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Why is this New Year different from all other New Years? That sounds like a Passover question to be sure. I grant you that every Rosh Hashana is different because the world and our individual lives are dynamic. We are ever changing creatures who, as Jews, present ourselves at this season as ready to keep changing. That being said, I never imagined last Rosh Hashana that our world would be coping with the challenges we face and that, once again, this Ten Days of Repentance journey would be done online.

Therefore, tomorrow evening we will welcome 5782 with you, hopefully, joining us and looking at your screens while Fredi Bloom, Jef Labes, and I do our thing in front of cameras and microphones. Behind the scenes will be my friend, Lou Zweier, helping with the technology so I can, hopefully, bring our spirits and minds together to connect our community during this sacred time.

With all that we humans and we Jews have on our plates this year—health challenges, fires, floods, Covid-19, antisemitism, white supremacy—I better stop the list, I think we need to be together. The words of our Machzor, our High Holiday prayerbook, provide a way to draw ourselves together to contemplate how we use the gift of life and the gift time in our journey. The universal themes of repentance and renewal have called out over the generations of our history to provide hope and resilience to our spirits. People, inclined by their faith in God, have made these Days of Awe a building block to strengthen their confrontations with the many challenges of life.

All of these Jewish tools are available to us, not just during this season, but throughout our lives. The 1-1/2 years of Covid-19 isolation and the fracturing of our lives have left their toll in our emotional and spiritual worlds. I hope and pray that this Holy Day season will bring us together as as a community of people strengthened by each other and by our faith that as Rosh Hashana celebrates the creation of the world, we can find grateful and hopeful hearts inside of ourselves to jumpstart another year.

Our Board of Directors, Staff and I join in wishing all of you a healthy and happy New Year.

Shana Tova!

Rabbi Ted Feldman