Yom Kippur Morning 5782

how wonderful it is to be together and i want to thank rabbi hannah especially for her dvar torah last night and how it is that we are here we've been sustained and we are grateful please sing with me moda ani i i die yeah i died i died die die he died i died and a poem of mine salah forgiveness the irony of this poem is that i am exhausted by words slavish ephemeral sounds carried over ether etched nowhere not even upon the heart swaddled in my talus amid the shofar's 100 birthing cries prone i lay breathing the scent of the soil the ancestors adama washes away a mouthful of summer fallowed words what i have come to crave is the solid with soiled hands of an earthly potter i sweep away flaked remnants of hope that the utterances alone are powerful enough for human creation my hands shall deliver a vessel of clay a seal fused with the power of aish consecration branded into its body salah on these cool autumn days as ruach once whispered racheme above a landscape of chaos i in kind exhale depleted letters of a departed vision calmly watching them drift settle and come to rest elohim shema on page 60 in your matzor he elohim my god the soul you have given me is pure you created it you shaped it into my very own soul you breathed it into me you watch over it within me one day you will take it from me to return it to its source to return it in time to come so long as my soul remains within me i will offer my praise to you adonai my god and the god of my ancestors creator of all living beings guardian of all souls and from psalm 27 it's on page 74 fourth line from the top in your mentor oh of a case hello and karold adonai on page 84 in your matsur third line from the top oh it oh it and psalm 148. it's on page 85 in your matsur second paragraph and with gratitude we thank the peoples of this land who held it sacred who protected it for over 10 000 years l a oh yeah oh instructions for the journey by pat schneider the self you leave behind is only a skin you have outgrown don't grieve for it look to the wet raw unfinished self the one you are becoming the world too sheds its skin politicians cataclysms ordinary days it's easy to lose this tenderly unfolding moment look for it as if it were the first green blade after a long winter listen for it as if it were the first clear note in a place where dawn is heralded by bells and if all that fails wash your own dishes rinse them stand in your kitchen at your sink let the cold water run between your fingers feel it you don't have to know the way the way knows the way you don't have to plan the way trust the way feel your way the way he knows the way he knows the way knows the way you don't have to know the way the way knows the way you don't have to plan the way trust the way feel your way the way he knows the way he knows the way knows um good fast and may you be sealed in the book of life page 106. yoshi m i is foreign god spoke and there was light out of the darkness life-giving treasure eternal light please be seated page 110. line five of the hebrew to the left is shalom love compassion kindness peace foreign me me oh is foreign some words i have a friend who teaches spirituality through music and at the beginning of every workshop he leads people through an affirmation and he says repeat after me and you can do it if you trust me i am ready i'm ready to face the truth to face the truth about myself about myself no matter how beautiful no matter how beautiful this seems completely normal to my friend this is just his outlook on life but i know how i feel when i see something beautiful let's say a hibiscus flower it's like a sense of peace rushes in and suddenly i am positive that this little part of the world is perfect and that in this moment maybe the whole world could be perfect too and this is not how i feel when i see myself but i could use a little balance so i want to try on my friend's perspective for today just briefly as an experiment during the amidah and you know how the first three blessings of the amidah work there you are knocking at the gates of heaven and you say the first blessing god you knew my ancestors and then you say the second blessing god you work miracles and then boom the gates open and you're in front of the heavenly throne what do you see our prophets say you see something awesome our poets say you see something beautiful and you could say the same thing a little differently the amidah begins and there you are knocking at the gates of your soul you say the first blessing and you reflect on the past you say the second blessing and you share your hopes for the future and then suddenly boom you're in the empty space between two time zones the mystical space of yom kippur what do you see maybe it's something beautiful page 122. me m is israel we'll do the amidah together page 440. um um m me oh pure a vision greatly exalted teach me to pray with understanding that i might help bring comfort to those whose prayer i bring to you page 442 aya yai on oh foreign with the ark open the supplement page 13. la yeah yeah a page 446. uh as celestial choirs sing of the holiness of your name so do we do the same as angels in your court ask where and how to make your name known so do we ask to be shown hey hey hey please be seated page 451 whom can i accuse of whom revenge demand when i've borne deep suffering at my own hand other hearts have held hatred for me but my own heart hates me more than anyone knows my body bears the wounds of relentless foes but none can match my self-inflicted wounds i have been seduced for my destruction but none have lured me more than my own eyes i have been burned by countless fires but none compared to the heat of my desires in traps i've been ensnared by old and young but none have trapped me better than my own tongue bandits have pursued me fast in fleet but none pursue me faster than my own feet pain overwhelms me but no pain more than my rebellion anguish increases but never faster than transgression whom can i blame how can i function when i am the source of my own destruction i seek shelter for my soul which you alone did fashion for you our god and king are enthroned upon compassion in the supplement page 12. bring me back and i will come back accept me compassionate one hush this is your part he he page 452 at the bottom i a foreign i oh is i have mercy on us have compassion for us have pity on us because we are part of you page four fifty eight i page sixty yo i page 463 on the left toward the bottom you know the mysteries of the universe the secrets of everyone alive you probe our innermost depths you examine our thoughts and desires nothing escapes you nothing is hidden from you bless us bless us with peace page 470 middle of the page m is oh page 472 toward the bottom inscribe us in the book of deliverance inscribe us in the book of prosperity inscribe us in the book of merit inscribe us in the book of forgiveness 474. honey a foreign m um um i foreign i ah oh my god have i missed that page make me cry page 474. is is is dear for bringing us in so sweetly beautifully deeply this morning we turn to the torah service please rise page 480. hello a no zone is is is oh la has the first torah can you take it back yes la la like let's remain standing to see the columns torah we're going to read today our first hagba in i don't know how long nala's torah we can be seated this morning's readings six aliyot from our first torah elaborate the high priest's yom kippur rituals centered on cleansing the innermost sanctum of the tabernacle the holy of holies where god dwelt amongst the people and from where there was potential for god to communicate later in our musoff service we act out midrash on these rituals of purification wherein the high priests yom kippur prayers are intermingled with the rituals of animals animal sacrifice and anointment of the space some of you have asked me why do we read this in our time we're not a sacrificing cult my answer is so that we remember the importance of creating and maintaining sanctuaries for spirit and to acknowledge our timeless capacity to create containers in space and in time to house and hold the sacred to dedicate a place for the sacred in our lives safe haven for our indwelling god shakina whose name means the one who dwells lives in our shechuna our earthly neighborhood aaron consecrates the sanctum to activate its holiness he and the israelites of his time believed that the sanctuary if the sanctuary were to be defiled god would withdraw from with from dwelling amongst the people today we read of the detail which he adheres to using the vehicles available to him incense smoke animal blood we can think of it as a great smudging with the destruction of the temples and the evolution of judaism to prayer-based communication with god this observance disappeared atonement became the theme for yom kippur replacing the centrality of purifying physical space in judaism's post-temple paradigm the sanctuary for god's dwelling indwelling came to be within us and it is the internal sanctuary that we now endeavor to purify and restore each year so that we ourselves are a more hospitable home to god instead of a designated priest split sprinkling blood and burning incense laying our sins on the head of a goat we have evolved a holy day of introspection during which we converse directly with our god and we're required to approach others for forgiveness ourselves no human and no animal serving as rector for our cleansing our first aliyah is to honor us as sanctuaries oh lord prepare me to be a sanctuary please rise for the brachot on page 486 and dedication of your own self as a hospitable home for spirit rise dedicated to let god in adonai we can be seated and we can follow this reading on page 488. oh me um shame is oh and let's rise again for the bracha to close the aliyah i don't know hello i'm thinking too we can be seated i'm thinking too about the sanctuary of home the places we live and the ambience we have the capacity to create there home might have become a little confining during covid space that seemed adequate suddenly less so when in close quarters with our household members so much of the time and differently confining for individuals who endured isolation without household companionship still there's been risk every time we've left home and suddenly the mitzvah of mezuzah feels all the more relevant acknowledging the threshold between away and home going out and coming back jeopardy and security this aliyah honors what home can be when we take seriously the effect of our living space on our well-being and it's not just our tidiness or the objects we surround ourselves with it's also the spiritual atmosphere we create the quiet or the joy or the kindliness and certainly the peace we cultivate in our innermost spaces please rise dedicated to the sacred space of home and asking for blessings upon our households as sanctuaries of healing from the hard knocks of the world sanctuaries of repose and nurturing our brahout page 4 86 torah we can be seated and follow the reading on page 488 this one's marked levy okay let's find the card foreign we can be seated as we enumerate the sacred spaces we create and maintain the synagogue is an obvious case in point we've been exiled from our actual literal physical sanctuary for a long time and if we didn't know this truth we've learned during the pandemic that as much as we love our sacred space on fraser and tenth avenue the or shalom sanctuary transcends our by it it lives in the relationships between us it lives in the compatibility of our innovations with the life of spirit and the traditions we've historically shared as a community so let's devote this aliyah to honoring members of community here and at home who've contributed to the expansion of our synagogue into the sacred virtual space please rise here or at home if you have served as a zoom shamash if you have talked a virtual class if you have led virtual dialogue if you have led virtual prayer don't be shy or as my teacher read sean zevitt says don't be shy on your own time if you have celebrated or helped to celebrate a virtual simcha attended a virtual shiva sat with us in online meditation or sung virtual chant attended our virtual class or a dialogue and there are those who uphold the integrity of our community with a core of love that keeps spirits strong please rise here or at home if you're a member of the military working group i think everyone's already standing if you sit on our membership committee if you've participated in an act of or virtual hospitality during covid cooking or delivering a meal or delivering other goods hosting a virtual meal or writing kind notes wishing folks well or mazel tov taking a walk with someone who needs accompaniment please rise if you've helped to maintain our buy it in our absence maybe you have planted in our garden maybe you've watered our garden and rise if you sit on the housing task force thinking to the future of our physical space yes i could go on but you're all standing so let's turn to our brachot on page 486 um and follow this reading on page 490. let's bring the torah uh is um um oh is oh and we can be seated this is dedicated to sanctuaries of time surely this here now is a sanctuary in time we've set this day aside smudged it activated its holiness and we sit in the day like space a womb-like space holding us in velvety interiority protected from the clang and clatter and rush of the world so that we can re-ensoul of course our tradition offers a cathedral in time every seven days and this aliyah is our opportunity to give ourselves the gift not just of this shabbat shabbaton but to commit to our weekly shabbatote in ways that give us a real break let's rise with desire to more regularly set work and obligation and practical matters aside for the sake of freedom for the sake of stillness for the sake of time to ourselves time to contemplate the mystery mode you can be seated and follow on page 490. so it just looks like this i know you need your help somewhere up here um um love savvy they are oh let's rise to complete the idea can be seated toward the end of the morning liturgy on rosh hashanah and yom kippur the moxor includes a quotation from isaiah and i will bring them to my holy mountain and make them joyful in my house of prayer and my house shall be a house of prayer for all people everywhere our pen ultimate aliyah is in commitment to sanctuary for all people and peoples rib zalman shakhtar shalomi founder of jewish renewal taught that the most important mitzvah of our time is the mitzvah of connection not sectarianism or tribalism but ecumenism why because the survival of our world depends on it let's pray for the right to sacred time and space for all people and peoples those who don't have time to sit because they work three jobs those who don't have control over the comportment of their dwellings or don't have homes those whose sacred cultures are being destroyed those threatened by violence who cannot turn inward for fear of a lapse in vigilance to external threats those with troubled minds those who feel hopelessly hopeless please rise declaring that all our prayers of this yom kippur be said in the name of all people um the reading is on page 492. we can be seated okay hey is and let's rise we can be seated finally we're going to rise again for the sanctuary of our living breathing earth and the deeper reality we encounter in the natural world earth in her health offers a connection to spirit that we can't deny in dr heschel's words we can never sneer at the stars mock the dawn or scoff at the totality of being supply sublime grandeur evokes unhesitating unflinching ah let's rise um page 494 to follow along there may the one who blessed our ancestors bless us all for rising in honor of this morning's torah passages and in honor of yom akipouri even as we have moved the sanctuary inside and now concentrate on hallowing ourselves and our relationships let us not forget the origin of our religion based in the power of place the sanctity of place and the importance of place in our relationship with god whom we call hamakom the place or the one who fills all place may we be accompanied by shaheena our indwelling god all the days of our lives may we and all whom we love be written and sealed this day in the book of life may our lives be long and healthy and fulfilled and may our prayers be said in the name of all humankind and for the sake of god's created world and let us say amen we can be seated let's uh dress the torah yeah la la and we're going to take this torah out into the kahal yashikoa to our tour readers dahlia faircloth aviyan moti list heidi mannis harriet frost casey collins and to our gabaim heidi menace and dahlia faircloth i want to invite gloria levy forward to offer a prayer for peace are you okay thank you yes it feels so good to take the mask off so i stand here in the shoes of someone i deeply admired respected and loved but of me she stood on this dais every year and gave the prayer for peace humble not fancy honest and straight from the heart always ready to help another her natural goodness and love just flowed with such ease in her quiet unassuming way she shone with an uncanny purity of soul and her memory is a blessing so peace a plea for peace through expanded awareness peace shalom from the word shalom fulfillment ultimate wholeness people dream of a life of harmony love fulfillment with for one another we yearn for peace within ourselves within our nations within the world we sing of peace we pray for peace when we are young has limited expression in our young adulthood we begin to recognize and relate to others like ourselves and with maturity we're no longer a tribal more global perspectives enter a consciousness life is constantly a shifting of expanding awareness kabbalah calls it literally a mind of bigness we strive for mohindi gadlut expanded awareness in the early days of building the state of israel pride and excitement was palpable towns villages and cities appeared culture flourished i embraced that new state and exalted in joy my people my heritage my history my language my customs and my values it was an exciting and gratifying time but i did not see the other in ako jaffa and throughout the land arabs had lived for centuries when we walked their streets i would say to my friend mustapha when was this built and he'd always answered jokingly lift before the mythical sultan of sicklage they were rooted here they belonged it was their land too with expanded consciousness could i see the other the one who does not look like me does not speak like me perhaps does not even love like me how do we make room for otherness could i acknowledge their oppression the laws of home land autonomy and freedom could i hear their cries and feel their pain slowly with open-hearted probing and exploring i expanded my consciousness to shuva to shuva to phila to for inspiration and expanded awareness i turned to isaiah and i read quote the wolf will live with the lamb the leopard will lie down with the kid goat and a lion pup and a fattened lamb will walk together diversity will reign the land will know shleimut the complete wholeness and harmony which encompasses this truly holy world and peace shall flourish throughout the land i believe i believe anima and i recite and this is my tequila i pray may we have the courage and wisdom to fill our purpose on this earth to constantly expand our insights awareness and knowledge of ourselves and others and learn to live in harmony love and fulfillment with diversity but shalom kenya he writes one may it be so but said yeshiko gloria mahini hiratsu i mean i i knee is foreign we can be seated our moftier aliyah will be followed by mr bayrock for healing please rise here or at home to honor this tremendous need in our world whether you pray for an individual or a people or a situation in the world that needs divine attention let's rise one more time the brachot are on page 4 86 adonai hane and the math to your reading is on page four ninety six heart rabbit let's speak aloud in unison the names of any for whom we pray here and in the sanctuaries at home or for those situations in the world and on the earth that we pray and imagine their complete healing and let's hold this warmth and light in our imaginations and see if we can partner with god in bringing energy to those people and places deep within the home of my soul now let the healing let the healing begin on a our bodies open our hearts awaken our minds heal our bodies open i love reader return again return again return to the land of your soul return again return again return to the land of your soul return to who you are return to what you are return to where you are born and reborn again return again return again return to the land of your soul return again return again return to the land of your soul let's take the torah out to the call return again return again return to the land of your soul return again return again return to the land of your soul we can put our maxo ring down for today's interpretive half terror a make a roadway clear the path remove the roadblocks from my people's path thus says the transcendent one dwelling in eternity of holy essence yes i dwell in the highest and holiest but also in the most brokenhearted and humble that i may revive those of humble spirit that i may revive the brokenhearted i won't fight with you forever my anger is not eternal for your spirit would wither and i am the creator of souls for your crime of greed i was angry so i hurt you and in my anger i went into hiding and you you went and returned to the path that you desired i have observed your path and i would heal you i would guide you and recompense you and your mourners with comfort i who create the words on your lips say shalom peace to far and near thus says yah and i will heal you but those who transgress are like the seas in turmoil they cannot find rest their waters churn up muddy slime and there is no peace for the violent right full throat don't hold back call out like a show my people how they have done wrong tell the house of jacob of their missed deeds every day these people comes asking for me begging to know my high path just as if they were a fine and just society that had not abandoned the decrees of the sole horse of justice they like to hear about right judgment and getting close to god they call out call out look how nice we're fasting don't you see we're afflicting our souls don't you know well on your fast days you who folk are more concerned about the bottom line and how to realize your profit your fast is violence and disruption you strike out with close fists you are not making this day a fast day a day to make your voices heard on high like this you treat the day i set aside for fasting a day for challenging your souls there you go getting out your sackcloth and ashes you call all this fasting a day demanded by the eternal no the day hey i chose for fasting like this you crack open the chains of oppression you loosen up the straps of the harness you must open the jail doors so the imprisoned may go free you break open every restraint you share your food with the hungry you shall to the homeless in your heart in your houses if you see people with a ha ha ha ha clothes you clothe them when you see he your flesh and blood you do not look away if you do this your light will shine out like the dawn and quickly healing will flourish justice will go before you always and divine glory will follow close behind the hen when you call out the eternal will enhance her here i am when you throw hahaha the yoke of oppression and the gossip and those pointing fingers when your soul goes out to the hungry when you seek to help the afflicted then your light will shine through the darkness and night will be as bright as new in this way let the eternal lead you are always watering the paw hearts places your places of your soul restoring your bones to their vigor you will be like a watered garden like a whale spring that never dies you who will restore the ruined places of the planet you will uphold the foundation of every age they will call you the ones who repair the breach the ones who put us back on a path to home who attends to us and he hears the voice of our hearts have compassion on us and make audible the still small voice blessed are you we are god joy of the universe who awakens our spirit that we may sing a new song and a special thanks to hayemannis who set this powerful passage from isaiah to trope and who mentored our hafta wrote both today and on rosh hashanah let's bring the torahs back and rise as they return to the our own kodesh page 514 at the bottom we can be seated our teacher this morning is sally thorne yom kippur is not supposed to be an easy day certainly we've got the inconvenience of fasting giving up some of the habitual patterns and comforts that make up our usual daily lives but far more importantly and profoundly we are asked again and again throughout the services to confront some of the deep spiritual and philosophical questions we usually would rather avoid not only do we recite them together in community but we're also expected to confront them within our own selves to take ourselves on a personal journey of atonement capara and redemption chuva we've just read from vaichra set of detailed instructions to moshe and ehran regarding the procedure for the high priest service through which they might achieve atonement for themselves their family and the people israel the reason all of this was needed began with a totally misguided but well-intended human action the community was holding a service for the specific purpose of consecrating the tabernacle after the revelation that god would forgive the people israel for the unfortunate incident with the golden calf and in the ecstasy of that moment aharon's sons nadab and abihu suddenly approached the altar with strange fire profane fire instead of the prescribed ritual flame and in that state of spiritual high they got too close to the holy of holies without the proper preparation which caused their instantaneous death as they were taken up and consumed in that holy fire so to allow for the altar to be cleansed from the impurities and transgressions of the israelites god then spoke through moses giving that guidance to aran in the form of intricately complicated procedure manual for how to make the holy place safe again he was to wash his body in a particular way put on holy garments bring forward several sacrificial animals and a precise sequence of actions outlined in these passages we learned that he had to sprinkle the blood of a young bull on various parts of the high altar and then point a finger dipped in that blood in several different directions seven seven times and only then cast lots between the two young goats as to which would be ritually slaughtered as a sin offering to god and which would be set free in the wilderness as the scapegoat having received upon its head the confessions of the community it's a visually dramatic and emotionally troubling story that must have been terrifying to those who received it well torah has a way of bringing us back to our senses when there are lessons we just don't get jolting us into attention we're giving us a smack on the side of the head when we need strong reminders to self-correct and it's often the most inconvenient stories the truly messy ones that have the most to tell us if we actually allow ourselves to dig down into them and pay attention just think for example of the story all jews recite every year at passover whether or not they practice their religion at any other time of year all ten of those nasty plagues were needed to prod those israelites into realizing that the balance of the universe was not as it should be and that their very survival would depend upon getting past their complacency and taking some collective action and this too this one too this very peculiar story we've just read is the one that's told year after year on the very day that most jews who are not shul goers the rest of the year will actually turn up for services so it has to be an important one but why and what is it about this torah portion that's calling on us to wake up and pay attention according to one source i read rabbi naphtali silverberg of the roar jewish learning center in new york one way of understanding this story is the idea that while spiritual highs may be wonderful the reason we were created was for something more far more important to infuse our physical environment with godliness through the seemingly mundane acts of mitzvot so perhaps this most complicated and confusing of annual learnings the is that these days we call the days of off yura are really supposed to be more about learning to take action be full our tradition actually has quite a lot to say about action we cherish those 613 mates vote the acts we're supposed to do and the acts we're not supposed to do as central to our heritage we understand them as coming from the holy source through moses contained like secret codes within the multitude of strange stories that we recite throughout the year and many of them are confusing and a real stretch to interpret while they may have made some sense in an earlier time the point they're driving at is pretty obscure for us now so we seek out our wise teachers and rabbis to help us reflect in a more scholarly way on where they came from and why and help us see whether they might actually have any meaning for us in our lives right now today and when we undertake that form of study we are using our free will to take on these marvelous and peculiar points of guidance correctly so that the lives we live will be more safe and responsible and in keeping with the larger plan god supposedly has for us they become our guidance for how we're to treat other human beings and the land and the natural world around us well for the past 18 months we have been individually and collectively preoccupied by the covet 19 pandemic in our era we no longer have moses as a direct line for god's guidance for us so we look for wisdom to the high priestess of a provincial health officer and she in turn surrounds herself with wise elders in matters of public health scientific advancement and public policy drawing on them to help her explain for us what correct action entails in these new and confusing conditions and the guidance that this high priest has consistently offered has been holy advice be kind be calm be safe and to help us know how to achieve those three she created dozens upon dozens of new meats vote to try and weave into our own ways of living first we were commanded to go into our own private dwellings and stay quiet and in preparation for our extended isolation we were to ensure that our families and neighbors were well stocked with essentials which in our collective human foolishness you will recall we interpret it as toilet paper we practiced and tried to integrate into our lives new ways of hand washing and sanitizing our services we had prohibitions against touching our face or licking our fingers and we learned how to reconfigure the spaces between us expressing love by staying distant from our loved ones an impressive list of new thou shouts and shout knots that she would pronounce from her high place at 3 pm every afternoon and as the pandemic unfolded we had to learn new ones formalizing bubbles of those we were allowed to touch and see and then learning to mask and contact trace and postponing our life events and we clung to our trust in that high priestess as vaccines started to become available and a new set of tyrants and false prophets appeared trying to capitalize on the chaos to gain power or confuse our thinking for other nefarious purposes this time truly has been characterized by an endless and evolving set of new mitzvot being handed down to us and trying to work out how we were supposed to continue being a meaningful spiritual community when so many of our beloved practices and connections were now prohibited by virtue of being deemed dangerous to the well-being of our members as the rapid-fire changes and commandments made it necessary to come to terms with a collective response the board and the rabbi decided to create a group that had no power or authority on its own but could serve as a wise sounding board for the difficult decisions that would have to be made on behalf of all of us i had the great privilege to be invited to chair or shalom's covert 19 advisory committee most probably because i looked most like bonnie henry and we formed a group designed to reflect the diversity of perspectives that every good jewish decision requires we were a nurse a family physician a palliative care pediatrician an epidemiologist a psychiatrist a virologist an anthropologist and a rabbinic educator and i have so appreciated your individual and collective wisdom julie martz hel seiden malcolm steinberg ross ald andelman mel krasgen km perry and yoni gordus and when we met over the course of these past 18 months always with rabhanna and board co-chair martin godford listening intently a process was something like a sort of coveted yeshiva group trying to puzzle over the sacred text of the provincial health orders that changed with the evolving scientific evidence and by listening to the wisdom that came through our very different angles of vision we tried to figure out what might constitute right action in terms of the human and spiritual and relational experiences and practices that are the essence of our holy community what we realized is that the kind of guidance that might have come in a direct line from god in moses time is ours to discern in the modern world and that our tradition provides us with a lot of guidance to try and come to that shared perspective on what really matters we asked ourselves questions like what does our tradition tell us about how to preserve what we know is essential to jewish community integrity under circumstances when our usual practices are inaccessible to us and how do we model for our community the kind of social responsibility and pandemic management that will guide and inform our members in their individual practices and choices and what are we really meant to be learning from all of this when we're shaken from our habitual patterns into a new kind of conscious awareness the torah tells us that this kind of urgent self-confrontation is always happening for a reason and like all of you i'm sure we in the covet committee came to appreciate that we can come out the other side of this pandemic damaged as a community weakened bitter fearful xenophobic or alternatively we also have a chance of coming out the other side with a sense of being renewed in our understanding of why we were created to enact the mitzvot that will truly infuse our world both our human world and our physical environment with the goodness that we might call godliness it's no accident that the pandemic time has raised up certain structural inequities and attitudinal barriers that have been deeply embedded in the everyday world we inhabit and that these have come crashing into widespread conscious public consciousness over this past year we've had to face the shocking truth that those of privilege in our society and that means most of us here today if not all have played a role regardless of it being unintentional or unknowingly in sustaining the racism and inequity and injustice that's a core foundation of the canadian society in which we live work and play and with the truly terrifying extreme heat and smoke we all lived through this past summer we've had to face up to the horrifying fact that climate change really is upon us and that we've collectively allowed ourselves to deny its importance for too long in the very moment that this pandemic was calling upon us to reflect on who we were and what was important and what we were meant to be learning the unmarked graves of indigenous children and the out-of-control bc wildfires called out to us with a fury and demanded that we pay attention looping back to the torah portion we just read and considering it in the context of the collective pandemic experience i think there really are some profound messages for our worship community like aharan sons perhaps we have sometimes allowed ourselves to get a bit too close to the flame of ecstatic spiritual experience we adore being tightly packed together into a crowded space linking arms and swaying together in response to our beloved melodies and belting out our favorite nigunim in gorgeous multiple layers of harmony we're a community that really does know how to create spiritual highs the frenzy of nila the conclusion of this day's service something that many of us look forward to every year perhaps being a prime example but the torah portion and the pandemic together seem to be reminding us that these spiritual highs we all seek out are potentially dangerous especially if they gradually become our primary reason for being together and have not been fully translated into right action into doing what we can as a jewish spirit spiritual community to make the world a better place and so in the wonderful synchronicity that such changes in collective consciousness tend to signify it makes perfect sense that over these past months many members of or shalom have been exploring how our community can come can expand our traditional vision of ourselves what can we do beyond the old ways of being in close physical proximity to still serve as a spiritual home where we can come together to feed our jewish souls our incredibly creative members have fashioned newer and safer ways to do music poetry prayer and study together ways that turn out to be inclusive of all of us regardless of our finances or geography and i sincerely hope that many of these new practices will continue and our tikkun alum committee has been exploring what a uniquely or shalom voice might possibly contribute to those larger societal conversations about race-based hatred and the climate emergency trying to work out what actions can and should be the proper targets of and strategies to engage our distinctive or shalom sensibility it seems we're learning to move beyond the idol worship of our own self absorption and toward reintegrating our sense of a god concept that's so much larger than ourselves and our capacity to intellectualize it we're learning from our indigenous brothers and sisters that this concept must include all our relations not only the humans we know and identify with not just the members of our own tribe but all of them and all of the creatures that crawl on the earth and swim in the sea and fly in the air and our relations the trees and plants without which we could not survive and the mineral ones who are also our relations if we recalibrate our way of being with all of these we know we can come closer to god in the largest sense that anyone can imagine a god not the god character of moses time who sits on a mountain fluctuating between wrath and mercy to point us in a particular spiritual path but much more than what our minds can fully grasp of a source an intention a master plan a cosmological trigger an idea and a wisdom so large and expansive that we can not know it except through the knowledge that good exists in this world despite how irrational that idea might sometimes seem personally i don't think i can envision return to normal as the end point of all of this being an academic in my day job i've had a good giggle every year when we come to the page in the moxer where we ask for forgiveness for the sin of useless conferences and if that one speaks to you you'll find it on page 581 but perhaps it isn't just meant to be funny and the wide wise elders of our tradition actually had a point i can no longer imagine myself indulging in the sin and carbon footprint of the level of international travel that my former way of doing my academic work entailed this pandemics taught us so many more ways to come together that are less selfish and more protective of our mother earth and i suspect that each of you individually as you have and will flip through the collection of things that the master offers about which to seek forgiveness have found aspects that you're thinking about differently this year than you have ever before places where you too may have strayed a bit close to that flame of unknowing self-indulgence so today as we begin to envision a post-pandemic world we mourn the losses of very dear members of our community and of the many people this plague took from us over this past year we hear today one out of every 500 americans i know my family's been deeply affected and collectively we are feel acutely feeling the absence of our beloved binky siegel in particular for so many of us the echoes of her quiet voice reciting a heartfelt peace prayer will always ring in our ears during these high holiday services so to honor what we've lost and do justice to the wake up call it has signified today we're called to chuva to turn around to begin to head in the right direction help us return to you help us return and renew let's never lose our faith that people can change for the better this is a day of forcing us to pay attention to translate the yearnings of our souls into the capacity for new personal and collective action may we allow the ancient wisdom to guide us into a new post-pandemic world of caring and hope and even optimism for each of us for our community for all people and the planet kamar thank you musaf begins with a katsikatish followed directly by a silent amita we have not had any time to ourselves yet today so it's good that it's coming page 518 with yamita on 5 20 at the top of 520 you'll see directions for an english translation and alternative reflections if you prefer please rise a is name um um here i am so lacking and still in this position of leadership the love i i let's rise and turn to page 534. um oh who a oh is oh holy one of blessing you remember what we would rather forget reviewing the pages in the books of our lives pages we have written with our own words and deeds all that lives passes before you today you will count and judge every living being determining the fate of everything in creation how many souls will return to you this year how many souls will be born into the world who will live and who will die whose life will be long and who's cut short who will perish by fire and who by water who in wilds of war and who in wilds of nature who will be the victim of hatred who will become homeless or hungry or a victim of neglect who will suffer incurable illness and who will die of curable illness or preventable illness who will be at ease with themselves and who will be conflicted by anxiety who will be impoverished this year and who will be enriched who among us will attain fulfillment and who will not who will be brought low and who will be raised up or hashem um um m m we want to believe that all is not determined by fate and that our imprint upon the world matters we believe that repentance prayer and good deed deeds have the power to change the character of our lives and so we rededicate ourselves here today right now just asking for a clean slate and creating one we are but a broken shard withering grass a shriveled flower a passing shadow a fading cloud a fleeting breeze scattered dust we are but a vanishing dream dear god but your time has no end the extent of your glory cannot be fathomed and we do not understand your mystery treat us kindly dear one for your own sake give us another chance to prove that we can be the glory of your name page 538 is closed and we remain standing for the kedusha beginning at the bottom of page 538. oh ah m me is you hello ah we are seated we have another music stand let's turn to page five in our supplements via italian please model wendy's responses and our singing together shame la la la la la la la la la la la la is is let's take a little stretch and turn to page 604. at dawn on yom kippur the priests and levites and israelites gathered in three circles around the high priest who bathed and dressed in his eight priestly garments veiled by a curtain after arranging a sacrificial sheep on the altar offering incense and lighting the lamp he immersed again and redressed setting aside his gold vestments for white linen they attached a cord to his leg lest he would need to be rescued he stretched his hands over the bull and confessed his personal sins and those of his household holding nothing back and thus he said a please rise as the ark is open prepared to bow all the way to the ground i um oh is closed and we are seated in 606 when the priests and all the people in the court heard god's name as enunciated in purity they fell to the ground saying praise is the name of the one whose glorious sovereignty will last forever and the high priest completed their verse saying you shall be cleansed two identical goats were made ready and the priest cast lots assigning one goat to heaven the other to the wilderness then he turned to the sacrificial bull to confess the sins of his tribe and the high priest and the congregation bowed to the ground let's rise as our own kodesh is open and prepare to bow all the way to the ground be is is closed and we can be seated all the people in the temple court heard the annunciation of the holy name and the high priest prolonged his utterance as they recited blessed is the name of the one and then he completed their verse saying titaru you shall be cleansed a high priest slaughtered the bull collecting some of its blood in a bowl he entered the holy of holies lighting incense so that smoke filled the space to mediate the directness of his contact with the divine then dipping his fingers he sprinkled blood on the cover of the ark containing the tablets of the law and thus he counted he emerged and sprinkled blood he emerged in sprinkled blood on the embroidered curtain then hurried to repeat the ritual sprinkling the blood of the goat that had been consecrated a purification offering for adonai now mixing the blood of the goat and bull he purified the golden altar he confessed the sins of the nation on the head of the live goat consecrated for the wilderness and the high priest and the congregation bowed to the ground and said on us is is open and we rise prepared to bow all the way to the ground foreign oh we can be seated and the high priest intentionally prolonged his utterance of the holy name and when the people in the temple court heard god's name enunciated so explicitly they fell to the ground saying praised is the name of the one whose glorious sovereignty will last forever and the cohen gadol completed their verse saying you shall be cleansed and god's love was aroused and god forgive israel the zohar says that when the high priest's prayers were complete the cherubs on the ark of the covenant opened their wings and began to sing the goat for the wilderness was set forth the high priest read portions of the torah he completed the purification offering and the holiday offering he removed his white vestments and buried them forever he removed ra he removed his white vestments burrowing them forever bathing and redressing in his daily vestments of gold and ornament so as to offer the daily sacrifice and light the daily incense and candles finally he changed into his personal clothing and was accompanied home by an exultant crowd the zohar says that if the priest was worthy there was rejoicing on high and below the chamber of holiness began to shimmer illuminated by the flow of god's acceptance streaming from hills of pure balsam the priest backed out of the chamber and oh how glorious was his appearance when he came forth safe from the holy of holies like the canopy of the heaven like the light of angels like on the corner of our garments like a rainbow amidst clouds like a rose in a garden like a crown on the forehead like the face of a bridegroom like the morning star like golden bells on the hem of a robe like a chamber hung with blue and purple tapestries like the sight of sunlight shining upon the earth and this was the prayer of the cohen gadol when he emerged from the kodesh hakodashim on yom haqipurim may it be your will adonai our god and god of our ancestors to grant us a year of abundance a year of blessing a year of good fortune a year of bountiful harvest a year of prosperity and success a year of assembly in your holy places a year of song a year of fulfilling life a year of dew and rain a year of sweet fruit at harvest a year of atonement and forgiveness for all our sins a year in which our bread and water are blessed a year of rest a year of consolation a year of abundant joy a year of delight a year in which the fruit of our womb and of our earth are blessed a year in which our going and coming are blessed a year in which our community achieves salvation a year in which your mercy descends upon us a year of peace and tranquility a year in which we go up in joy to your land a year in which your people israel will not require support from one another or from other people the work of their hands being fully blessed is yes a ah and having recalled the happy resolution of yom kippur in ancient days we raise our own voices in our own time asking for compassion please rise shimako leinu page 5 72. i help us help us return to you help us help us help us return to you help us let's be seated and let's read in the english at the bottom of page 573 our god and god of our ancestors forsake us not shame us not break not your covenant with us bring us nearer to your torah teach us your commandments show us your ways soften your hardened hearts so that we may love returning to you wholeheartedly as the psalmist saying for your own sake lord pardon my sin though it is great page 5 74. slash no reign in the english at the bottom of page 575 we are insolent but you are gracious and compassionate we are obstinate but you are patient we excel at sin but you excel at mercy our days are a passing shadow while you are eternal your years without end age 5 77 hear our prayer do not ignore our pleas we are neither so insolent nor so obstinate as to claim that we are righteous without sin for we have surely sinned please rise la oh we abuse we betray we are cruel we destroy we embitter we falsify we gossip we hate we insult we jeer we kill we lie we mock we neglect we oppress we pervert we quarrel we rebel we steal we transgress we are unkind we are violent we are wicked we are xenophobic we yield to evil we are zealots for bad causes page four oh one right to the all gates the a is al haitz for our destruction of earth for all these forgiving god forgive us pardon us grant us atonement for she nourishes us and that which put which we put into the ground she returns to us for the sin of taking from creation's beauty more than we give and for the sin of destroying for the furtherance of our greed for the sin of taking from her what we cannot use and for the sin of destroying earth's music creating confusion for the sin of wrecking her appearance and being blind to her beauty for the sin of polluting her fragrance for the sin of forgetting who we are in the face of her splendor and for the sin of abusing our power as stewards of the earth hello we can be seated page 584. um is opened and we rise answering amane today you strengthen us today you bless us today you exalt us today you seek our happiness today you inscribe us for a happy life today you accept with love our prayer today you hear our cry today you sustain us with the power of your justice today you pardon and forgive all our sins we can be seated i think they say is to everyone and express deep gratitude to those who participated in leadership of our worship this morning to pharaoh welsh or basuke zimra laura duhan kaplan and charles kaplan for leading our davening of chakri our torah readers dahlia faircloth avian moti liss heidi mann harriet frost casey collins robin friedlander and for the haftarah avril orlov dalya and heidi wendy rubin for davening the avodah and contributing to our moosa gloria levy for our peace prayer and sally thorne for our deeply inspiring devour torah thank you dave kaufman and martin gottfried on tech always tracy fagg and matthew gindin not only for minding our few children for the beautiful teaching in preparation for our high and holy days the angel who works logistical magic and all our services and creates the beautiful ambiance is mary adlersburg and we thank franwich for heading the team that transported everything from the buy it and set up the space and for arranging for most of the flowers please go to the or shalom home page to empty your pockets still further into artsideca fund and we will be back for chant yiscor and niela at 5 45. and you shall come to my holy mountain and you shall come to my house of prayer my house shall be a house of prayer for all peoples my house shall be let's rise h5 94. rabbi is is is is is yom kippur is a solemn day but not a sad day i hope you have had some of your burdens lifted and that you have a lovely afternoon good gentive you

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Length: 236min 30sec (14190 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 16 2021