Kol Nidre Service

do oh oh oh loves me oh oh she's do so oh so foreign peace and welcome to those who are far far away and we have many of you with us and those who are very very close nobody is very very close in this zoom way in a physical way but everybody can be very close in the spirit heart way so it's konidry night we're so happy that you are all with us those of you who are on zoom those of you who are on youtube please if you can if you're on zoom join our community by showing us your beautiful face having your camera on that's wonderful it just makes us feel more held and supported for this awesome awesome moment of connidre we are bringing to this holiday of yom kippur the intention renew our days we pray that we shall be able to begin again fresh and hopeful intentional and joyous and that what transpires over the next 25 hours will allow us to make that new beginning to be able to let go of what needs to be left in the past and to be able to embrace and hold on to what it is we want to carry forward we have with us tonight through absolutely amazing and miraculous technology our chorus and i just want to suggest that when the chorus is singing shift to gallery view on your screen and generally that's in the upper right corner it says view but if you don't know how to do that just write in the chat and somebody will help you we begin our holiday observance with lighting festival candles i call upon mackenzie wren and reuben haller to say the blessing me and now join me for the uh bracha for the uh putting on the the talit and it's baruch i mean so on this call nidrae night we come seeking release we seek to be released from commitments we've made that we have not fulfilled from habits that we have taken on that do not serve us we stand on this collider night together as witness for one another and the safer torah is our witness as well we stand here for one another fellow flawed finite being saying we are human and we long to do better we cultivate both growth and compassion as we pray for release with the prayer join me on page 692 for beshiva shimala beshivah l me foreign um um um me um um um hmm um so cold foreign he oh this is the congregational coney dre please join with me in the chorus yes how oh oh m the it ah oh age 697 and there shall be atonement for the whole community of israel and the stranger dwelling in their midst indeed for an entire people that has gone astray give thanks to god that we have been given life and sustained and brought to this moment ah it's my pleasure now to introduce our president theresa prestwin well good evening i'm theresa prestwood president of cbh board of directors and i'm here to welcome you to congregation that havereen's cool nidre service as you know cbh welcomes those who are members those who are part of our extended cbh families who've attended regularly on high holidays in the past and those who found us just this year we welcome you all to be here with us tonight when i began my presidency in january 2020 i never imagined that i would spend most of it connecting with you via zoom or in the midst of so much transition we've all been in this liminal space this in between space for me there have been times of isolation and loneliness and even hopelessness and i know i'm not alone in feeling this way i've heard a number of you express the same feelings cbh while through going through all of this transition has been a huge source of comfort and healing for me i felt such compassion from all of you and i feel so lucky to have found cbh serving on the board has allowed me to meet and connect with so many of you that i might not have met before and in spite of the work and sometimes stress believe it or not i feel more connected and committed and happy to have made the decision to have cbh as my spiritual home i want to encourage you to engage deeply with cbh whether joining as a member if you're not already attending services holiday gatherings evening minion morning meditation and more join a vod or a task force to help shape cbh for the future in the coming days weeks and months cbh will ask you to step up to participate please say yes we need your guidance and influence and energy with us as we continue our transition if you feel moved please give generously to our high holiday 2021 appeal to sustain the dynamic jewish life we continue to create at cbh finally thank you for being a part of cbh's services this evening i hope you find renewal in the words and the music presented tonight gemartov may you be inscribed in the book of life thank you teresa good yantif my name is will robertson and i'm the chorus director of congregation beethoven you're going to see a lot of us taking off headphones what you heard at the beginning of the service was the sound of 34 chorus members singing live together from their homes and streaming to you over zoom it's pretty remarkable since february we've been working incredibly hard to find a way to do this we've put together a team of a few people from the chorus who did research testing and then training our larger chorus in using a piece of software called jamus that would let us sing together in real time over the internet this took hours a week and continued for months and i want to take a second to thank our team who who was responsible for for bringing this to life david borthwick brad davidorf ariela friedman gayan garan and bill lang without your help this absolutely would not have been possible and the amount of energy patience and willingness we've seen from our chorus to pull this off has been nothing short of extraordinary when you join a choir you don't usually think of tech savvy as a requirement but that's where we are right now and the fact that people have been willing to sit through training sessions rehearsals where we talk about which buttons to press to make sure that we don't get feedback or hear your dog barking and these beautiful headsets some of which have glorious blue lights that you'll see it's it's really just been inspiring to watch uh people's willingness to to do this so i say we started this journey back in february but by may things looked like they were heading in a different direction with the pandemic and so we let jamulus go we'll be back to singing in person soon we said so for high holidays we'll gather the chorus and our sanctuary in person and then we'll sing live over zoom and then our plans were changed the delta variant hit at the beginning of august and so with less than four weeks before an early rosh hashanah shanatova we had to radically and suddenly change course in that time we re-envisioned the role of the chorus and services the chorus had to switch gears and learn different music and let go of a piece that we were excited to sing you'll you'll hear it before too long we had to restart re-teach and relearn jamulus uh we we had some people join the chorus even in a pandemic we had folks joining the chorus which we were thrilled about and we wanted to get them started on jamulus but we had to deal with component shortages they kept some folks from getting on jamulus and then we had to deal with getting jamulus to play through zoom which is a whole other headache and you should see all the wires that are set up behind my monitor but we got it all working and then our plans changed in the last couple of weeks we started getting untraceable and undiagnosable static the static would appear sort of randomly and we thought we had a fix but it turned out not to work at our last rehearsal on monday two days ago internet forums help from strangers has come in and some of the help that we've gotten can only have come about through divine intervention but that all happened yesterday tuesday literally and here we are today we don't have time to test this stuff so again and i had a conversation to figure out what we were going to do and we decided that we were going to try to bring this to you tonight anyway we want to do it to honor the hard work that this group of about 40 people has put in over the last several months we wanted to do it to help you our congregation feel some sense of singing together in a room with lots of people that's an environment most of us haven't been in for over a year and a half we wanted to do it to give our chorus members a chance to offer their gifts to you in some way which is something that we have all been sorely missing and gan and i decided that we were going to do it static or not because this is such an incredible example of who we are and where we are right now in the last 18 months we have been silenced kept apart broken by forces beyond our control we've had to change our plans at the last minute over and over and over again things we were really looking forward to things that we're never going to get back and really that's the best case scenario many of us have grappled with losses far worse we as a chorus would so so much rather be singing for you in person we know that jamus is a pale imitation of that at best it's really hard to sing together on it and you're hearing us over your computer or your phone speaker and there were some in our chorus who needed to step back from this adventure altogether for any number of reasons and we honor them as well that kind of self-care is a lesson to all of us but using jamulus in this way is still so much better than not being able to sing together or sing for you at all so for all of us in the chorus on jamulus or not we want to say hinenu here we are with you with all our flaws with all our beauty whether you can hear us clearly or through static and verbals even if the connection is strained it's still there grappling with all of these swings and disappointments over the last few days feels like it's pushed me and broken me down in a way that i haven't felt in a long time and to me maybe this is at the heart of yom kippur exposing that rawness that vulnerability to know that no matter how hard you try how prepared you are things might not work out and you might fail but that when it comes to connection when it comes to sharing our gifts when it comes to reaching out to each other we still get up and try again so please excuse our static and know that if it gets really bad we'll switch to a different modality that will probably work better but who knows it's 20 21. may the words of our mouths and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you even if they get a little garbled on the way please join your voices with ours on hashi venue and chorus i'll ask you to unmute yourselves and raise your hands over zoom so we can see your beautiful faces ah m foreign then oh today sure she a and please uh let me put my hand down please put my hand down there we go uh please join me for the khati on page 736 oh no and then the baku is on page 708 foreign now i invite elizabeth cohen to read a poem on the theme of creation for ma'ari varabe so from ruth brynn in praise a meditation on genesis one and two hail the hand that scattered space with stars wrapped whirling world in bright blue blanket air made worlds within worlds elements in earth souls within skins everyone a teeming universe every tree a system of semantics and pushed beyond probability to place consciousness on this cooling crust of burning rock oh praise that hand mind heart soul power or force that so enclosed separated limited planets trees humans yet breaks all bounds and borders to lavish on us light love life this trembling glory join me for avatar on page 712. next is uh the shema on page 714. and it's on yom kippur that we say the second line of shame out loud so this is the one time of the year during yom kippur that we do that so join me for both the shema and baruch hey is the word in hebrew for truth it is the theme of the beginning of the prayer for redemption in the amidah before the amidah and and that is made up of three letters aleph which is at the beginning of the alphabet mem which is right in the middle and tough which is at the very end so aleph memtock and matt represents the whole of reality it represents the true ground of being when we see acknowledge and embrace the truth the met we are in relationship with divine emmett and ah oh is oh oh oh oh oh no she please join me for the mikhamucha on page 728. we do a negoon and then we sing the words and then sing the night again then on is 730 is our prayer hashtag we ask for the help of the divine the help of the world uh amen welcome clarence grayson to read for us words from rabbi she lip helps weinberg yom kippur reenacts the yearly rituals that achieved atonement in biblical times something is really supposed to happen on this day can we open our beings to the possibility of a spiritual cleansing a moral death and rebirth a true letting go of hurtful patterns and habits that besmirch our relationship with self others and the world what is our hope for this day thank you clarence middle of page seven thirty four we're about to come to the silent amidah we pray open the gates of repentance open the gates of prayer open the gates of our hearts so that we might be renewed that we might start afresh age 740 and then we'll be continuing to 758 using the words on the page or the words from our heart rising in body or in spirit we open our hearts open my lips beloved one and let my mouth declare your praise oh foreign the air foreign go i i my my a i oh none other it's about lifting up our voices and our prayers and i certainly feel that lift and i know you do too dark age 788 yaya then may you favor patience toward a windblown leaf be reconciled to us who are badesh dust and ash cast off our wrongs show grace to your creation appear among us for there is none to plead our cause deal justly now on our behalf in a moment brad will chant the thirteen attributes losses this little clip of torah comes to us when moses says to god show me your face i want to be in your presence i want to see you and god says no person can see my face and live but i'll tell you what i will show you all my goodness i'll pass by you and you will see all my goodness and then we here proclaimed the thirteen attributes of the divine adonai adonai el-rahum the god oh god you are merciful and compassionate or bearing and patient and filled with goodness we call out these 13 attributes as we try to put our lives a right we center on compassion and mercy it is those qualities that we need for ourselves and for others who may have been hurt by us or who have hurt us if it is your custom to rise please do so in body or spirit i a okay a story about the shema kholenu from a colleague it was i believe in 1981 that i got a job as rabbi encantered a small synagogue in new england they flew me in from new york twice he says before flying me back after rosh hashanah on the way to the airport they asked if i could stop by a nursing home where there was a half a dozen jewish residents perhaps they said i could give them a taste of the services that they had to miss my colleague goes on i got there and was ushered into a room with half a dozen chairs on which sat half a dozen residents all of whom appeared to be dozing alongside each of them was a family member they'd been informed that the rabbi quote unquote would be coming to see them i went through this part of the davening he says in that part singing this singing that no response from the crowd he says i keep kept going even as a few of the family members began to yawn and then i got to koleni hear our voice i said a few words and began to chant the first lines with the special melody the nusa as i got to the word uttafi lattenu and our prayers one of the sleeping man began to stir suddenly he sat up and sung out in a forceful shout al-tash forsake us not in old age when our strength fails don't abandon us and then he lowered his body into the chair again and closed his eyes it was terribly shocking the man next to him his son began to cry it left me speechless said my colleague but one thing is sure that prayer was never the same for me after that i invite us to bring that man's heartfelt plea into our singing of shamakuleinu page 814. do not forsake us gentlemen our god do not withdraw from us give us a sign of blessing so that anyone who bears a seal shall hesitate to harm us hear now our words god of compassion and behold our contemplation of throughout these holidays we've been hearing voices from our cbh community we've been blessed to hear the words and the voices and the narratives of our amazing members how they got here what it is that is so compelling for them that they stay and treasure this community tonight's voice is robert brown we're so so very happy to have his words with us growing up in new england in the 1500s you know that puritan calvinist um ethic that somehow permeated my synagogue when i was in brooklyn in the 1950s um it coming into cbh was really wonderful i mean it was warm there was no judgment people weren't putting me into categories uh we were there one night at the friends meeting house that's where they were going at the time and there were only 35 families at cvh so you know it's very very intimate harriet cohn welcomed us it was a great a great service and i was overcome with emotion it was i felt like i was coming home i i actually never felt it walking into a synagogue it was really amazing and we we have a mixed marriage anna was brought up roman catholic and i of course is brought up jewish so we were having a problem finding a place that accepted us in cvs it was right away it was great that veto was really also fully accepted so she was a kid with uh learning disabilities and she looked a little different than other kids she was really tiny she was only four foot two when she was 29 years old so she stood she stood out and stood tall in her own way but boy everybody just took her in she this was her home as much as our houses you know that everybody was was there for her because vito was very artistic she was uh a film major and a photographer and art was definitely a big part of her life and she i think she would love that one of the ways she's being remembered is by the events that this fund is uh you know spending money on and one of one of the great events was the uh sending the course to philadelphia for a reconstructionist uh meeting and wow just it really when we heard what was going on and we saw a video of it and everything it just made us feel so good and and just it all somehow went back to vida you know it's hard to say because it's so emotional but i feel part of the family i was surprised at how much that evening minion or was holding me in in to the synagogue i mean and it was i mean to do something six days a week on a regular basis and we we never missed you know having 10 people it was really great and it just all these threads were formed little by little so uh it's been it's been a great thing and i i wasn't doing it for me i was doing it to support him michael reckleman and then uh and my mother died fairly suddenly i mean she was she was in pretty good health it wasn't the virus and um and i didn't i never expected to need the minion for myself it's the community i mean that that's what keeps me going i mean i just think again when vida died the the community really came around us i'm not surprised that that's what happened and i'm surprised that that's what happened i mean i i i guess it takes it's in the category of taking things for granted and i guess that's what you do in a synagogue you know when someone's having taurus you're there and you support them but but wow the outpouring was amazing she felt that she was part of it and she was you know it really yeah everybody showed me that you know that there's so many aspects when i listen when i listen to people giving the appeals and all the stories i've heard over the years each one is a little facet of what makes this place unique i've i've i don't know of any other synagogue hours well i would like to ask everybody to look into themselves and into their wallets and help support this this institution isn't it weird to use that word with cpas cbh that it's it's an institution but it's really a place that's worthwhile and it's given so much to so many people and it's such a weird time and we have to be there because we're the weirdest synagogue in atlanta and atlanta needs us so please support us keep us going and thank you we are thrilled to announce the sokolo challenge each high holiday gift will be matched up to a total of fifteen thousand dollars please visit www forward slash 2021 to make your 100 match gift today thank you again for your generous support it is indisputable that vida had this brightest smile in the room and i too is blessed by her ticket taking at midtown art cinema and by seeing some of her photography and videos and um she is not here but she is here please join me for keanu america on play page 816. hello a oh it's been a tough year and a half as will so aptly put it so much suffering so much brokenness and we are still here nothing is over but shahianu we have been kept alive and sustained and have thanked god reached this moment some of us have uncovered new strengths or new patients in this terrible time some of us have found new passions yes bread baking and crafts but also walking in the park caring for neighbors some of us have come to appreciate the small things who knew that just getting together with friends would feel like such a miracle but we know that not everyone who has survived is thriving many of us are struggling i've often wondered what is it that allows some people who experience trauma to blossom while others are brought to their knees when i worked in eldercare i saw people who were simply remarkable 89 year old eva attended shabbat services in the nursing home each week no big deal but eva did it in a wheelchair attached to a feeding tube that had to be plugged in during the service one day after services i found eva very carefully and slowly wrapping a small square in tin foil i was curious about it oh this eva said this is a square of chocolate i have to take medicine that has a very bitter taste after i take it i'm so happy that i can take a tiny bit of chocolate and that makes me feel better eva was buoyed by the tiniest bit of sweetness amid the bitterness of her pain and illness chana on the other hand was filled with acrimony she complained about her son she complained about the staff she complained about being in the home hannah weighed all over 70 pounds and did not appear to eat though she did hoard hollow rolls and cereal boxes in her room a holocaust survivor khanna seemed to be fueled and kept alive by rage her existence was painful for her and for everyone around her the talmudic rabbis say when trying to understand distinctions my baini ho what is between them what makes for the difference between them how can we understand the mystery of resilience how can we get some i want to draw on a teaching of the kabbalah the jewish mystical tradition in order to frame our quest for resilience amid suffering here's what we learned from rabbi isaac luria the great mystical sage of 16th century israel rabbi luria teaches the world we live in the very life we have is born out of shattering according to luria god wanted to share the divine love by creating a world but god found that it was impossible because god filled the entire universe there was no room for a world so god contracted god's self and created vessels of matter to be the world sadly things did not turn out as god planned you've heard the expression man plans and god laughs well in this case god planned and god was not laughing god's light could not be contained by the vessels that god had created to be the world the vessels shattered the light that was abundant and everywhere before creation became hidden and dispersed the light was encased in shards of the vessels that had been intended to hold it and this teaches rabbi luria is the state of reality ever since the divine is now limited and concealed in a world of darkness our human task is to find and to liberate those sparks and thus bring repair or tikkun and redemption to this broken existence every time we come upon a spark of light in the darkness we experience a new beginning a birth out of brokenness every time we find the capacity to start again we live the verse hades renew our days we don't go back but we experience newness freshness and possibility once again all of us know shedder or shatterings very well especially in this time of pandemic in this liminal state in which we find ourselves we are living through the shattering of disillusionment we are experiencing disillusionment that science has somehow become political and a huge swath of our country willfully denies what is abundantly clear the coronavirus pandemic is lethal the vaccines work with layered protection masks and social distancing and vaccines no one need gets sick how could it be that resisting life-saving measures would be seen as an issue of personal freedom we are distraught that our country is riven by division and mistrust that we cannot even come together to bring the suffering from the pandemic to men and we face disillusionment that rights we and our forebearers fought for and thought were assured have been ripped away after decades in which the hard-fought right to vote was protected by law and court order now more and more barriers have been constructed to stop black people and other voters of color from exercising their right to direct the course of our city state and country after court after court including the supreme court affirmed a woman's right to choose now the supreme court has upheld an effective ban on all abortions in texas how could this be and we are crushed that anti-semitism has been unleashed in a deadly way in our country and around the world in addition to the shattering of disillusionment we're living through the shattering of loss as will said so beautifully we we have all experienced the dashing of plans and expectations in the face of lockdown and quarantine some of us have faced the loss of jobs and livelihood all too many of us have endured the tragic loss of dear ones fell too soon by covet 19. often these losses hit us without our being able to mourn them as we ordinarily would have done we had funerals attended by no one zoom shiva's that allowed people from all over to come but robbed us of the opportunity to share bagels hugs and stories and way too many of us are living through the shattering of isolation those of us who live alone or who are distant from family or who have no family may have felt alone like never before so how do we begin again how do we find rebirth after or even in the midst of all of this brokenness what we want to find is resilience resilience is defined by psychologists as the process of adapting well in the face of adversity trauma tragedy threats or significant sources of stress i want to share two stories of resilience from my family my father-in-law whom i never met was named avrah the same name our son has abram was 20 years old when he escaped khmelnik his polish hometown after all of the jews were rounded up and killed including his parents and six sisters abram spent two years in a hole beneath a stable owned by a gentile neighbor in the hole avram would go over all the torah and talmud he had learned in his childhood yeshiva asking himself questions solving complex halachic puzzles and avram would visualize the windows on every house and building in khmelnik he would count them over and over in that dark place where avraham and the man with whom he was hiding could not stand up where their clothes disintegrated where there were repeated terribly close calls nazis in the barn above their heads in that dark place abram found the light of torah in the light of memory my mother-in-law miriam lived in warsaw with her parents and six sisters miriam lost her father who was too weak to move to a bunker when the nazis were rounding jews up and she lost a sister who took poison when she lost hope that she would get out alive miriam lived through the warsaw ghetto uprising and the nazi liquidation and bombing of the ghetto her mother and another sister were ripped from her side on arrival at the madonna concentration camp miriam survived the war with two sisters blanca and alice time and again the three saved one another when alice was sick with typhus and so weak she couldn't stand miriam propped her up to protect her from getting sent to the gas chamber when blanca a nurse was able to get a job in the infirmary she got her sister's work by lying and saying that they were also nurses when they were marched for days on end in the death march at the end of the war starving and emaciated from years in concentration camp the three sisters practically carried one another when they couldn't walk one more step miriam blanca and alice survived all that because they had luck but also because they had love avraham and miriam met after the war in poland they fell in love instantly and came to america with blanca alice and two other cousins they grieved every day for the 128 immediate relatives they had lost in the showa and they built a rich life and a big extended family forever sustained by their courage and resilience literally from the ashes they began again how do we foster resilience john leland is a new york times reporter who's been following centenarians people over 100 years old throughout the pandemic including throughout the pandemic and he's interested in this question leland says resilience is a collection of concrete habits we can work toward not what you have but what you do so we're going to talk about two collections of concrete habits first resilient people draw on their past experience leland noticed that centenarians who had survived the holocaust or other traumas often were coping better during the pandemic than those who had had more ordinary lives leland described this phenomenon with the term crisis competence we developed the ability to get through difficulty and suffering by getting through difficulty and suffering we tell a story of our lives that highlights the fact that we have overcome leland writes as we get older we get the sense that we're going to be able to handle it because we've been able to handle challenges in the past you know you get past it these things happen but there's an end to it and there's a life after that not only can we draw on our own personal experience but we can rely on jewish history as a source of resilience rabbi aaron league smuggler an orthodox woman by the way recently edited a book that could not be more timely it is called torah in a time of plague rabbi smuckler says jewish history is anchored in collective loss and it is characterized by collective resilience so there are resources that we might draw upon to find our grounding once again according to the talmud after the destruction of the second temple large numbers of jews became ascetics depriving themselves of meat wine and all pleasure they said how can we enjoy life when so much has been lost the sage rabbi joshua answered my children listen to me not to mourn at all is impossible because the blow has fallen to mourn too much is also impossible because we do not impose upon the community a hardship which the majority cannot endure thereafter the sages required that when building a house you had to leave a little piece bare when getting married the groom would put ashes on his forehead to remember jerusalem and when wearing jewelry one was required to refrain from wearing all of one's jewelry when i had to leave a little bit off after trauma the rabbis guide us not to give up but as rabbi smuckler puts it to step back into life in ways that contain loss while also retaining it one can keep brokenness in all its hard-won truths at the forefront of one's consciousness without being broken by it rabbi snuckler writes when our worlds fall apart our instincts might be to withdraw but this tradition asks us to find a way to accommodate a new reality and judaism has done just that time and again when jerusalem was under siege by the roman army in the year 70 it looked very much like all would be lost the temple would be destroyed jewish self-rule would cease and judaism would be no more yochanan ben zakai one of the greatest sages in jerusalem saw that there was no future he had himself smuggled out of the city in a coffin to the city of yavna he negotiated with the roman general the spatia he said give me yagna and its sages was thus able to establish an academy that studied and ruled about how judaism was to be practiced now that the old way was impossible they ruled that the home and the synagogue would be the jewish sacred center now that the temple was lost that animal sacrifices would be replaced by prayer and study and that acts of kindness would be our means of serving the divine yochanan ben zakai and his colleagues affected an outrageous thing they completely reinvented our tradition they began again when it seemed clear that they and the torah and the jewish people had reached the end of the road we owe them our judaism the jewish people have engaged in reinvention repeatedly as we've been dislocated persecuted depleted in the wake of the crusades the spanish inquisition even after the holocaust when we very nearly were wiped from the face of the earth we have had to hades renew and reinvent and we have done that in the context of continued threat of illness due to covet 19 we have reinvented jewish life here at cbh as will said we moved from worshiping here in our sanctuary or at saint parts to praying on zoom we couldn't sing together or hug one another but we have felt connected nonetheless more of us than ever have joined in kabbalah shabbat services week in week out our members and leaders have invented new religious forms a 15-minute evening minion and our mindful moments that have been a comfort and an inspiration for so many of us our chorus recorded a hauntingly beautiful album red thread from their closets in lockdown now the chorus is doing what we thought was impossible singing together right here on zoom through the wizardry of jamulus technology and the brilliant leadership of will and beyond and cbh will keep reinventing whatever the virus throws at us we will find new ways to gather in particular we'll be creating small groups with which to celebrate shabbat and foster community whether in person inside or outside or on zoom watch out for shabbat hebrews coming soon to a shul near you so looking back at our past and our people's history is a source of resilience another source of resilience is our spiritual life as we chant the unattanath prayer we are overwhelmed at how much is beyond us we don't know and we can't control who shall live and who shall die who by plague and who by fire who by water if these words ever felt abstract they certainly don't now we could say who by hurricane who by wildfire who by pandemic who had a ripe old age who by hunger who by police violence yet the prayer ends but repentance prayer and just action or tsadaka avert the evil of the decree in everyday language we do not know what will befall us and we certainly can't prevent it but there are things we can do that will sweeten the bitterness that will help us not only to keep going in the face of suffering and trauma but to begin again one of the three elements of spiritual life that can foster resilience is teshuva turning and repentance we can let go of past hurts and errors we can't apologize we can work to forgive even ourselves that's what we're here to do throughout this season of renewal the chutzpah dick audacious claim of yom kippur is that we can begin anew we can start fresh yom kippur is a birth out of brokenness the second thing the prayer tells us we can do to build our resilience is tephila our prayer we can reach out to god the divine the source to holiness we are taught that the shaheena the feminine indwelling presence of god wept with us when the temple was destroyed and went into exile with us we believe in the words of the psalms god is with us in suffering we have customs in our tradition awaiting reclamation such as reciting songs in moments of illness or danger the 150 psalms we have expressed every conceivable human emotion it can be so comforting to read or chant them to find our experience reflected whether despair loneliness anger or hope we can bring gratitude or hakarata tov into our prayer life john leland noticed that resilient elders are able to savor what they're doing right now instead of brooding about what they've lost there's no doubt that taking time to notice what's beautiful what's funny what's enlivening what's not wrong changes us gratitude actually gives us enhanced physical and emotional well-being gratitude is a muscle you need to exercise it that's why the first prayer we traditionally say upon rising in the morning is i give thanks that you have lovingly restored my spirit that i have awakened that i can start anew this is why we will continue as a congregation to engage in gratitude practice at services on shabbat when we come to psalm 92 tov the hodotladoni it's good to give thanks to god because it is i hope that we'll go even deeper into our prayer lives in the year ahead experimenting with ways to connect to the spark within and between us maybe even daring to share our spiritual experiences with one another the third thing we can do to foster resiliency in the face of raw circumstances according to the unitanatoka is sadaka just action or simply helping others john leyland found that reaching out to someone more isolated or needy help the elders he followed to be resilient he says that those who believe they have something valuable to give are more able to deal with what life throws at them gives the example of a man who could no longer go daily to the senior center during lockdown and so began calling a holocaust survivor friend daley just to check in this may have helped the survivor but it certainly sustained the caller psychologist dan gottlieb was rendered a paraplegic in a terrible car accident 35 years ago dr dan says that he wanted to kill himself during his weeks in the hospital he felt that he could no longer be himself and then late one night a nurse came into the room you're a therapist right she said i used to be dr dan replied the nurse told dr dan that she was so depressed she was contemplating suicide he talked to her for hours and referred her to competent help after that moment dr dan no longer wanted to die he realized that his hurt enabled him to have even greater compassion than he had before he went on to have a profound career as a therapist author and host of a call-in show on public radio that helped countless people there's so much need for tzedakah just in caring action for people in our cbh community and in the wider world soon we will support our cbh kaverim with the revival of the cbh care team we hope that members will step forward to offer rides meals and to do whatever they can to ease the way for our khabirim experiencing illness loss or challenge beyond our community the needs are endless we are bound only by our imagination and our time in coming weeks we'll be organizing to do what we can to help the 150 afghani refugee families that will soon arrive in atlanta we will continue working to fight voter suppression and to engage in other forms of care and activism as the needs become known and members of our community step up please let me or greg lawrence know if you're interested in supporting our members through the cbh care team we're in organizing to welcome our new afghani neighbors so much shattering where is the repair the tycoon is the tikkun seeking out the light instead of dwelling in the darkness this is the birth out of brokenness this is the renewal of our days source of light source of life source of love in this challenging new year may we find the spark of our resilience may we turn to our past toward our tradition and toward one another to find the hidden light as we grow in the face of brokenness may we unite the sparks we uncover and allow an ever brighter light to shine for us and all the world so may it be god's will friends we're moving now into the dewey the confessional prayers i want to offer this poem to direct in our intentions as we say that thee do we prayers we are walking away from who we are while we are moving towards who we know we are we are finding no space to breathe in the chaos while we are holding chaos lovingly with our breath we are not knowing where we are going while we are trusting a place known to us we are lost in finding what art is while we are found in ourselves being lost hasham knew together we say we have sinned we have erred we take shelter in the knowledge that we are part of community that we share our frailness and we share our desire to become assuming brad we can't hear you huh foreign i foreign i i i you have turned away from your meat's felt and from your righteous laws as if it did not matter to us and you are just whatever comes upon us for what you do is truth and we have done much wrong age 8 25. last paragraph you know the secrets of the universe the most hidden recesses of all that lives you search the chambers of our inner being you examine the conscience and the heart there is nothing hidden from you nothing is concealed before your eyes so let it be your will the eternal one our god and god of our ancestors that we be granted forgiveness for all our sins that you be merciful to us for all of our injustices and let us atone for all we have done wrong al hait page 828 please join me um for the al hait uh we'll read starting a page 8 28 together in the english and then we'll sing the al-kulam together at the end and we'll do that three times for the wrong that we have done before you in the closing of the heart and for the wrong that we have done before you without knowing what we do for the wrong we have done before you whether open or concealed for the wrong we've done before you knowingly and by deceit for the wrong that we have done before you through the prompting of the heart and for the wrong that we have done before you through the influence of others for the wrong that we have done before you whether by intention or mistake and for the wrong that we have done before you by the hand of violence for the wrong that we have done before you through our foolishness of speech and for the wrong that we have done before you through an evil inclination and for all of them god of forgiveness please forgive us pardon us help us to atone for the wrong that we have done before you in the palming of a bribe and for the wrong that we have done before you by expressions of contempt for the wrong that we have done before you through misuse of food and drink and for the wrong that we have done before you by our avarice and greed for the wrong that we have done before you through offensive gaze and for the wrong that we have done before you through a condescending glance and for them all god of forgiveness please forgive us pardon us help us to atone for the wrong that we have done before you by our quickness to oppose and for the wrong that we have done before you by deception of a friend for the wrong that we have done before you by unwillingness to change and for the wrong that we have done before you by our running to embrace an evil act for the wrong that we have done before you by our groundless hatred and for the wrong that we have done before you in the giving of a false pledge and for them all god of forgiveness please forgive us pardon us help us atone oh i'm delighted to introduce peter ispitzer who will recite for us an additional alfayet for hurting the earth eternal god you created the earth and heavens with mercy and breathe life into animals and humans we were created amidst a clean and pure world but now it is headed for destruction in our hands not on our own marriage do we beseech you eternal our god for we have sinned we have wasted we have destroyed for the sin of filling the sea and land with filth and garbage for the sin of destroying forever species which in your great mercies were saved from the flood and for the sin of laying bare the forests and habitats from which all creatures received life eternal god open our eyes that we might see the splendor of your creation then we shall praise you as as it is written how great are your works out and i you have made them with all wisdom the earth is filled with your possessions please god remove the heart of stone from our flesh and give us a feeling heart grant us wisdom and determination to save our world and to safeguard the garden of life beneath the heavens thank you peter we're about to sing one of perhaps the most beloved prayers of the masor of the high holy day liturgy avinu malcano the prayer means literally our father our king which for many of us would not be the image that we would most quickly embrace of the divine the problematics of the hierarchical patriarchal male god image are many but we're reconstructionist jews and we pray from a masor that actually offers us alternative language which we're going to use tonight and the language is our source our god and to me personally this the image of god as a wellspring from which we can draw sustenance and life and goodness is one that is enormously appealing and accessible so we pray avinu malkenu us forgive us accept us page 458. our source our god nullify the plans of any who may seek to do us harm our source our god grant forgiveness and atonement for all our transgressions our source our god help us to return wholeheartedly into your praisings our source our gods and thorough healing to all those who ail our source our god inscribe us for good fortune in the book of life our source our god inscribes in the book of redemption and salvation our source our god inscribers in the book of sustenance and livelihood our source our god inscribes in the book of mary our source our god inscribes from the book of forgiveness and atonement our source our god let grow for us the tree of imminent redemption our source our god remember us though we are made of dust our source our god be merciful merciful to us and to all our offspring a my m um um said and that was beautiful i call upon susan levy to read the prayer for the end of hiding as lgbtq jews we are aware of the loss of integrity we suffer due to the pressures of the larger society we often feel forced into a dishonest presentation of ourselves to ourselves and others the lgbtq individuals who feel they must pretend to be something that they are not the jews who feel they must be alienated from their tradition and community to win larger acceptance both are victims of a theft of identity and integrity committed by the sexual gender identifying or religious majority creator of the universe we ask that our hiding draw to an end that we no longer feel we have to pretend to promise falsely to renounce ourselves and that our fullest creative creative expression as jews and as lesbian gay transgender bisexual and queer people be among the blessings you bestow upon us amen amen when we are together as such a full and beautiful community on such a holy day it's natural that we pray for healing for all who are suffering healing for the body healing for the spirit healing that brings wholeness refuge we pray the misha bera so please join me in a congregational way uh on the mishibarak that's the refrain that we'll come back to so please join me when you hear that me is foreign me so please join me for the um oh let me uh get out of jamulus now all right it's the dance behind the scene uh so please join me for the eleno on page 1202 uh my god we continue now with mourner's kaddish honoring those who have died recently and those who have died in years past at this season if you would like to honor somebody's memory by putting their name in the chat this is a time to do so we hallow them in god's name with the words of kaddish is may the source of peace and comfort to all who mourn and we say amen we want you to know something about what's going on at cbh and we're happy to have amy price a member of our board to present announcements okay there we go um it i i'm i'm wearing my white um i got to hear the cbh chorus i feel deeply connected and moved it must be yom kippur i want to welcome everybody to cbh on behalf of the board um we're thrilled to host so many people from far and away on this yom kippur 5782 every year whether in person or virtual cbh is proud to provide high holiday services to our community without traditional tickets as a result we rely heavily on your generosity to help us raise our annual funds if you haven't done so already we encourage you to support our high holiday appeal and i don't know about all of you but all these appeal videos have me deeply moved and feeling so connected to cbh so please visit donate to cbh.org 2021 to make your donation if you haven't done so um yet everyone is invited back tomorrow for a full day of young people services our morning service begins at eight i mean excuse me 9 30 our tour service at 12 30 our chan and meditation service is at four and finally our yusker and the ila service at six just trying to keep you rabbi on your toes making sure with the time there but it's 9 30 to start tomorrow morning um there will be no evening minion tomorrow due to yom kippur um this friday evening we'll observe shabbat with a brief 15-minute evening minion at 8pm there you'll have the opportunity to say a healing prayer cottage for a loved one the zoomly can be found on our website cbhatlanta.org now if you haven't had enough of this great meaningful time with cvh we have more coming up with sukkot and simclatora all are invited to our sukkot picnic on uh september 25th in our torah outdoor dancing celebration with the torah on september 27th both gatherings are multi-generational please reserve your spot today on our website there are still there's still time and spots to register elementary school aged kids in our renowned innovative cbh community school it meets weekly each sunday morning at the friends fundraiser preschool-aged kids meet this sunday for a special sukkot bagels and blocks for more visit our our website at cbhschool.org for all of our members to whom we loaned a high holiday prayer book please plan to return them the final two weeks of september following yom ki forum we will be providing you with a range of times you can return them to cbh following yomki forum when you return those prayer books or or any time you come to cbh this september please bring non-perishable food items to be donated to operation isaiah food drive and i know cbh has done such a great job over these months really doing their part to feed those throughout atlanta if you enjoyed the music at today's service you can delve deeper into some awesome professionally produced collection of cbh music on our website a big thank you goes out to our envisioning cbh congregational survey whether or not you participated please be on the lookout for communication regarding our upcoming focus groups which meet um what meet for once during october we invite all community members to share during one of those important online meetings um we feel especially as a board we want to hear everybody's input so please look out for that and and be engaged in those um now i'd like to share my such deep gratitude i don't i'm feeling so deeply connected and um you know just feeling the all the great energy and spirit from everyone here um all 288 of you who've stuck around um to the end of the service um such great feelings um um just for being here and all the ways that people are commenting and and all those things but uh a special thank you goes to um rabbi dale will gan haley for producing these virtual high holiday services we could have done it with each of you um so thank you so much a good ceiling to each and every one of you and i want to wish everyone a really meaningful young people and um hope to see you again tomorrow and all of our events coming up thank you thank you amy in a moment i'll offer a closing blessing but first i want to let you know that we want to leave this service in a contemplative mode so we're asking that we leave the service in silence holding on to the spirit of the service letting it sink into us um leaving with the reflection that will carry into our night until we gather again tomorrow mccoy source of life grant us the opportunity to seek out the sparks that are hidden even in the midst of the difficult times we're living through grant us the capacity to renew our lives to begin anew amen oh do now um foreign you you

Channel: Congregation Bet Haverim

Views: 381

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: CHB, COngregation Bet Haverim, High Holy Days, High Holidays, Judaism, Synagogue, Rabbi, Josh Lesser, Dayle, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, New Year, Awe, Civil Rights, LGBT, LGBTQI, Pride, Social Justice, Atlanta, Georgia, Yamim nora'im, reconstructing Judaism, Jews, Saphardic, Israel, 5782, Shanah Tovah, Hebrew, Shabbat, Kosher, Torah, Shalom, Culture, Tradition, Hashem, BHFYP, mitzvah, Jews of Color, Music, Chant, Donate, Challenge, TikTok, Eliad Cohen, Asher Angel, Noah Schnapp, Kol Nidre

Id: rpbHF_peaeI

Length: 150min 38sec (9038 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 15 2021