I am sure you all know by now that Temple Or Olam was one of two grant recipients this year of the Lenora Stein Fund for Community Creative Learning. Marty Minchin has written a wonderful story on our efforts to work with special needs children. It appeared today in Cabarrus News.
You can read more here.
What a beautiful story — in every sense!
L’shana tova,
Rabbi Barbara
Come, come, whoever you are
Wonderer, worshipper, lover of leaving
It doesn’t matter
Ours is not a caravan of despair
Come, even if you have broken your vow
a thousand times
Come, yet again, come, come
Rumi
Our Rosh Hashanah was filled with humor and tenderness. We sang our way through the day; we acknowledged our gifts. We took our intentions, our kavannah, from Torah itself. There, this most special day was a day of t’ruah, a day of loud exclamatory sounds. Joy, in other words.
No wonder: In biblical days this was not a Day of Judgement (that title arrives a lot later in our history), but a Day of Celebration.
Tomorrow is Shabbat Shuva, when we focus on our return to the elemental — in all its forms.
Challenging work is ahead: What and who have we been in this past year, and what would we like to become. When we step into the sanctuary on Tuesday evening, for Kol Nidre services, what would we like to forgive in others, in ourselves? What would we like to be forgiven for?
Let us consider Yom Kippur as an opportunity for cleansing, a day when we can strive to promote wisdom and goodness in ourselves, in others, in our community. Together, may we enter this year celebrating our hope that we be filled with both.
Shabbat Shalom!
Rabbi Barbara
Torah calls it Yom T’ruah, a day of shofar sounds, of loud and joyful exclamation. Rosh Hashanah is, according to our oldest texts, a day of celebration.
That’s exactly how we will mark our New Year. Please, feel free to come to services in bright and beautiful colors to give honor to the world’s birthday. Bring your Book of Life journals from last year or buy a new one, if you like — we’re supposed to have something new for the New Year!
Join us for services of joy and hope and new beginnings. We look forward to seeing you there!
High Holy Day Service Schedule
Suggested donations for non-members:
High Holy Day donations can be applied to membership dues if guests join within three months. Please call 704.720.7577 for more information.
Childcare provided for services at McGill.
Come, come, whoever you are
Wonderer, worshipper, lover of leaving
It doesn’t matter
Ours is not a caravan of despair
Come, even if you have broken your vow
a thousand times
Come, yet again, come, come
Rumi
Please join us tomorrow night for a gentle evening centered around the theme of forgiveness. We’ll take the time to assess our past year and identify what we long for in the next. Surrounded by community and carried by prayer, we’ll take an important prepatory step for the Days of Awe.
Come and hear the old chassidic story about a girl who looked for God in unlikely places.
Please bring something to share at oneg; we look forward to seeing you there.
Date and Time: September 8, 2012, 7 p.m.
Location: McGill Baptist Church, Concord
At the close of this Shabbat we will come together for a deeply reflective service. Selichot, Hebrew for “forgiveness” is a loving element in the Jewish liturgical calendar. On Selichot, we take the time to consider the nature of forgiveness — both human and divine.
This Elul week, take the time to ask yourselves these questions: Who would you like to forgive? What do you need forgiveness for? What do you need to forgive in yourself?
Our service will begin with havdalah. We will say a sweet goodbye to Shabbat and make a tender entry into this next week. We will read and sing from psalms. We will begin the process of dissolving the burdens we carry. We will open to the reality and the nature of forgiveness.
Join us for Selichot. Dress comfortably, and bring journals or your Books of Life from last year with you.
Please also bring something to share at the oneg following the service.
Let us understand when we need to say we are sorry — even to ourselves.
Date and Time: September 8; 7 pm
Location: McGill Baptist Church, Concord
One thing I ask of Adonai, only that do I seek: to live in the house of Adonai all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of Adonai, to frequent Adonai’s temple. Psalm 27:4.
This past month, some of our congregants sat down to study the history and liturgy of the High Holy Days with me. They learned that many Jews read psalms during the month of Elul – most particularly Psalm 27.
The psalms are a collection of heartfelt prayers. They range from laments to joyful celebrations. Their authors express the full gamut of human emotions, from despair to celebration, from longing to untrammeled hope.
During our study time together I asked everyone to try writing their own psalms as part of their preparation for High Holy Days. Imagine Rosh Hashanah as a celebration – the birthday of all creation. Imagine Yom Kippur as a time when you could embrace the opportunity to examine and cleanse your spirit and soul. What might you want to ask God for? What joy might you want to express?
I include, with permission from its author, and for inspiration, the first psalm I received.
The author, Cheryl Greenwald, chose to use El Shaddai, one of our many names for God in the Tanakh, in her psalm.
El is an ancient term that means, simply, “god.” Most scholars believe that Shaddai harks etymologically (perhaps) to an ancient semitic word for “mountains.” Thus, “God of the mountains.” Some have also suggested that shaddai actually refers to fertility (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Shaddai). In either case, this psalm suggests that God is a protecting, nourishing force.
Are there other psalms waiting to be written as we prepare for the Days of Awe?
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Barbara
If I ask God for comfort
El Shaddai
Will answer and comfort
If I ask for forgiveness
El Shaddai
Answers and forgives
If I ask that no man, woman or child be abused
El Shaddai
Will hear me
Where can we go and be safe?
El Shaddai
Will find a place
El Shaddai
Will comfort us
Praised are You who O Lord, who brings us comfort
Today is the first day of the month of Elul.
The rabbis say that Moses ascended Sinai for the last time on the night of Rosh Hodesh Elul. He went to recover the covenant, to make it anew. The first tablets had been destroyed after the terrible debacle of the Golden Calf. Hope seemed broken beyond repair.
And yet, Moses ascended. This time, God told Moses to carve the tablets. This time, the covenant would be carved and inscribed by both human and divine energies.
Elul was – and is – a month for reflection: Moses remained above with God, learning that the covenant would have to be a joint project. The Israelites stayed below, reflecting on the burdens they had schlepped into their new lives. How could they let go of things they no longer needed to carry?
The name of the month of Elul has exactly the same numeric value as the word binah, wisdom. It is a good time to reflect on the stuff of the past year, on the pain and trouble we have carried, the misguided decisions and the hasty actions we could wish away. It is a time to reflect on hopes and dreams yet unrealized, on the longing to draw near to God.
Elul: The name of this month is an acronym, so our sages say, for a well-known phrase from Song of Songs: Ani l’dodi v’dodi li: I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine. During Elul, we hear the call of our Beloved in the shofar that is sounded each day of the month in traditional communities. That primal sound awakens us, reminds us.
For what? To discover our own wisdom. To reflect on who we are now and who we long to become.
As we walk through each of the last thirty days of this year, let us begin opening up our hearts and minds. Let us prepare for these High Holy Days with consciousness and joy.
Take some time to write, in your own words, about the fears and troubles of this last year in your Books of Life or in journals you might buy for yourselves. Write about your joys, too. Ask yourselves what wisdom you long for. Listen, Israel.
Our covenant is being rewritten and reinscribed every year. During the month of Elul, we partner with God in the renewal. As this year ends, we define what we long for in the next.
Elul: Wisdom and love. May we go up just as Moses did, and may we, like Moses, receive.
Dear Folks,
Many of you have mournfully declared that you no longer possess tie-dyed clothing to wear to tomorrow night’s Love Song service.
Funky will do just fine. (See cat.)
So pull out those red shoes or that rainbow tie. Join us on Shabbat. Love is all you need…
Shabbat Shalom (a leetle early),
Rabbi Barbara
You’d think that people
Would have had enough
Of silly love songs.
I look around me and I see it isn’t so.
Some people wanna fill the world
With silly love songs.
And what’s wrong with that? I’d like to know.
Years ago, I created kippot with symbols of love songs I imagined singing to God. There was the one with a moon and sun on it. I enjoyed having folks guess the song it represented (Night and Day).
This year, I suggested to our Temple Or Olam band that we think about doing an entire service of love songs our congregants could imagine singing to God. So we sent out emails, asked for ideas and contributions, and began rehearsing Don McClean and Elvis Presley, the Animals and Toad the Wet Sprocket. Yup, and Cat Stevens, the Beatles, and Van Morrison too. And more.
We created a whole service from the suggestions we received and used almost all we got. Love songs from the sixties through the nineties. Love songs that are joyous and free. Love songs that express sadness and longing. These, two, are part of our relationship with God.
At the service, we’ll find out how those words and melodies mirror the prayers we typically sings – from the Barchu to Mi Chamocha to Adon Olam.
So look in the closet for those headbands, fringes, love beads, and tie-died shirts. Tap into happy, free, and, if you like, what it feels like to be goofy with love.
Join us on August 17 for our first ever Love Song Service at 7 pm at McGill Baptist Church in Concord. There’s a lot that’s right on about all those silly love songs. J
Shabbat Shalom!
Rabbi Barbara
This weekend marks the holiday of Tisha B’Av, a little-known Jewish day of mourning. The holiday is in remembrance of the destruction of the First Temple in 586 BCE and the Second Temple in 70 CE.
The second destruction put an end to any chance of national sovereignty for Jews until 1948, when Israel was born. For Europe’s Jews, pivotal events occured in later centuries on the 9th of Av, including the expulsion of Jews from England in 1290 and Spain in 1492. The Warsaw Ghetto was liquidated on that same day.
Many of us are enjoying our last summer vacations. Tisha B’Av falls in a time when mourning seems like the last thing on our mind.
And yet, as we approach the High Holy Days and the end of our Jewish year, we can take time to pause and reflect. Are we carrying any grief or sorrow we need to acknowledge? Is there a way to name our losses and honor them? What do we fear and what do we hope for?
If you have the time and inclination, you might want to write in your Books of Life about any question that resonates.
If you would like to learn more about Tisha B’Av, try here.
http://www.jewfaq.org/holidayd.htm
However you choose to learn or reflect, I wish you all a sweet Shabbat bringing light, peace, and wholeness.
I look forward to seeing you at our next service on August 3.
