Kol Nidre services at Emanuel Congregation - Reform Synagogue Live Stream

this now here so foreign um foreign so my so my so um so i've heard it said that the violin comes closest to approximating the human voice perhaps a cello in the hands of an artist can approximate the human heart david thank you and your accompanist anatoly thank you so much to both of you to both of you we continue in the prayer book on actually more specifically in the mock sort on page nine with the lighting of our yom kippur candles i invite members of the leadership of his to come forward to assist us and as they are doing that just a couple of suggestions there are many remarkable readings in this remarkable collection feel free if it distracts you to get lost in one as well as well there are a number of times during the service when the suggestion is that the congregation rise if you are standing and you feel it you need to be seated do so if you are seated and only your heart is standing that's also very good but do as you wish ben you don't need to stand now okay ladies the human spirit is the lamp of god searching out what lies within us guided by the flame of conscience on this sacred night we search for truth shine your light upon us as we strive to serve you may we find safety in your faithful love we light the flame of healing and forgiveness on this atonement night we give thanks for love sure is page 16. ah 16. is we see my which uh sorry me is oh young foreign oh oh 22 page 22. oh bottom of page 24 you are god of all we can perceive and all that is beyond our processions living eternal god we are sovereign to the end of time blessed are you adonai creator of twilight and dusk oh is is turn oh is is oh oh me hey on page 28 we rise for the shema is they are where are you on page 39 our sages taught it is proper to mention the exodus from egypt in our morning prayers and also at night we celebrate the going out from egypt in the morning light full of confidence and vigor as we enter the new day but in the evening weary from the day's exertions cast down and fearful at the coming of the night what can the exodus teach us then our nighttime prayer brings hope and trust in the future as god did not abandon our people long ago through the long dark night of exile so the holy one must be with us in time to come to stand by the one you love that is the true essence of faithfulness the meaning of emunah so it is written in the psalms to proclaim your kindness in the morning and your faithfulness in the nights sing with joy in the mornings of your life when light surrounds you when the world seems beautiful and good and in the evenings of your life when you dwell in sorrow and the world seems dark do not despair page 40. me our tradition's traditional standing prayer begins on page 46. please if abel rise eternal god open my lips that my mouth may declare your glory foreign um oh please be seated we continue on page 72 and 73 page 73 prayer is for the soul what food is for the body the strength we get from one male lasts until the next so too the blessings of a prayer lasts until we pray again the longer the pause between one prayer and the next the more we may be mired in worldly pursuits and words that dim the purity of the soul in speech that dulls its brightness when we pray we may wash away all the cloud that all that clouds our vision and satisfy our spirit's hunger for a higher calling prayer gives the soul what food gives the body so so far uh oh yes page 75 i can't help it it's a poem by mary oliver i love her you can tell my wife that by the way it doesn't have to be the blue iris it could be weeds in a vacant lot or a few small stones just pay attention then patch a few words together and don't try to make them elaborate this isn't a contest but the doorway into thanks and the silence in which another voice may speak may that voice speak fully and completely of abundant peace page 78 shalom is lords so shall me we take a moment for the meditations in our heart to bubble up to our mind and our mouth you hmm foreign is is we turn to page 270 where we find the words to the misha bayrak prayer our connection of heart to those in need of a healing of body a healing of spirit as at rosh hashanah evening service i ask you to name those persons in your heart tomorrow at services we will have an opportunity for the verbalization of those names externally put them most especially on the doorposts of your heart tonight we pray together uh amen bless us of your laws me is us we turn to page 82 for the uh shamnu before we begin that back and forth as the candor will lead us uh i want to articulate what i'm uniquely alone in calling zeddik's rules no one else does that's what i mean you can be sure in jewish tradition if there's multiple explanations for why we do something then we don't know why we do it you i'm sure are familiar with beating the heart one explanation oy another explanation knocking to the open door that our hearts in fact would be open both are probably a little bit true for those of us who are still works in progress and i would suspect that's practically everybody here if you would please rise the bottom of page 82. oh la so m foreign know so is please be seated on page page 86 some depth reminders the ways we have wronged you deliberately and by mistake and harm we have caused in your world through the words of our mouths the ways we have wronged you by hardening our hearts and harm we have caused in your world through careless speech the ways we have wronged you through lies and deceit and harm we have caused in your world through gossip and rumors the ways we have wronged you by judging others unfairly and the harm we have caused in your world through disrespect to parents and teachers the ways we have wronged you through insincere apologies and harm we have caused in your world by mistreating a friend or neighbor the ways we have wronged you through violence and abuse and harm we have caused in your world through dishonesty in business for all these failures of judgment and will god of forgiveness forgive us pardon us lead us to atonement the ways we have wronged you openly and secretly and harm we have caused in your world by losing self-control the ways we have wronged you through sexual immorality and harm we have caused in your world through consumption of the ways we have wronged you by giving in to our hostile impulses and harm we have caused in your world through greed and exploitation the way we have wronged you through our cynicism and scorn and harm we have caused in your world through arrogant behavior with the ways we have wronged you by hating without cause and harm we have caused in your world through offensive speech the ways we have wronged you with a slanderous tongue and harm we have caused in your world through a selfish or petty spirit for all these failures of judgment and will god of forgiveness forgive us pardon us lead us to atonement no okay so i guess that takes us to page 101 correct what did i know foreign me god should i announce 115 you sure okay page 115 if you would please rise oh um the topic oh oh oh if anyone is in love with notion of timing the rabbi's sermon don't count this yet i among the things i learned in homiletics class was you should always number your pages in case you dropped them what they didn't tell me was you should clean your glasses now that means i may be able to read what i've written here and share it with you i actually like it i hope you will as well start your timers in times past i've had reason whimsically i hope to cite one of webster's definitions for a sermon to it a sermon is a tedious moral homily now if the choice be mine i prefer not to fall into the category of tedious which is why successful or not i regularly rely on and still connect with illustrations examples and stories after all is there anyone who doesn't enjoy a good story further it's easier to remember a story than any essay we more readily recall the tale and god willing respond to it far more often than from any treatise tedious or otherwise with that in mind consider a remarkable true story near the beginning of the last century a british family of means was spending the summer at their country estate the parents were safe inside the manor house while the children romped in the lake on the property suddenly one of the children was in distress and without intervention would have drowned the parents too far away to hear the cries for help but fortunately the groundskeeper's son was nearby he jumped in and rescued the child naturally the family was beyond grateful and since the ground keeper's son showed academic promise they paid for his entire education including through medical school years later prime minister winston churchill participated in the tehran conference with roosevelt and stalin suddenly the prime minister took gravely ill and was near death his age searched to find the most skilled physician to assist fortuitously sir alexander fleming the inventor of penicillin the first wonder drug which has saved countless millions was also in tehran he attended to churchill who obviously recovered after which churchill declared seldom can it be said that one person owes his life twice to the same individual the boy in the lake and the prime minister one and the same an extraordinary example of good fortune or to use a fancier crossword puzzle type word serendipity it almost sounds like it belongs in a country western song serendipity came calling but i was out for lunch more seriously in literature serendipity usually presents with a challenge that results in some breakthrough discovery or a joyful happily ever after denouncement more recently however who would want the unexpected happenstance the perverse serendipity of our encounter with covid19 which brings to a rabbi's mind the preeminent example of unpredictable happenstance yes that means serendipity in our tradition that is the unatana tokef prayer you know who shall live and who shall die as you may recall rabbi shalman of blessed memory was and hear an understatement more than desirous of avoiding even eliminating this recitation as he rejected the seemingly simple theology that god especially at this time of year determines our destinies good boys and girls get a renewal and bad behavior well let's not go there but more than defending the prayer i'd offer another option specifically life all our lives don't go according to plan at least if we mean our own goals and desires the old yiddish proverb has it right excuse the archaic framing man plans and god laughs while i don't subscribe to that theology either i am certain the central issue for our lives is not what happens to us rather the core of who we are for for however long we are is how we respond to what happens to us so an image from the breakthrough work of viktor frankl from the hell of auschwitz he writes we who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others giving away their last piece of bread they may have been few in number but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a person but one thing the last of human freedoms to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances to choose one's own way and that powerful image takes me back to unatana toketh after the litany of catastrophe understatement a formula appears the old translations fed right into rabbi shaman's objection but repentance prayer and charity annul the evil decree that suggests that if we just do enough repentance enough praying enough zedaka then god santa claus like will grant us another year of life but how much is enough more critically it's bad theology and more immediately a bad translation a very bad one the hebrew has a more nuanced and instructive meaning namely but repentance prayer and charity transcend the harshness of the decree the decree is set for all the same for all all finite and here for a limited time but that is not the final word the formula suggests that a life which includes and celebrates those three elements becomes full rich transformative so much so that there will be in us and for those around us an exquisite encounter because for a moment however long or briefly we were here the decree remains the same the only difference what we do and more essential who we become the statement offers three skills to achieve that best outcome and while many underutilize if not exclude those options altogether their lengthy connection with our people's journey our history means they merit attention so this brief excursion first repentance offers an element for uplift as it provides an escape from the endless excuses that keep us tied to past undesired behaviors it means getting help if needed and equally understanding that we are all works in progress so that the grudge with so and so whom i'll never forgive means there are at least two victims the person with whom we have our issue perhaps but unquestionably we injure ourselves as we continue to tear at the emotional scab or scar in ourselves as in this classic example rabbi harold kushner of when bad things happen to good people fame tells of a sermon he gave on rosh hashanah about forgiveness and repentance a woman came to see him during the week angry as all get out with him why should i forgive that no good for nothing ex-husband of mine he left me 16 years ago with a disabled child and never sent a penny in support why should i forgive him you should forgive him because for 16 years you have been holding a hot coal in your hand waiting to throw it at him all you've been doing is burning your hand what about prayer a skill our tradition brought to the world even as so many have given it away at bottom prayer means the desire combined with action to connect with the sacred dimension all around us into the holiness within us practicing that skill no doubt adds life to our years as in the suggestion of the late rabbi morris adler one who rises from prayer a better person that person's prayer is answered as for the third discipline sadaka means what kind of custodians we may be of our treasure that includes but is not limited to our checkbooks siddhaka means how we hoard or spend the gifts and talents that are uniquely ours do we develop and share not just our dollars but also who we are called to be as example the child comes home late from school and a distressed mother demands an explanation i'm late because i stayed with julie because her doll broke to which the mom responds i don't understand you don't know how to fix a doll the child offers a beautiful rejoinder yes but i stayed to cry with her yet that is not the end of the matter specifically reflect on an old toast may you live all the days of your life while i doubt anyone has ever gotten 100 on that scale i genuinely believe those three elements are essential ingredients to be sure we get closer to that lofty goal to be clear repentance prayer and charity guarantee they guarantee that there will be more life in our days whatever number may be our portion with such in mind another nuance consider prayer involves the individual's need for a connection with a sacred dimension or to be less circumspect with god sadaka means embracing our responsibility to the others with whom we share this journey repentance as in the example of the woman with a hot pole in her hand means the care and nurturing we offer to ourselves and that recalls an image linked to the great mystic rabbi nachman of bratzlaff a person he tells us reaches in three directions up to god out to others and in to self the secret all three are the same you cannot reach up to god unless you reach out to others which is the way to connect with our best selves and as you might surmise the permutations are concise and consistent if we start by reaching out to others in so doing we reach up to god and yes in to self that means really touching the core of who we are won't occur if we exclude connecting with others for in doing so we meet the source of all the god of all the heart and meaning of all so incorporating repentance prayer and charity in our lives makes a quantitative and more essential a qualitative difference in who we are for whatever whatever amount of time we are in fact this simple formula makes us richer better wiser and most of all blessed and a blessing at the end of the journey as you know the common hebrew phrase is it means may his or her memory be a blessing our journey our sacred pilgrimage is to alter the translation so it becomes more than hope or possibility more than serendipity rather we should live we must live so that our memories not only may but also will and must become a blessing and may that ever be the meaning and the melody of our lives amen we continue in the prayer book on page 116 i invite you to rise for eleno page 116 oh i am oh before the gift of self the vessel shatters the divine spark shines through and our solitary self becomes a link in israel's golden chain for what we are we are by sharing and as we share we move toward the light when we find our life so precious that we cannot but share it with the other that light may shine brighter than a thousand suns with the presence among us of the god of light please be seated the kaddish prayer is on page 122. we call to mind for blessing all those who have given us of the gift of their lives and are present to us through the gift of memory and remember those whose short sights occur this day leo b cohn jack eisenberg lester ettinger jerome x samuel fink cynthia goldstein holly j hand ida bell khan betty kaplan rifka kogan shindley kogan lena lehmann reuben rudolph louis gene malenpray dwight d mannis jr alex markles hyman meyer morris millhouse evelyn perlstein howard perlstein nancy lynn phillips mendel posen edward price naftuli sopper estelle schaefer shruli eli skolnik ruth slutsky steven snyderman ella p sommerfeld sharon varamuncur edith wallach morris weiss to their names we link the names of those laid to rest in recent days mikhail kogan dr j rothenberg for those who observe the custom i invite you to rise and to pray with me yet god dal the goddess elaine we all call you israel will call you the rule amen may the source of peace bring peace on all the world on all israel all humankind let us say amen please be seated just a brief announcement family service as you may likely know is outdoors only it's tomorrow at 9am all the other services do offer an outdoor seating as an option however before if the weather is in any fashion compromise you have a phone number to call to be sure that the outdoor seating is available 773-828-0-800 and i think i got in big trouble from rosh hashanah when i said it's not 1-800 car for kids 773-8 is the number that will give you an automated message if there's any possibility that the services will not be held we conclude with return again is that one page yes it's on page 127. page 127 our closing song for our call new dre service see you tomorrow i hope return again return to the land of your soul return again return to the land of your soul return to what you want return to who you are return to where you are return again return again again return to the land of your soul go marthov so you

Channel: Emanuel Congregation - Reform Synagogue

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Length: 92min 26sec (5546 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 15 2021