Yom Kippur Concluding Neilah Service

[Music] foreign [Music] [Music] is [Music] oh [Music] [Music] good evening everyone thank you for coming back to journey with us into the last hour of yom kippur this has been quite a special yamim hanoraim a 10 days of awe we joined together for rosh hashanah and then this morning for yom kippur and now this evening and we know that in a little while we'll have break the fast but before that we have our niela service and even a taste of minha the afternoon haftarah now by the naila service what i mean is the service that closes yom kippur and the rabbis in choosing that word closing they were referring to a closing of the gates of repentance the metaphor here is that there are these open gates that are there for us to remind us to apologize reflect mend heal whatever it is that's bothering us especially in our relationships with other people but also in our relationship with ourselves and with god and a sense of urgency was cast before us and now more than ever as the moments are ticking away is there any unfinished business that we want to do between us and god at this point inside of our souls knowing that jewish people all over the world and certainly all over this town here even just in los angeles are going through that same process now um i'm so glad to be making the ela not just with all of you especially with all of you but also especially with rabbi ron my wonderful colleague rabbi ron goldberg and also vincent kogan who has been our cantor during these high holidays so what we're going to do next is the haftarah that is usually done on yom kippur afternoon a little bit before now but we're doing it a little later than usual and it's the haftarah of the book of jonah [Music] so this is the story of jonah see jonah and the whale who looks a lot like shamu you may remember the story the story is of a man that god calls upon named jonah to go to a city known as nineveh god says to jonah go to the city of nineveh because the people there are so corrupt and evil that if you don't go there and persuade them to change their ways and become loving and good i am going to wipe out the city much as i did with sodom and gomorrah much as i did with the generation of noah and the ark well jonah is what you might call a reluctant prophet but he's extremely reluctant and he says i don't want this and he runs away he hops on a boat headed to tarshish he as a result of hopping on the boat causes all this turbulence getting to the point where the other people on the boat recognize that he and his god are causing the problem they throw him overboard with his permission and he gets swallowed up by a giant fish it actually doesn't say whale in the bible it says big fish and in this big fish jonah has time to reflect and he does and he prays and he promises and then eventually the fish gets so tired of him that the fish casts him back onto the shore of jaffa and at that point jonah is ready to take on his mission he goes to nineveh he persuades the people to change their ways they do which teaches us that a town a city a country a generation can heal itself can go from darkness and evil to being good and loving and they do they change so much so that god forgives them and allows the city of nineveh to continue to exist there's been a tail end of the story that's very obscure about a plant that grows and a worm that kills it and jonah kind of gets into a bad mood and is upset about the plant and then god ends the whole story by saying to him really jonah you're worried about a plant when you didn't care about my entire town of people in the in the city of nineveh what why this story at all in the bible but more poignantly why this story on yom kippur why not have a story of a prophet who's eager as in some of the other hafta wrote of the holidays who's eager to serve god who's eager to serve the jewish people and i think that the lesson here is that there's a jonah inside of each and every one of us we all know what we are supposed to do our conscience tells us what is right but sometimes we run away from goodness sometimes we even run away from responsibility and it's hard to look back on your own life and say is there more that i could have done is there a time that i wish i had a lot more spoken out better for the vulnerable helped people that i knew more than i have and for most of us the answer of course is going to be yes because there's always more we can do on the other hand we have the year ahead and that's the most exciting part of the renewal that yom kippur offers us and instead of worrying about the jonah inside of us that ran away from the past though being honest about it looking ahead to the coming year and saying where can i help where can i do better where can i say that nice word do that nice gesture say the kind thing and so on [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] that was so beautiful joshua rabbi ron thank you so much we now make our way into the neila service with its unique and special melody [Music] [Applause] is [Music] [Applause] [Music] hey [Applause] [Music] oh [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] again ah [Music] [Music] me we continue now with le d'orvadore which celebrates every generation le d'orvador from generation to generation [Music] [Applause] [Music] la before the gates on high swing closed o god now hear our prayer as our lives we seek to man are pleased to your throne we send before the shades of night descend oh god now hear our prayer before the gates on high swing closed o god now hear our prayer your children turn to you stripped of claims to all virtue seeking your will to pursue oh god now hear our prayer accept our penitential plea forgive us our iniquity or help us to live faithfully oh god now grant our prayer no [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] we now arrive at the final video our last opportunity as a community to confess all of our collective sins with a commitment to being better in the year to come it's our tradition to take our hands and tap our chest to wake up our hearts anew please feel free to repeat after me [Music] heavy [Music] [Music] [Music] a [Music] [Music] uh we have trespassed we have dealt treacherously we have robbed we have spoken slander we have acted perversely we have done wrong we have acted presumptuously and we have done violence we have practiced deceit we have counseled evil we have spoken falsehood we have scoffed we have revolted we have blasphemed we have rebelled and we have committed iniquity we've transgressed and we have oppressed we've been stiff-necked and we have acted wickedly we have dealt corruptly and we have committed abomination we've gone astray we have led others astray i'll hey [Music] [Applause] [Music] yo [Music] [Music] we have sinned against you by foul speech we have sinned against you through the inclination to do evil we have sinned against you by fraud and by falsehoods [Music] [Music] we've sinned against you by idol gossip and we've sinned against you by haughtiness we've sinned against you by rejecting your commandments [Music] [Music] we continue with the bureaucratic the priestly blessings the opportunity for rabbi binder and myself to bless our congregation [Music] and i bless and protect you kindness and be gracious to you yes upon you and most importantly grant us all the blessing of peace [Music] [Music] [Applause] is [Music] [Music] is [Music] [Music] is [Music] in the book of life and blessing peace and prosperity may we and all your people the house of israel be sealed for a good and peaceful life praise to you audinoy source of peace [Music] [Music] i [Music] [Applause] [Music] a [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] as we come toward the end of yom kippur we're not quite there but we're almost there we actually make hafdala and i have here my habdalah candle and i have my kiddush cup we don't use the spice box because it's not a saturday night but we're still distinguishing which is what the purpose of habdala is distinguishing between good and evil between the holy day and the regular days of the week and the twisted candle and all of the multiple wicks remind us of the unity and intertwinedness if that's a word of the jewish people rabbi ron is intertwined ness a word or did i just make it up it is a word now it's a word now i'm so glad now benzie i think you too have a habdala set don't you i do there's your half dollar candle do you have your kiddush cup handy i do all right well this is so exciting so benzie will now meet us in hovdalan i'm going to light my candle as well are you lighting your candle i am okay here we go whenever you're ready okay [Music] gotham [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] okay benzie i'm going to put out my candle are you going to put yours out as well i am here we go makes that wonderful fizzle sound right all right we continue with the mourners kaddish the silent testimony that links the generations all those who are mourning all those observing your sight please join me in sanctifying god's holy name the source of peace send peace to all who mourn and comfort to all who are believed and we stay together amen [Music] hero israel adonai our god adonoi praise be god's glorious sovereignty forever and ever adonai who are elohim adonai i really want to thank all of you for being with us for this conclusion of yom kippur and want once again to thank my wonderful colleagues and john lynn our i.t specialist who's helped us put all of this together to be with you tonight and rabbi binder we thank you for leading us this entire holiday season amazing thank you so much uh rabbi ron are you ready for the final shofar blast i have a shofar with me even though i know you're the one blowing do you have it fantastic rabbi ron is going to make the final takiaga de la blast i'll call it and he's going to bless he's such a good shofarist i love it and right after he blasts the shofar we are in for a very special treat our own resident michal robbins who's also president of res council at eisenberg village is going to take us out of yom kippur with our final song of leshana birushalayan which of course means next year in jerusalem the very same words that we used to conclude a passover seder is what we conclude young people are with they are words of hope you ready rabbi ron tikiyage [Music] m thanks all right are you ready to break the fast i am all right we've got our we've got our kiddish here we go elohim [Music] [Music] what a delicious round holla i'm so grateful for our dietary department i'm going to take a bite right now so great to finally break fast [Music] yes and also we have our cookies because we're going to break fast with rugelach or cookies and so boring name as a note as well amen what were you saying benzie i was going to say and i'm going to say amane and shanatova to all shanachi obama shanatova have a great year everyone [Music] [Music] is [Music] oh [Music] oh

Channel: Los Angeles Jewish Health

Views: 1,680

Keywords: Los Angeles Jewish Home, Yom Kippur, Neilah Service, Rabbi Karen Bender, Rabbi Ron Goldberg, Cantor Ben Zion Kogen, Judaism, Jewish, High Holiday Services

Id: NKen6gFo7X0

Length: 32min 44sec (1964 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 25 2020