Rabbi Rachel Gurevitz

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Category: New Year

#BlogElul 18: Igniting the Spark of Love

September 5, 2012 /

Last year, Jewish musician and Spiritual Leader of Temple Shir Shalom, Oviedo, FL, Beth Schafer wrote a book called ‘Seven Sparks.’  Taking the 10 commandments as her inspiration, she re-cast them as seven sparks that can truly guide us toward what she has labeled, ‘Positive Jewish Living.’ The origins of both the book and the larger ‘Positive Jewish Living’ project was a belief that Beth held that Judaism was chock full of wisdom that we can truly live by, but our Jewish tradition can sometimes make it challenging to find your way into the complex, rabbinic texts, commentaries and interpretations of Torah in which this wisdom is found.
The first of the 10 commandments is more of a statement: ‘I am the Eternal Your God, who led you out of Egypt.’  From this, Beth extracts the first of her Seven Sparks: ‘I am free to love and be loved.’  She asks why God needs to make such a statement of introduction.  Why does God need to introduce God-self?  Perhaps because our people, newly freed from Egypt, have been distanced and need to be reintroduced.  God frees us from slavery in order to reestablish a loving relationship (our covenant).  Restoring love helps to bring healing to our broken world (tikkun olam).  Our time of wandering in the wilderness was a time in which we were re-taught and re-membered how to love.  We also learn how to receive love.  ‘It’s hard to feel that you are loved, if you’ve spent all of your energy as a slave to something unhealthy.  It’s hard to feel worthy when you are ensnared by self-doubt or self-criticism.  When someone shares love with you, you need to know in your heart that you deserve it.” (Schafer, 2011).
At the end of each chapter, Beth includes a section called ‘Ignite!’  How do we ignite the spark of love in our day-to-day lives?  These are her suggestions.  How appropriate they are as a source of contemplation and inspiration as we prepare ourselves spiritually for a New Year:
For yourself:
  • I love myself.
  • I have immense potential to grow.
  • I appreciate my quirks as well as my gifts.
  • I am proud of both big and small accomplishments.
For your family:
  • I express love generously and often.
  • I approach disagreements from a loving perspective.
  • I give without expecting anything in return.
At work:
  • I extend courtesy and respect to both superiors and subordinates as part of my work.
  • I extend amazing service to clients or customers as one of my many goals.
  • I act naturally and honestly to promote a great environment.
At your Congregation:
  • We welcome all who visit the congregation from the parking lot, to the phone, in meetings, services, and all written correspondence.
  • We respond with immediate compassion and caring to those in need.
  • We recognize special events such as birthdays, anniversaries, recovery from illness and special lifecycle moments as a community.

Blogging Elul 5771: Did you remember to set your alarm clock?

September 27, 2011 /
This piece was published by one of our local weekly newspaper consortiums, Hersam Acorn, and appeared in print this week in the Amity Observer, Bridgeport News, Milford Mirror, and Trumbull Times.

This entry is my closing posting for Elul 5771.  I wish you all a Shanah Tovah um’tukah – a Sweet and Happy New Year.  May we all experience fully the blessing of life, and offer blessings to others through our words and deeds.
Rabbi Rachel Gurevitz

Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, which begins on Wednesday, September 28 in the evening, is a very different kind of New Year to January 1st.  ‘The Choosing’ is a recently-published memoir in which a Jew-by-choice and now Rabbi, Andrea Myers, tells the story of the first year her Italian-Catholic family encountered Rosh Hashanah.  She was living back at home with her parents and, after a long walk to a synagogue for evening services on the first night of the New Year, she returned home late, quite exhausted.  She was awoken at midnight from a deep sleep when her family, wanting so lovingly to help her celebrate, arrived in her bedroom clanging pots and pans, letting off streamers, and shouting ‘Happy New Year!’  The loud sounds more typically heard on Rosh Hashanah are the blasts of the shofar – the ram’s horn, and we usually hear those at the quite respectable time of late morning.  The shofar is, however, metaphorically, our communal ‘wake up’ call.
While the secular New Year is a time when many people make ‘New Years’ Resolutions’, the Jewish New Year marks a period of time when we first look back at our deeds from the past year.  Our worship liturgy speaks of God who holds us accountable, but the inner work that the New Year requires of us is really about how we hold ourselves accountable and take responsibility for our mistakes, the hurt we have caused others, and the ways we have behaved unethically or thoughtlessly.  If we really engage in this spiritual work, we can emerge ten days later, at the end of Yom Kippur – the Day of Atonement – transformed.  If we have the courage to speak to those whom we have hurt, and ask forgiveness, we can transform the relationships we have with others.
In the world we live in today, it almost feels deeply unfashionable to talk of a spiritual practice and a faith community that asks us to engage in a personal accountability inventory in this way.  There are those who speak in the name of faith, or offer spiritual paths, that emphasize what these things can do for you.  What about what we can do for others?  Faith is not about wish fulfillment.  It is about the meaning and purpose of our very existence as human beings.  It is about being fully present to life and to each other in all of the downs as well as the ups.  It is about the hard work of doing things together as communities with shared values, recognizing that no one person is more important than another, yet at the same time each and every one of us is necessary and has a unique voice to add as we work together to make things better.
As the Jewish community arrives at Rosh Hashanah, my hope and prayer is that we can learn from the wisdom of our ancient faith traditions, and hear the sound of the shofar as our alarm clock, reminding us of the perils of living in too much of ‘me’ society and not enough of an ‘us’ society.  The spiritual work of taking account, repairing what we can, and rededicating ourselves to the future takes courage and strength.  May we, by coming together, give each other the courage and strength that we need.
Shanah tovah u’m’tukah – May it be a sweet and good year for all.

A Scottish Shabbes Bride visits on Shabbat Hogmanay

January 3, 2011 /

On Kabbalat Shabbat, New Year’s Eve, I shared some of my Scottish heritage with the congregation.  Yearning for some of the traditions that I grew up with (primarily enjoying a dram of whiskey, eating shortbread, and watching the Hogmanay celebrations on BBC Scotland), we welcomed in the Scottish Shabbes Bride to the strains of Scotland the Brave, and closed out the service with Adon Olam sung to Auld Lang Syne.  Adorned with a Scottish bunnet and a tartan tallit, my intention was primarily to bring some of the joy and celebratory mood of the night and to weave it into our Shabbes prayers.

Hogmanay is the name given to New Year’s Eve in Scotland.  No-one is quite sure of the origin of the name or its meaning – Wikipedia and other sources will share several theories about multiple linguistic roots.  Not to be found among them, but quite tempting as a valid possibility, is the Hebrew ‘Chag haMonnaie’ – the Festival of Counting.  Our Scottish Shabbes Bride was our ‘First Footer’ of the evening.  While usually referring to the first person to cross the threshold of a neighbor after midnight, bearing whiskey, shortbread, a lump of coal and some salt, ours was the first to cross our threshold after we lit Shabbes candles.  She entered in style and serenaded us, quite literally.

For a number of years, one of the highlights of the televised Hogmanay specials in Scotland was a short segment toward the end of the evening featuring a special message from a Presbyterian minister of some repute – the Rev. I.M. Jolly.  While I could scarcely do justice to the joyful message that Rev. Jolly would share each year, I did my best to replicate his style and content.  But for many congregants who wanted more, I present to you here, below, the original Rev. I.M. Jolly.
Wishing you all blessings, good health, and much happiness and joy in 2011.
Rabbi Rachel Gurevitz



Elul 21. A Break-fast that sustains body and soul

September 9, 2009 /

Preparing myself for the Days of Awe…it starts today with the ingredients sitting on my kitchen counter, ingredients waiting to be made into kugels, souffles, casseroles and quiches.  Into the freezer they’ll then go, and on September 28 out on the break-fast table they’ll be.  For the past 25 years, hosting break-fast has been our family tradition.  We are usually 30 – 40 strong, even after 24 hours of fasting.  We come together hungry, reflective, sometimes plainly satisfied, sometimes observedly solemn.  With open anticipation, we all crowd into the dining room.  


Our break-fast begins with our own family ritual, an assertive blast of the shofar.  The defining moment is when I raise my bagel for Hamotzi and look around at all the faces, the familiar faces of friends and family who are with us year after year, the faces of new lives and new friends, the missing faces.  It is at that moment that I realize, measure and find myself in awe of all that is the same and all that has changed.  It is at that moment that I take stock of the year that has passed and catch a glimpse of the year to come.  
L’Shanah Tovah, 
Elaine Chetrit

Elul 6. High Holyday Travels

August 26, 2009 /

For years I was very flexible about my celebration of Rosh Hashanah. If I could, I spent it with family. If that wasn’t convenient, I found other ways to observe the holiday. Some years I went to services, some years I didn’t. What really mattered was eating something sweet and reflecting on the past and on the future.

One year I was on vacation in Sweden with my father and sister. On Erev Rosh Hashanah we were driving back to Stockholm from a weekend trip, and we stopped at a rest area. We couldn’t find apples and honey so we celebrated with a plate of cookies. The next morning we found the main synagogue in Stockholm and showed up for services. We didn’t anticipate that the prayer books would be in Swedish and Hebrew, and we had some trouble following along, but we felt that we had done something to observe the day before resuming our sightseeing.

Another year I was in Berlin, by myself. I found a synagogue on the map, but didn’t have the energy to investigate it on my own. I felt that my anonymity in the city exempted me from any formal observance, and I settled for a pastry and some time writing in my journal.

Traveling on the holidays gives them an exotic appeal and makes them more memorable, and I do think that Rosh Hashanah is more a state of mind than anything else. But I also find that B’nai Israel provides an inspiring physical place and a spiritual community that helps to cultivate reflection and contemplation. Just knowing where I will be makes the holiday sweeter than Swedish cookies or German pastries.
Anat Shiloach

Have you, like Anat, found yourselves away from home for the holidays?  How did you mark the turning of the year?  Do you have stories to share?  You can add them by clicking ‘comments’, or you can mail them to rgurevitz@congregationbnaiisrael.org for posting.

If you are a member of B’nai Israel and traveling over the High Holydays, you can find other Reform congregations in the United States near where you are traveling here  and a letter of reciprocity, available from our Temple office, can facilitate your visit.  You can find Progressive synagogues in other parts of the world here, and all synagogues worldwide here.

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