Friday, September 22, 7 Tishri Please join Rabbi Marciai Plumb and Ellen Allard for a HYBRID Kabbalat Shabbat Service.
We will be honoring Aaron Grau, son of Cheryl and Daniel Grau, for joining the Newton Police Force.
Saturday September 23, 8 Tishri Please join Rabbi Marcia Plumb and Cantor Lorel Zar-Kessler for a HYBRID Shabbat Shuva Morning Service.
If you have a simcha, please share it with us and receive a special blessing from Rabbi Plumb during an upcoming Shabbat service. Sponsor a Kiddush by virtually inviting us to your home as you lead the community in Kiddush and HaMotzi prayers. (we will provide challah and grape juice!) Please contect Rosalie Reszelbach, or Toni Spitzer to arrange.
Please click here for the link to the new Conservative prayerbook, Siddur Lev Shalem: Shabbat Shaharit Siddur Lev Shalem The prayers will be the same as in our usual blue siddur, so feel free to use that instead if you wish.
Please click here for the link to the page numbers for Shabbat morning prayers in Sim Shalom (Blue) and in Lev Shalem Page Numbers for Shabbat Morning
Sukkot Events 5784/2023
All Sukkot Services are HYBRID will be held in the CMT Sacred Space.
Friday, September 29, 6:00PM - Erev Sukkot Kabbalat Shabbat Services led by Rabbi Marcia Plumb and Ellen Allard.
Saturday, September 30, 9:30AM
Sukkot Day1
Join us for Shabbat Sukkot Yom Tov Services led by Rabbi David Starr and Cantor Ellen Band. Please join us in-person to welcome Rabbi Starr, who is a candidate for our Interim Rabbinic position.
We Remember: This week's upcoming Yahrzeit Observances
Shloshim Gloria Bubly Althea Lank
Saturday Dorothy Gruskin
Sunday Barbara Gray
Monday
Tuesday Harry Diamond Helen Covel
Wednesday Roes Silver
Thursday
Friday David Karas Ira B. Gordon
A Teaching from Our Rabbi
Yehuda Amichai wrote: And what is my life span? I’m like a man gone out of Egypt: the Red Sea parts, I cross on dry land, two walls of water, on my right hand and on my left. Pharaoh’s army and his horsemen behind me. Before me the desert, perhaps the Promised Land, too. That is my life span.
In Amichai’s poem, he looks back on his life and recalls the miracles, and the fears; the safety and the risks; the trauma and the dry-land steadiness. At the end, he wonders what the future will bring–more miracles and joys, or emptiness and a thirst for more.
At the Yamim Noraim we ask the same questions: what is our life span? What has our life consisted of, and what dreams do we have for the future? One of our prayers in the morning service asks the same: what is our power, what is our past, what is our future?
That is what Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are all about. If I had to boil Yom Kippur down to its richest essence, we would find these key questions running through all the services during the 24 hours:
What have we done well and are proud of this past year? Where have we missed the mark? What shames or remorse do we carry from the past?
Sit with those questions. Ask them over and over until you get to the unvarnished, undeniable truth.
Then feel the gentle pride that comes with the awareness of the good we have done.
Then feel the sadness that comes with the awareness that our words or actions caused a tear in the soul-fabric of another, whether we meant to or not.
Draw out the courage from yourself (with God’s help perhaps) to try to repair the damage, no matter how long ago it was. Never be afraid or embarrassed or too proud to admit a mistake, or a wrong… and ask for forgiveness. Create a miracle by seeking or giving forgiveness because forgiveness is a miracle.
Next, we wonder with Amichai, what lies before me. Will the next year be like a desert, or the Promised Land, or perhaps both?
From our boiled down version of Yom Kippur, we look for our future. During the day on Yom Kippur, ask yourself these questions:
In the year ahead, what will my days be filled with? What kind of person do I want to be? Am I ready to change to become that person? What will I do or say tomorrow to start to turn, to become the best of me, not the worst of me? To change….
At the end of Neilah, after sitting with both sets of questions, the ones for the past and the ones for the future, we rise and stand before the open ark with hope and joy. We are ready for the New Year. We are ready for a New Self. We are hopeful, released and forgiven. The Promised Land of a fresh start awaits us.
Yom Kippur is truly a blessed and joyful day. I look forward to sharing this precious day with you.
Join me and Ellen Allard at Kabbalat Shabbat, and me and Cantor Lorel Zar Kessler on Shabbat morning, as we celebrate Shabbat Shuvah, the Shabbat of turning this weekend.
This Shabbat, may your homes be filled with hope and forgiveness. Rabbi Marcia Plumb
Congregation Mishkan Tefila 384 Harvard St. Brookline, MA 02446
