DRASHOT - TORAH EXPLANATION...
Torah Portion: Ki Tavo Deuteronomy 26:1-29:8
Shabbat Shalom. In less than two weeks it will be Rosh HaShanah and the high holidays will be upon us. While we have had 12 months to prepare for this, they always seem to creep up on us and surprise us. Was it really almost a year ago we were welcoming the new year 5774? In just 11 days, it will be 5775 and we will be in the most intense and holy period of the ancient Hebrew calendar: the Yamim Nora’im, the Days of Awe, the Aseret Yamei Teshuvah – the days of spiritual renewal, repentance, and return. Our congregation, like all other synagogues throughout the world, will be filled with people. There will be the faces of old friends whom we have not seen in too long and new faces of people trying to navigate their way through this beautiful and confusing time of the year. Emotions might run high as we look back at all we have been through over the past 12 months: the deaths, divorces, illnesses, new jobs, old jobs, births, weddings, new homes… The only constant, once again, has been change. The challenges of the world, of life, seem to have grown harder, not easier.
We have seen missiles flying in Israel, kidnapped teens, murdered civilians, increasing fear, anger, sadness, confusion, intolerance, hatred, violence, indifference, destructive drought, greed, and a decrease in civility all around the world. How can we stand it? By standing together. By facing the new year and it’s challenges and opportunities within the community, with each other to lean on when the path becomes too steep. Come what may, we know we are stronger when we are united, and that is true of our world, our people, and our community.
A new Hebrew year offers us unique and powerful moments to reaffirm our commitment to being a warm and welcoming congregation. This high holiday season, one of the main times that people come out of the woodwork to explore and connect with their Jewish identity, is a chance for all of us to grow. It is a chance to re-connect and to choose new paths, new directions, and new goals. It is a chance for all of us to become the people whom we are meant to be, the people whom we have always wanted to be, and the people whom we are already inside. These are the days of return, when we return to ourselves, to our true best selves.
Through sounding and hearing the wordless cry of the shofar, through engaging in deep spiritual work and cleansing, through spending many hours in prayer, song, meditation, study and fellowship, we begin to write the script of a new year. It is taught that Rosh HaShana is not only the Head of the Year, the new year, it is also when we set the intentions for the entire year. What we do on these two days of Rosh HaShana sets into motion our priorities and our definitions of what we want our year to be. The name Rosh HaShanah can be midrashically understood as the “Head of Change,” and it’s when we state who we want to become. And this new us must begin inside us, in our minds, in our hearts and souls, before it will become realized in our actions and inter-actions. We make this powerful spiritual effort while drawing strength from a room of other people engaged in their own intimate inner work. There is strength in numbers, of knowing the community stands ready to greet the new day, the new year, and the new life ahead of us all.
To be clear, this is hard work. Re-making our lives and our world is not an easy task. And we need a plan. In fact, we need to have a plan of how we are going to create a plan for the new year. We wouldn’t take a cruise by accident; we wouldn’t board an airplane not knowing where it is scheduled to land. We need to approach the task of starting a new year with a vision of how to do it. It’s hard work, but few things that are really worth doing are easy.
The first thing we need is a destination. According to the Rambam, as he explained in his guide to Teshuvah and spiritual renewal, we need to reflect back on where we have been. I personally suggest we take stock of our accomplishments and not just dwell on our failures. As Thomas Edison said: “I didn’t fail; I just found 10,000 ways that didn’t work.” In addition to noticing the times that it didn’t work, take a moment in your self-reflection to notice the many times it did, when it shone with clarity, insight, and goodness. From a place of reflecting and realizing the ways we missed the mark, we express regret to those whom we have hurt. In addition to our words directed towards heaven, we are supposed to seek out those whom we wronged and apologize to them, and ask them what are the ways we can try and make it better. We are to forgive those who have wronged us, even, perhaps, when they don’t ask our forgiveness. No one wants to shlep old hurts, and old baggage into the new year. I advise all of us, most certainly starting with myself, to let it go. And start anew.
Choose a goal you want to actualize; become the new you, in at least one way. Choose one path to success that you really care about. Not a New Years’s resolution made in a second and long forgotten by Martin Luther King Jr. Day, but an actual pledge of something you can do, want to do, and will do. Nurture it; bring it in to the sukkah as your harvest of the new year and wave it with the lulav and etrog. Dance with it on Simchat Torah, and let it still be burning bright on Chanukah. This is a time of year for new beginnings
Take care of the spiritual and the practical concerns of this season. Don’t let the High Holidays fully take you by surprise. Plan them out, ask for the time off of work, and write down when services are on your calendars or cell phones. Plan out some holiday feasts, buy some new clothing for the new you and year, clean off your desk, and answer that e-mail that’s been nagging at you. Change is in the air, and it’s in the season. We can feel the nights cooling off and a new cycle beginning (may it be full of much rain and blessings).
Find ways to get involved. Ask Tom Gough if there are any building needs or cleaning that needs to get done for the holidays. Ask Janet Rasmussen about participating in the Service. Ask Laura Skolnick, in the office, if there are small tasks that need doing. Or, ask Doug Highiet, our president, or anyone on the board how you can help with greeting people. Please, everyone, take a flyer home and post it at a store, library, or a public bulletin board. Let others know about our events, and this holiday journey that we are about to go on together. People care and the act of talking about it makes it real.
Consider telling your close friends and family about your personal goal for the year so they can offer their ongoing support. Do some Jewish reading, look over the high holidays prayers, or listen to the melodies on Youtube. The more we put into this process, the more we will all get out of it. And it can last us further through the year.
It’s a time of new beginnings, for the schools, the farms and orchards, and for our Jewish souls. This week, we read the Torah portion of Ki Tavo – when you come into the land. May we all come into the new land of the new year in peace, good health, with intention, and with each other. Shabbat Shalom! - Rabbi Shalom Bochner (September 12, 2014)
Shabbat Shalom. In less than two weeks it will be Rosh HaShanah and the high holidays will be upon us. While we have had 12 months to prepare for this, they always seem to creep up on us and surprise us. Was it really almost a year ago we were welcoming the new year 5774? In just 11 days, it will be 5775 and we will be in the most intense and holy period of the ancient Hebrew calendar: the Yamim Nora’im, the Days of Awe, the Aseret Yamei Teshuvah – the days of spiritual renewal, repentance, and return. Our congregation, like all other synagogues throughout the world, will be filled with people. There will be the faces of old friends whom we have not seen in too long and new faces of people trying to navigate their way through this beautiful and confusing time of the year. Emotions might run high as we look back at all we have been through over the past 12 months: the deaths, divorces, illnesses, new jobs, old jobs, births, weddings, new homes… The only constant, once again, has been change. The challenges of the world, of life, seem to have grown harder, not easier.
We have seen missiles flying in Israel, kidnapped teens, murdered civilians, increasing fear, anger, sadness, confusion, intolerance, hatred, violence, indifference, destructive drought, greed, and a decrease in civility all around the world. How can we stand it? By standing together. By facing the new year and it’s challenges and opportunities within the community, with each other to lean on when the path becomes too steep. Come what may, we know we are stronger when we are united, and that is true of our world, our people, and our community.
A new Hebrew year offers us unique and powerful moments to reaffirm our commitment to being a warm and welcoming congregation. This high holiday season, one of the main times that people come out of the woodwork to explore and connect with their Jewish identity, is a chance for all of us to grow. It is a chance to re-connect and to choose new paths, new directions, and new goals. It is a chance for all of us to become the people whom we are meant to be, the people whom we have always wanted to be, and the people whom we are already inside. These are the days of return, when we return to ourselves, to our true best selves.
Through sounding and hearing the wordless cry of the shofar, through engaging in deep spiritual work and cleansing, through spending many hours in prayer, song, meditation, study and fellowship, we begin to write the script of a new year. It is taught that Rosh HaShana is not only the Head of the Year, the new year, it is also when we set the intentions for the entire year. What we do on these two days of Rosh HaShana sets into motion our priorities and our definitions of what we want our year to be. The name Rosh HaShanah can be midrashically understood as the “Head of Change,” and it’s when we state who we want to become. And this new us must begin inside us, in our minds, in our hearts and souls, before it will become realized in our actions and inter-actions. We make this powerful spiritual effort while drawing strength from a room of other people engaged in their own intimate inner work. There is strength in numbers, of knowing the community stands ready to greet the new day, the new year, and the new life ahead of us all.
To be clear, this is hard work. Re-making our lives and our world is not an easy task. And we need a plan. In fact, we need to have a plan of how we are going to create a plan for the new year. We wouldn’t take a cruise by accident; we wouldn’t board an airplane not knowing where it is scheduled to land. We need to approach the task of starting a new year with a vision of how to do it. It’s hard work, but few things that are really worth doing are easy.
The first thing we need is a destination. According to the Rambam, as he explained in his guide to Teshuvah and spiritual renewal, we need to reflect back on where we have been. I personally suggest we take stock of our accomplishments and not just dwell on our failures. As Thomas Edison said: “I didn’t fail; I just found 10,000 ways that didn’t work.” In addition to noticing the times that it didn’t work, take a moment in your self-reflection to notice the many times it did, when it shone with clarity, insight, and goodness. From a place of reflecting and realizing the ways we missed the mark, we express regret to those whom we have hurt. In addition to our words directed towards heaven, we are supposed to seek out those whom we wronged and apologize to them, and ask them what are the ways we can try and make it better. We are to forgive those who have wronged us, even, perhaps, when they don’t ask our forgiveness. No one wants to shlep old hurts, and old baggage into the new year. I advise all of us, most certainly starting with myself, to let it go. And start anew.
Choose a goal you want to actualize; become the new you, in at least one way. Choose one path to success that you really care about. Not a New Years’s resolution made in a second and long forgotten by Martin Luther King Jr. Day, but an actual pledge of something you can do, want to do, and will do. Nurture it; bring it in to the sukkah as your harvest of the new year and wave it with the lulav and etrog. Dance with it on Simchat Torah, and let it still be burning bright on Chanukah. This is a time of year for new beginnings
Take care of the spiritual and the practical concerns of this season. Don’t let the High Holidays fully take you by surprise. Plan them out, ask for the time off of work, and write down when services are on your calendars or cell phones. Plan out some holiday feasts, buy some new clothing for the new you and year, clean off your desk, and answer that e-mail that’s been nagging at you. Change is in the air, and it’s in the season. We can feel the nights cooling off and a new cycle beginning (may it be full of much rain and blessings).
Find ways to get involved. Ask Tom Gough if there are any building needs or cleaning that needs to get done for the holidays. Ask Janet Rasmussen about participating in the Service. Ask Laura Skolnick, in the office, if there are small tasks that need doing. Or, ask Doug Highiet, our president, or anyone on the board how you can help with greeting people. Please, everyone, take a flyer home and post it at a store, library, or a public bulletin board. Let others know about our events, and this holiday journey that we are about to go on together. People care and the act of talking about it makes it real.
Consider telling your close friends and family about your personal goal for the year so they can offer their ongoing support. Do some Jewish reading, look over the high holidays prayers, or listen to the melodies on Youtube. The more we put into this process, the more we will all get out of it. And it can last us further through the year.
It’s a time of new beginnings, for the schools, the farms and orchards, and for our Jewish souls. This week, we read the Torah portion of Ki Tavo – when you come into the land. May we all come into the new land of the new year in peace, good health, with intention, and with each other. Shabbat Shalom! - Rabbi Shalom Bochner (September 12, 2014)