Beloved Friends,

Today we will enter the first Shabbat of Elul. The High Holy Days are fast approaching, and we are planning for beautiful, meaningful, and enriching worship experiences. Worship will be offered in person in the Schreibman Sanctuary as well as in a large tent in our south parking lot. Each of these will also be offered digitally via YouTube.

We are so grateful to Cantor Amy Zussman, our Cantor Emerita, who will be joining Rabbi Heaps and me on the Bimah for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Music has and always will be so important to our congregation. We are very fortunate that Paul Dykstra continues as our music director and choir conductor. We will have a double quartet of professional voices who will be joining the dedicated and talented members of our own Adult Volunteer Choir throughout the days of Awe.

This year we are focusing on the High Holy Day poem Unetaneh Tokef. This poem most often evokes a strong response to its dire message of life and death hanging in the balance for us on these Days of Awe. Yet, there is another aspect to the essence of this poem. “Let us now relate the power of this day’s holiness, for it is awesome…” In other words, we are stating that it is possible that we can approach these Holy Days: “Seeing the Holiness/awesomeness of the/each day.”

Each day is both a blessing and a gift. The coda to this poem is: Teshuvah, Tefillah, and Tzedakah ease the severity of the decree. These three pillars of our faith are the key to creating a better year for ourselves, our community, and our world. The poem ‘Unetaneh Tokef’ reminds us that we can change our own character, even if we cannot completely control our future.

Teshuvah—repentance, response, return—is the ability to move, to change course, to come back to center, to reconcile. Tefillah—prayer—is the ability to let the world take your breath away, to hold onto and to articulate gratitude, hope, and awe. Tzedakah—righteousness—is the ability to pursue justice and to act from a fountain of generosity.

Here is what you and we need to know for this High Holy Day season of 5784:

  • To view our multi-access worship schedule with details about time and setting, click here.
  • To register your guests for the High Holy Days, click here.
  • While the deadline for our printed Greetings and Remembrances book has passed, you may still share a greeting or remember loved one in our digital book by completing this form: click here.
  • To send us Yizkor photos, if you did not do so previously, click here.
  • To complete your membership renewal, click here.

In this New Year let our words and our deeds be dedicated to Teshuvah, Tefillah, and Tzedakah bringing healing, hope, and blessing into our world.

Cathy, Jacob and Elana, Eli, Anna, and Hope join me in wishing you and your dear families Shabbat Shalom and Shanah Tovah,

Rabbi Paul F. Cohen, D.Min., D.D.