High Holiday Letter from Rabbi Broitman
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Dear Friends,
I am excited to write to you about our plans for High Holiday services 5781, and to invite you and your family to join us. This year, the need for a pause to take time for reflection, teshuvah, and renewal, calls to us more than ever. During that pause, we hope to step back and see the larger context of our lives. We can look with calmness and focus at themes of mortality, responsibility, and gratitude. We can participate in community prayer that has its own unique ability to connect us both to each other and to generations past and future. We have been working throughout the summer to create meaningful and engaging services in the Zoom online format. We are happy to announce that Yoel Sykes from Jerusalem’s Nava Tehila and Cantor Louise Treitman will join Klezmer violinist Deborah Strauss and Island musician Eric Johnson who have played with us for many years. We will also have guest appearances from Cantor Jeff Warschauer of the Strauss/Warschauer duo. We have chosen the Zoom meeting format over live stream and webinar so that we can see each other and feel the power and warmth of community. The only thing left that we need is the most important--you. We would love for you and your family to join us. The schedule of services is attached below. Registration for services is now available. Once you register, you will receive the link for the services -- ZOOM links for the Rosh Hashanah and the Yom Kippur Services will be sent a few days before each Holiday respectively . You are welcome to invite friends and family to the services, but we ask that everyone fill out a registration form as a requirement for joining, so that we recognize each device before we admit people to the service. We are balancing our priority of accessibility with the importance of online security, so please remember to register and register early if possible. Meanwhile, we are offering opportunities to prepare for the holidays, as is traditional, throughout this Jewish month of Elul. You will be receiving a weekly High Holiday newsletter with teachings, meditations and links to music. Giulia Fleishman, 4th year Rabbinical student at Hebrew College (and graduate of our religious school!) will be teaching a weekly class on preparation for the holidays. And on Friday night September 11th Yoel Sykes and I will be leading the Kabbalat Shabbat service together as a journey toward the Days of Awe. Brian, Galya and I wish you and your families a healthy New Year. May the year 5781 be filled with blessings of peace, compassion and justice for all of us and all the world. Shana Tova, Rabbi Caryn Broitman |
