My dear friends,
Now that we're on the other side of Rosh Hashanah and moving toward Yom Kippur, I wanted to share a preview of what you can expect at Yom Kippur services this year.
Similar to how we approached Rosh Hashanah, Hazzan Marian and I sat down many weeks ago and prepared for Yom Kippur by asking ourselves what spiritual or emotional needs our congregants might have as they walk through the doors of the Temple. The ideas again came readily: spiritual uplift, affirmation, wholeness, and peace; opportunities for introspection, moments of connection with others, encounters with tradition, fresh perspectives on our lives and our world. More than anything, we felt that people would be yearning for hope.
We will strive to focus on these themes in our Yom Kippur services this year. Our hope is that, through our time together in worship and in community, we can all enter the new year feeling more spiritually and emotionally secure, more deeply connected to each other, and more hopeful about the future.
These goals were at the forefront of my thoughts as I developed my messages for Yom Kippur. After weeks of preparation, I'm proud to unveil the titles for those presentations:
Kol Nidrei: "Three Essentials to Pack for Your Journey"
Yom Kippur Day: "Extremists for Love"
I look forward to hearing your thoughts about either or both, whether in person, or over email, or through our High Holy Day evaluation. I cherish your thoughts and welcome opportunities for conversation with you.
For your edification, here is my Yom Kippur reading list, the books I read closely as I was preparing my messages:
- Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West by Stephen E. Ambrose
- The Attention Merchants: The Epic Scramble to Get Inside Our Heads, by Tim Wu
- To Do the Right and the Good: A Jewish Approach to Modern Social Ethics, by Elliot N. Dorff
- The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion, by Jonathan Haidt
- Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire - A 500-Year History, by Kurt Anderson.
- Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Struggle for Global Freedom (Collected speeches and papers from The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute at Stanford University)
As was the case with Rosh Hashanah services, you can expect a number of creative changes/experiments we're planning on trying. Instead of outlining every change or innovation in this email, I invite you to come to services this year with open hearts and minds.
Please be on the lookout for our High Holy Day evaluation, which, similar to Rosh Hashanah, you will be invited to fill out after the holiday. We hope you will experience our worship this year with open hearts and minds, and then provide us with your honest feedback about what worked for you, what didn't, and what you could imagine us doing differently in the future.
Your thoughts and feelings are very important to us, and we will utilize that input to improve our High Holy Day services in 5779.
Hazzan Marian joins me in wishing you a happy and sweet New Year. May you and your dear ones be inscribed and sealed in the Book of Life! We look forward to seeing you in shul.
