High Holy Days 5784/2023
This High Holy Days will be our 55th year of providing High Holy Days services.
This year we will have IN PERSON services at the American Jewish University and a zoom option too.
Our services and celebrations will be led by Rabbi Stan Levy and Rabbi Laura Owens, Cantor Edward Robin and Cantorial soloist Stephani Valadez. We look forward to welcoming back our musicians and singers RebbeSoul, Joey De Rusha, Richard Hardy, Joy Krauthammer, Lynda Levy and Skye Braband.
The theme of our High Holy Days services this year is
“HOW TO MAKE LIVING A NEW YEAR, LIVING A NEW LIFE.”
Our High Holy Days tradition teaches us “A new year should begin a new life.” We commit ourselves to offering our High Holy Days services in ways which will merge the texts of our prayers with the text of our lives; to enable us to create greater inner and interpersonal resources; to open ourselves to perspectives that will allow us to live our lives with authenticity and courage. Through prayer, meditation, music and song, and practices of gratitude; with blessings, awe, joy, and hope we will welcome the year 5784.
This year, more than ever, we look forward to your participation in our services. This year, more than ever, your presence is required to ignite the sparks of holiness that we provide for each other. This year, more than ever, we invite you to help us create a High Holy Days experience that will enlighten, enrich, and elevate us all. This year, we are all “essential workers” whose job it is to create sacred space in sacred time. We urge you to join us for as many services as you can.
This time in the Jewish calendar provides us with precisely what we need to transition to a new year. The evening of Friday, August 18th, began the month of Elul, 29 days during which we reflect upon the past year and begin to envision the year to come. The High Holy Days/Days of Awe cycle begins with Selihot, the week before Rosh Hashanah. We focus on forgiveness in all its complexities: Whom do we need to forgive, and from whom do we need to ask forgiveness? Our tradition encourages us to dig deep to respond to these important questions. (Sunday September 10th, 2023 at 7:00 pm ON ZOOM)
Rosh Hashana – The “New Year” (or a Year of New Consciousness) celebrates a time of renewal of mind, body, spirit and relationships. The days of our lives are like pages of a book. Each year we begin with a new blank slate, how we live each day is how we write the next chapters in the Book of our Life.
Friday evening Sept 15th at 7:00 PM, and Saturday Sept 16th at 10:00 am
Tashlik ends the second day of Rosh Hashana when we go to the ocean to cleanse and heal our hearts from some of its brokenness and pain. Sunday afternoon Sept 17th at Will Rogers State Beach Park at the beach at 2 pm. (check our email for updates on this event)
Yom Kippur is a day of Atonement/At-one-ment. It begins with Kol Nidre – focusing on (often hidden) negative patterns and character traits, which “sabotage” our hopes, our dreams and our relationships, and we annul those negative patterns and traits. Yom Kippur Day is a time of focusing on the misuse of energy and mistakes we make so we can be more positive and full of hope and loving and vision in the new year.
Sunday Evening September 24th at 7:00 PM and Monday September 25th, 2022 from 10:00 til 5 pm.
Succot & Simhat Torah will be celebrated together this year. Saturday October 7th, 2023, at 10:00 AM on zoom and in person.
We hope you will join us at this time of renewal. We promise you a full-of-wonder experience.
Rabbi Stan and Rabbi Laura