Yom Kippur Pre Yom Tov Online Service - The Great Park Synagogue 2020

[Music] hey [Music] it gives me so much joy to welcome everyone to our great park synagogue pre yom kippur service online it's an important service because unfortunately many people will not be able to be in shul this yom kippur we have now the opportunity of being joined together through the beautiful sounds of our choir the songs the melodies and prayers from our yom kippur magza and i thank adam golding and the entire choir for the huge amount of work that he has put into compiling and bringing together the music even as we are distanced from one another and we have the challenge of separation yom kippur is a very solemn day a day in which we bear our souls in supplication to god we fast very seriously but at the same time it's a joyous day and inner joy because this is a day in which we resolve the issues of our life we're able to draw a line and to say we move forward without carrying the baggage and the heaviness of the past events of our life we can start afresh we can resolve the relationships where there has been a difficulty between us and others we can resolve our connection with hakodesh baruch with hashem by feeling the presence of god in our lives and connecting with hashem so both solemn and joyous may we all wherever we are in shul or even at home maybe really connect with hashem through the opportunities of this yom kippur day i want to thank many people who have ensured the strength of our community through this difficult period i want to thank our beloved chairman bob blechman and the entire committee for showing the strength of leadership in our community through these times i want to thank the covert team which is a team of people committed to ensure that the processes and procedures are in place to ensure the health and safety of our community and particularly mark badler who has given many many hours to look after these safety requirements of our shul i want to thank the chief rabbi whose bold and powerful leadership has galvanized the entire community and brought together all the rabbinate the rabbonim of the entire south africa who have collaborated who have shared ideas and worked together to make the community stronger overall i want to thank theo shapiro who looks after our children at the great park synagogue notwithstanding the separation she has worked hard to connect the children of our community our future our beloved children with one another and with ashu i want to thank the jewish board of deputies they have worked tirelessly to bring together all the different sections and sectors of our community education social services religious institutions all of the different sectors of our jewish community so that we pull together that we work together that there is a common interest and that we can face the challenges with confidence and with strength i want to thank the advisory team the medical advisory team professor shub dr friedland professor kramer who have volunteered their services to care for each and every one of us i thank our special ladies in the office sandy and elise who worked very hard to hold our community together and to reach out to each and every one of us i thank you my beloved family at the great park synagogue we are a community the community that we are because we are the beautiful family that share these precious moments together i wish everyone a kumarakatimatova may be sealed for a year full of joy and happiness and good health [Music] so [Music] you [Music] [Applause] hey [Music] yes [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] time [Music] is [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] in [Music] [Music] is [Music] [Music] oh [Music] the usual prayer is such a solemn time in which one is filled with memories one's heart is raw one thinks of all those who meant so much to us in life and continue to impact on our lives by giving us direction and meaning and comfort and inspiration and it is in the yiska prayer that one has the opportunity to pledge to give something to tsudaka to do a mitzvah to uplift our lives in the merit of those who have passed on from this world because their soul continues to grow and to be elevated on high through the good acts that we fulfill here in this world and this year yusuke is particularly difficult because many people will not be able to be in shul it has been a time in which we have been physically distancing ourselves from one another but it is also a time in which one has felt the connections of souls and that we defy physical proximity and reach to one another and certainly when it comes to connecting with nishamas wherever we are whether we're at home or whether we're able to be ensure let's make this yes a meaningful time of connection we begin with a prayer with which we begin the escrow service at the great park synagogue merciful father in whose hand are the souls of the living and the dead we consecrate this moment to the memory of our daily beloved ones who have been summoned to their eternal rest with sorrowing hearts children remember their beloved parents who tended their young lives with great love and affection untiring were their endeavors to direct their children on the path of virtue and kindness ever mindful were they for their welfare and ever anxious for their happiness there are husbands and wives who recall the affectionate bonds formed in your presence they remember the faith and understanding the trials and grief the fears and joys they shared together until death parted them yet the ties that unite their souls can never be severed there are fathers and mothers who remember on this day the most precious of all your gifts children for whom they planned and toiled over whom they watched and rejoiced in whom were centered all their dreams and hopes this solemn hour of god stirs within us all tender memories as we recall the pleasant associations of those who were so dear to us in life we remember the joys and comforts they brought us the love and devotion lavished upon us the hardships endured for us and the lofty teachings they strove to impart unto us and even though months and years have passed since our beloved ones have departed this life we feel that they are near to us and with us for the memory of them is forever enshrined in our hearts may we remain ever true to their trust loyal to their precepts and faithful to the heritage that they bequeathed unto us we proudly remember the men and women members of this great park synagogue who gave yeoman service to our community whose devotions are never forgotten whose spirit still with us and whose activities we have taken over where they left off we pray that we will always justify their trust in us we recall in love the martyrs of our own day the victims of the holocaust and we remember with pride all those who gave their lives in the world wars for the establishment and in defense of the state of israel and all who fought and died in the name of truth justice and peace for all mankind may the memories of those whom we lovingly recall this day influence our lives for good and direct our thoughts away from the vein and the fleeting towards that which is eternal teach us to emulate their virtues so that the historic chain of judaism remains unbroken with us teach us to live wisely unselfishly courageously and fruitfully in truth and understanding in love and in peace so that those who come after us may likewise remember us for good as we this day affectionately remember all those who were unto us a blessing a memorial prayer for those members of our community of the part of this world [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] the [Music] [Music] [Music] the [Music] [Music] [Music] amen [Music] [Music] it is on the day of yom kippur that we turn to hashem and we ask him to remove any negative judgment and to see us for a good year filled with health and happiness recently in a journey through the talmud which takes place at the great park synagogue every morning after our daily prayers we came across a statement by rabbi yitzhak it says that there are four methods by which we can avert a negative decree in our lives and we learned it and we read it and we applied it and we saw that there are in fact four different areas that can transform our lives as jews the first is the realm of tsadaka to give charity now we are taught that charity can avert any negative decree the end of the track date of shabbos teaches numerous stories about people whose lives were saved because they had done an act of kindness we are taught in the talmud more than we do for the poor when we do an act of giving the poor person does for us because our lives are transformed we are changed we are uplifted by the act of giving and for that reason rabbi eliazer would only begin to pray after he had given a coin to charity only then he began to pray as the river maharashtra explains that our gateway to god is through the portal of being kind and generous to another human being when we set the tone of giving and caring hashem uses that approach to look at our lives we become different human beings when we share and when we give and the story is told of the father who sends his two sons out to make a fortune in a distant city and the one brother is a very successful human being he invests the money of his father and in a very short time he becomes a very wealthy businessman the other brother unfortunately not so successful loses the money borrows and eventually lives in dire property in the same city but across the train tracks along the dusty roads in a shack the tragedy was that the brothers never ever communicate many years go by and the father comes to visit his sons and the wealthy brother is sure that the father is going to visit him and be in his beautiful stately mansion so he hears that the father has in fact gone to stay with the brother in a shack and for the first time the wealthy brother gets in his gilded carriage crosses the train tracks along the dusty roads until he finds the shack and there he sees his father and he's so excited and he he calls out father father i'm so happy to see you and the man in the doorway looks at him in disbelief and says i'm not actually sure who you're referring to and the son says father desire it is me i'm your son and the father again waves him away and says i don't know who you are and then he sees through the doorway his brother who missing for the very first time in many years talking to the father calling him father and the wealthy brother says father i will prove to you that you are my father because you are his father and he is my brother if he is my brother and you his father you must be my father too oh says the father a babruta is a bruder if a brother is a brother then a father is a father when we care for one another as brothers and sisters then hashem cares for us as his children the first of the four realms is to go into this yom kippur with a heart ready to share and to give and to care for others the second realm that he presents is means to cry out from the depths of our heart it is prayer that is meaningful that comes from our essence that really talks from our soul we are told in a story analogy that is given about a time when people were very ignorant there were small little towns where people didn't have the opportunity to learn how to read they were devout they were pious in their connection to god but they were unable to read the letter of the law the torah and the prayers so they would hire a knowledgeable person from the nearest city would come to their town and he would educate their children so that they would have a better opportunity than they themselves had and this individual knowledgeable in reading would be the person who would double up as the individual would read any letter that would arrive in the small little town one occasion a letter arrives and the yeshubnik the simple farmer runs over to the malama to the teacher and he says the letters arrive please read it to me and the mohammed begins to read the letter and the last tragically the letter is informing about the fact that the father father of this individual has died the simple farmer begins to have heart palpitations and he faints and the question in the story is why did the wrong guy faint the person reading the letter is getting it first hand he's actually reading the information the other person is only hearing the information second hand why would he be the one to get so emotional and to faint and the person actually reading the letter is unmoved and of course of course the answer is it's his father it means everything to him his life has changed his world has changed it is so impacting on his life because he owns it it's his own story and what this martial this analogy teaches us is that when we pray we can turn the pages of the master we can utter the words we can say everything so correctly we can sing in the perfect pitch and key but prayer is a cry from the heart it's when we own the story when we say it belongs to me this is my story this is my connection this is my god i am now having the opportunity to talk from my heart with god almighty so the second realm that rabbi yitzhak discusses is our ability to pray it is that raw cry of the sound of the shofar which is a color the loistama it has no words it does not say it with a literary effect it is simply a cry a cry from the heart and i hope that our yom kippah is going to be filled with the opportunity to pray meaningfully from the essence of our being and to connect with hashem the third realm that rabitsak presents is shinui to change our name and he mentions the proof that there was sarai who is known as sarai with the youth and her name was changed to sarah sarah and as soon as her name was changed she had a child and even abraham when he was approached by god and told that he is going to have a child and he said god i have seen in my astrological calculations that abram will never have a child and god says it is true abram will never have a child avram ali but avraham abraham when the extra letter of god is placed into your name my lead you will have children and you will have a progeny and you'll have a beautiful nation that will grow from you changing our name means looking at ourselves and saying who are we what is my identity what is my connection to my religion and to the torah am i able to look at myself and see more than just my own ability and my own brilliance and my own efforts bringing about the success of my life when i see myself as a proud jew connected to hashem then we can achieve exponentially more we become powerful human beings that can change the world it is so important in this process of yom kippur to look at ourselves and say who are we how do we define ourselves what is my name and how can i uplift and change my definition of self so that this yom kippi is much more meaningful the famous joseph who is a young child had so much heartache so many difficulties confront him lands up as eventually in a languishing in a cellar in a jail in egypt but throughout all of this time he is referred to as na'ar evry a young jewish man the jailers the people in egypt those who derided him and those who jailed him they knew one thing about joseph he is a jew when we are proud of our judaism when we are proud of our identity when we stand strong with the name that we have as an amistra then we can achieve so much that we never thought possible so the third realm on this yom kippur let's look at our identity the way we define ourselves the way we want to be called by others and seen by others because if it is a proud jew that stands in the mirror and in front of others then we can achieve endless horizons and finally the fourth area the fourth area is to change our actions and the talmud tells us that in the story of jonah which will read on yom kippur day when he is dispatched by gods to go and bring the city of nineveh to repent and then he runs away and he's in the whale and eventually he does his duty he goes to the city of nineveh and an evil city turns it around and they begin to repent and they put on sackcloth and they fast and they mend their ways and the talmud says note that when god turned to them it doesn't say god saw their sackcloth doesn't say god saw their fasting it says god saw that they changed their ways our actions our behavior patterns that needs to change so the fourth realm is to change the way we actually conduct our lives and the story is told about the individual who went out a distant town and for the first time he saw the fire gate in action a fire was raging and somebody was blowing a a trumpet and as a result of the noise and the sound the fire lashes the fire brigade arrives and very soon they put out the fire he arrives back at his town and he says there is this most incredible invention it's called the trumpet and i want to demonstrate to you how from now on if ever there's a fear of a fire we have a solution that is remarkable and with that he sets fire to his own house to demonstrate the power of the instrument in his hand and as the fire takes hold of his home he begins to blow the trumpet and to no avail his house burns down because behind the trumpet there needs to be a fire brigade behind the sound and the call and that reaching out to everybody else with the noise of the schaefer there has to be things in place to be able to affect change to change the destiny so we go through many protocols and many procedures over yom kippur day of how we do things and do them right and they are so important as part of our heritage and jewish law but behind all of those actions there has to be a resolution inside of ourselves that we're going to change the things will be different to take one item in our lives not everything because that is impossible to achieve to take one detail of our lives and say we're about to rearrange it this is going to change i'm not going to do it the same way as i've always done it that is the beginning and precipitates so much change in our life let this yom keep a day be a time in which we decide that our actions are actually going to change and then the talmud says that rabbitshook was confronted with another opinion that says there's a fifth area there's a fifth way you can change your life and that is by changing your place and they bring a proof and they say abraham moved from mesopotamia and he journeyed as god told him and when he arrived at the promised land he was transformed into a great nation as god promised so we see that changing place can change everything in our lives now says rabbit hook changing place in itself is not a guarantee of success it was only in that case where he changed place to go to the promised land by the instruction of god the destination was so profound so important so powerful that was what changed everything in his life but moving in itself that's not one of the methods of transforming our lives and interestingly most times that's the method we reach for first we frustrated we're unhappy we're uncomfortable change place we're not happy at our children's school something happened with the teacher we'll move to another school we'll move to another class the teacher is the problem we're unhappy ensure or with somebody who's sitting nearby us who gives us grief we'll change rules we'll change relationships we'll change all the things because somehow if we move we're going to be happy maybe it sucks says that might be the first thing we reach for but that is the hardest method of transforming our lives because we have to be sure that it is not just a journey of running away but that we have such a clear destination that is going to be the real reason why there is change in our lives so don't reach for the move the move doesn't necessarily achieve growth it needs a very specific mission that we're heading towards but the four areas those are the recipe it is about giving sadaqa about giving charity being kinder and god will look at us kindly it is about being able to cry out from the depths of our heart meaningfully real talking to hashem as we would want to talk to our personal and powerful god it is about changing our name looking at ourselves and saying how can my identity be stronger as a jew how can i put myself in front of others so clearly proud being a child of hashem with the responsibility of fulfilling his misses and most importantly to change our actions to take one area in our life and to say we can change and we will persevere we'll be resilient we'll be committed that change is going to happen this year may hashem respond to these four areas that we can address in our lives by granting us the kumar khatimatova the ceiling of our lives for good for joy for happiness may the decree only be positive for our people israel and for the entire world may hashem bring us the redemption of the coming of mashiach now this year [Applause] [Music] [Music] sure [Music] oh [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] after not being ashore and with other congregates stepping onto the familiar ground for rosh hashanah could have never have felt more surreal standing side by side with our fear of community listening to the governing and hearing the shafa was a long overdue event and showed me how appreciative i am to the rabbi committee and community overall with six millions occurring over the yontav hashem truly heard our call he just showed how distance truly makes the heart grow fonder as yom kippur fast approaches i'm once again looking forward to praying at the great park by looking at the commitment and unity of each and every member it truly follows me so much hope for the future i would like to add a thought to panda in asia may to shiva leading up to this very hardy day although the world has been turned upside down i would encourage you all to do the same with the situation around us instead of hoping for praise from others praise the work of others instead of waiting for reassurance please give reassurance instead of being patient for change be the change for yourself and those around you let us use our experience to help others and actively work for our as goals rabbi jonathan sachs always says the best way to receive blessing is to be a blessing we pray for hashem to inscribe us in the book of life an incredible year ahead where the shul is once again the center of many simchas and memories happy memories i wish you a meaningful and easy fast [Music] oh [Music] bye [Music] [Music] oh is [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] is [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] israel [Music] [Music] hey yes [Music] [Music] is [Applause] [Music] [Applause] you

Channel: Great Park Synagogue

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Id: AHx-RNLWOZM

Length: 43min 26sec (2606 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 27 2020