative, or acquaintances whom we may have harmed or insulted over the past year. http://www.aish.com

B,Shalom
Ricky Kodner

The Builder

A cruise liner goes down in the Pacific and Benny is the only survivor. He manages to swim to an uninhabited island.

Many year's later, when a search party finally comes to rescue him, they see that he has constructed two synagogues on his tiny island.

"Why the two synagogues?" the leader asks Benny.

Benny points to the nearest one and replies, "That's the one I go to every Saturday. The other one, I wouldn't go inside if you paid me!"