"Doing?"

For those of you who do not get our synagogue newsletter, here is my monthly column and blessing for January 2015:

“Doing?”

When our daughter Tali was just a little over a year old, she already talked and communicated with words.  If we were busy with something, she would run over and look up with a questioning expression on her face, and say, "Doing?" A whole sentence there... clearly meaning, "What are you doing?"

We have kept that expression all these years in our family and often ask each other, "Doing?"  meaning we are interested in everything that is going on in your life and want to hear news.

So, I thought of taking a moment to answer the question, "Doing?" regarding your rabbi's current activities and projects.

I have begun an art project of mixed media collage, paint, and calligraphy, depicting letters of the Hebrew Alef-bet, with a brief explanation on the back of the small canvases about the letter's mystical energy and meaning. These “Alef-bet Collages” on canvas are available exclusively in our gift shop.

Letters Yud, Shin, Daled, part of the Alef-Bet Collage series by Rabbi Alicia Magal

In the Interfaith community, I have been participating since October, and will continue through February, in a bi-weekly Social Justice Public Policy Seminar for Faith Leaders.  I am the sole rabbi in our cohort this year.  This informative series is funded through the Monsignor Edward J. Ryle Fund, with the mission of “Working for justice, dignity, and the common good.”  The program presents faith leaders with information about communicating effectively on public policy issues, within the limits of functioning under a 501C3 status.  The series is designed to enable faith leaders to explore and understand Arizona’s social justice public policy issues and to demonstrate and communicate the importance of these issues to their congregations and communities. Some of the topics include Health and Human services, Education policy, the Environment, Justice System and Prisons, Immigration, the Arizona Legislature, Faith Communities and Public Policy, Money: How Government Gets It and Spends It, and Translating Knowledge into Action. 

I look forward to sharing some of these issues with you and hearing your response.  Our prophetic tradition demands that we raise our voices and take action for justice.

A personal area of development that I am pursuing is through the Mussar Institute, from January through this coming summer: an in-depth, spiritual immersion for Rabbis and Cantors. The 6-month online study program will culminate in a retreat at Brandeis-Bardin Institute campus in the Los Angeles area this summer. The goal is to nurture and develop personal, spiritual practice with the tools and traditional Jewish wisdom literature of Mussar. The Hebrew term Mussar (מוּסַר), is from the book of Proverbs 1:2 meaning righteous, moral conduct, instruction, and spiritual discipline.   

I will share insights from this study and practice in the coming months.

So, besides preparing weekly “journeys” we take together here at the JCSVV at Shabbat services and Torah study, offering prayers and visits to congregants who need blessings for healing, teaching classes, and performing life cycle ceremonies, I am fully occupied with continuing personal growth and learning which I bring to you, my beloved congregation and community. 

And… of course, Itzhak and I are personally awaiting the birth of grand-baby girl twins, hopefully sometime in late January.  Now you know a bit of what I’m “doing.”

-- 

Blessing for Tevet  (Dec. 23, 2014  - January 20, 2015)

May we show patience during the darkest, coldest time of year, and use the time to bring warmth and light to those around us.  May we offer gratitude as we turn the corner toward  longer days and more light.  May we each embody this time of turning by demonstrating an intention to grow, learn, and continue to gain insights, so that we improve our positive speech and action.   –Amen.

PS. If you want my review (negative!) about the new Exodus movie, check out my blog. http://www.redrockrabbi.blogspot.com

Exodus movie - YUCK

Just came home from the much awaited movie Exodus... I am so upset and disappointed.  The movie was not true to the Torah, the midrash, the archeological findings... and left out much of the scenes of awe and wonder.

So there might be conjecture as to whether Moses knew of his true ancestry before he was an adult... but turning this into a brother against brother was a stretch.  Where was the scene where he kills a taskmaster to save a Hebrew slave and then needs to flee?  I'll skip over the drawn out battle scenes at the beginning where he saves his "brother's" life... the future Pharaoh Rameses.  His Egyptian sword is practically elevated to a character in itself, but where is his staff?

Where is his being called from the burning bush? Rather he is buried in a rocky landslide during a rainstorm with only his face above ground, and suffering from a broken leg???  Huh?

And God is portrayed as a petulant boy who chides Moses rather then empowering him???!!!

Where is the humble, stuttering Moses who needs Aaron his true brother as spokesman? Nowhere.  Where is a "duel" using his staff turned to snake matched by the Pharaoh's wizards? Nowhere.  Rather there are scenes of Moses as guerilla army trainer preparing the Hebrew men for battle through archery lessons.  God as the little boy tells him he isn't getting anywhere that way (Hebrews are being hanged every day for not giving up Moses who is hidden in their midst at the home of Nun - papa of Joshua ben Nun who doesn't appear at all as protege for the future... ). So the plagues begin in a graphic, naturalistic style to force the Egyptian people to pressure their Pharaoh to give in to Moses' demand that the Hebrew slaves be set free.  There are no warnings or repeated requests by Moses to Pharaoh... Those ugly blistery, bloody, scary plagues just keep on coming.

The slaying of the first born is a touching scene that finally does break Pharaoh's resolve.

Moses wants to lead the Hebrews out by the route he had taken years before southward through the straits of Tiran to Midian where he had met Zippora, was accepted by her wise and kind father Jethro, and started a family.  Zippora seemed like the best cast character in the whole movie.

Moses decides instead to take a route eastward through the mountains, since the rocky terrain will make it very difficult for Pharaoh's chariots to follow.  When Moses leads the Hebrews down the cliff sides to the sea, it isn't marshy or easy to ford as he had expected from his previous crossing to Midian, but rather there are crashing waves and very deep ocean water.  Rather than confidently stretching forth his staff, he lies down on the beach after throwing his Egyptian sword, which he has kept all this time, into the water.  Alerted by cawing birds he later notices that his sword is sticking up out of the water, showing that the water had receded.  He seems bewildered, surprised... unsure of how to proceed. 

Where is Nachshon ben Amminadav to show his faith by jumping into the water which then recedes?  Where are the walls of water on each side?  Nowhere.  They Hebrews kind of slosh through muddy pools that look like the bay on Cape Cod at low tide.  Pharaoh and his remaining charioteers soon follow into the water.  The Hebrews scramble onto a rocky shore on the other side, and suddenly there is a mano-a-mano moment where both Moses and Pharaoh are alone facing each other, and both are thrust into the tsunami-like tidal wave that envelopes them, followed by a slo-mo montage of drowned and floating horses, pieces of chariot wheels, and dead soldiers.  Somehow the next scene features close ups of both Moses on one side of the sea which has returned to its lapping of the shore, and Pharaoh is standing on the other side, dazed, bruised, but whole.

Fast forward, not to a monumental Sinai ablaze with smoke and fire, from which the elders are warned not to approach, but rather to a unassuming rocky outcropping where Moses is busy chipping away with a hammer and chisel at stone tablets.  No booming dictation of the Commandments; nor even a holy silence filling the screen, but merely the God-boy figure warning Moses that if he doesn't have the faith to follow through he should put down his hammer.  Moses reflects for a second and keeps on chiseling.  That's it for the Giving of the Ten Utterances??!!

So skip over building the Mishkan - Tabernacle with the golden ark and its coverings.  None of that here. Jump to the very last scene years later as Moses, aged, with a flowing white beard,  rides in a covered wagon kind of cart with a plain wooden box, ostensibly containing the Tablets of the Law, placed unceremoniously and unadorned behind him. 

There are so many midrashim possible to mine for gems.... How did the writers and director come up with these scenes that extended the battles and reduced the awe-inspiring narratives?

The costumes, sets, music, and effects were so professionally crafted, why not the dialogue and character development?

I am mystified by this production, and saddened that this is what may stay in the minds of movie-goers, especially those who haven't studied the Torah and its commentaries.

You know what would have been great... if they included bits of midrash - children finding whatever they wanted in the walls of water... etc.

and... a kind of dream sequence when Moses leads the Children of Israel out... they start to sing Mi Chamocha… and it turns into Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. speaking to the blacks in America about their Exodus from slavery…. a contemporary seder with children singing "Let my people go" and strains of Hallel. "B'tzeit Israel.." When Israel went out of Egypt ... all kinds of Exodus reminders in our world today…..

Rabbi Magal - Philanthropist of the Year, Spirit of Sedona Award

Rabbi Alicia Magal 2014 Spirit of Sedona ... - YouTube

► 8:34► 8:34

www.youtube.com/watch?v=mp1I2NybJng

47 mins ago - Uploaded by Terrie Frankel

Rabbi Alicia Magal received the Spirit of Sedona, Philanthropist of the Year Award from the Sedona ...

Poetry Hike in Sedona

Great Idea:  A Poetry Hike!

I want to get away from my desk and off the paved roads!  I live in Sedona and haven’t been making use of the gorgeous outdoor trails for hiking…. So when I saw that OLLI (Osher Lifelong Learning Institute) was offering, among its many intriguing adult classes, a four-week session of “Poetry Hikes” I signed up!  We gathered at the Yavapai campus at noon on this warm, clear October day.  I had a hat, sunscreen, plus sunblock scarf and shirt, light slacks, ankle-supporting hiking shoes, water, an apple, and a sense of excitement to be out on my day off having fun! 

Our leader Gary organized us into carpool groups, and we set off for Sugarloaf parking lot in the Coffee Pot hiking area.  We set off in silence for about a mile, among junipers, manzanita trees, cactus and agave plants, and the red sandstone formations on every side against a deep blue sky. 

We arrived at a shady spot where we gathered, sat down and smiled at each other for no reason other than the sheer beauty and pleasure of being in this group of men and women enjoying the outdoors together.

Marilee took over, introducing us to the poetry of Sharon Olds. 

I felt that Marilee cracked open the shell of the poems and showed us the liquid aliveness inside.  People opened up as well, commenting on the imagery of love, intimacy, disappointment, loss, and mourning in the sweep of her poems over three decades.

As we turned to follow the trail back I realized that I was walking behind the leader, placing my footsteps in the outlines of his footsteps… and suddenly I was back as a ten and twelve year old spending summers in a Kinderheim, like a sleep-away camp, in Gstaad, Switzerland. The teachers took us children out for hikes ver often, and we followed in single file behind our leader.  I kept my eyes on the boots of the guide right in front of me, and placed my small footprints within the larger footprints of the adult ahead of me.  The path was often wet, mossy, and the surroundings very green, as we forded streams, and crossed meadows with the sound of cows’ bells tinkling. 

STEP

Step

            STEP

            Step

STEP

Step

            STEP

            Step

I guess that is where I got into the habit of looking down as I walked, and only looking up when we paused for a drink, or to take in the view and appreciate the vista of mountains, valleys and streams.   Through the years, my mother often told me in a park, at the beach, or walking down the street, “Look UP!”  I guess I had been doing a “walking meditation” all along!

So… back to the trail in Sedona.

Suddenly I remembered with great fondness the many hikes my husband Itzhak and I took when our children Tali and Amir were little.  We’d go to the mountains in his camper, already a great adventure, and then line up:  Abba (Hebrew for Daddy) first, then Ima (Mommy), then the children.  And Itzhak would start a chant that we repeated in singsong… “Heidy heidy heidy ho…” (repeat!), “Heidy heidy heidy ho” (repeat); “Ho Ho Ho Ho” (repeat), “Heidy hey” (repeat), “Heidy ho” (repeat, “Heidy diddly heidy hey” (repeat and start all over for miles)!

And when we hiked, I again, as an adult, looked at the sturdy calves of my husband up ahead, and stayed in the footprint path he created. 

I did quite a bit of time travel on that one mile return walk! 

Now looking forward to next week’s adventure!

Exciting and humbling award

http://www.sedona.biz/news-from-sedona/sedona-community-foundation-announces-2014-spirit-of-sedona-award-winners/ 

Here is a link to a description of the upcoming Sedona Community Foundation Awards. I have been honored with the Philanthropist of the Year Award.  I feel that choosing me a the winner is a symbol of everyone's capacity to do good in the community, and to encourage others to offer their passion and talents to groups that work for the environment, the hungry, the needy; to organizations that enhance education, arts, safety, quality of life for the elderly, etc.

Compared to others who have been honored with the Philanthropist of the Year Award, I have very modest means... so I understand this award as a break-through decision for the local awards committee, empowering many more people to feel that their efforts are worthy, needed, important, effective.

I am truly humbled by this honor.

I'll post something after the awards ceremony that will take place on November 16. 

Rabbi Alicia Magal

Rabbi's Words on CONNECTION - Yom Kippur 5775 (2014)

Rabbi Alicia Magal

Jewish Community of Sedona and the Verde Valley

2014 - 5775

Kol Nidre  Friday, October 3, 2014

– untying knots, releasing complications, renewing ties, far away connections like with Israel.

 

Rabbi Alicia Magal before Yom Kippur services.
Notice the Angel in her shadow!!

During these High Holy Days I am presenting my theme of CONNECTION – KESHER in Hebrew. On Rosh Hashanah I spoke of sailor knots, and of knitting, of how to connect one little loop or stitch to another to create something useful.  I talked about the connections we make with close family and friends. Tonight and tomorrow I want to speak of larger connections, beyond our individual small circles.

It is vital to look beyond our own immediate lives here, and seek more knowledge about our wider connections – with Jewish communities around the world, and a sense of close connection with Israel, her people and her future. The world order is changing in ways we never experienced before.

One way to connect with our Jewish tradition to help us be informed and strong is through the Kesher Study Progam I am instituting this coming year.  I hope you will sign up for the Chai Mitzvah course that meets once a month beginning in November and will continue through June.  Each participant will be encouraged to follow their own areas of interest related to the study topics presented at each session.

(Just for reference… don’t read out loud)

Study materials will include those three pillars of existence we always sing about Torah, Avodah, Gemilut Hasadim:

]a) learning/knowledge,                      

b) ritual/spirituality, and

 c) social action/helping others.

  the benefits are: a) deepened friendships with the other participants, b) expanded rewards from being Jewish, c) seeing links between Judaism and eight other aspects of a gratifying life, and d) having a set of enjoyable and meaningful monthly experiences.   At the end we will hold a Chai Mitzvah ceremony/party to celebrate your new stage of Jewish development.  There is an $18 fee for materials for members.

First meeting will be on Tuesday, November 4th from 3:00 - 5:00 p.m. 

Nov. 4:  Orientation

Dec. 9:   Tzedakah

Jan. 6:    Interpersonal Relationships

Feb. 3:   Mindfulness

Mar. 3:  Enriching the Seder

Apr. 7:   Days of Remembrance 

May 5:   Gratitude

June 2:  Judaism and the Environment

Flyers are on the table and the information is in our newsletter.

---In addition, for those who want an even deeper connection with tradition and text, I’ll be teaching a class on the 3^rd Tuesday of those same months for those who wish to have an adult Bar or Bat Mitzvah, learn to chant trop for Torah, Haftarah, and if you know those, then trop melody for High Holy days, Purim Megillah, or Lamentations.  I will include selections from Psalms, Prophets, and Talmud according to the level of the group.

I feel so very connected to each of you, and my wish is to have an even stronger connection forged over this coming year – through personal meetings, time at services and afterwards, in classes,

Social Action projects, committee meetings, visiting members of the community who are ill, visiting at your home, hiking on the trail, at knitting group, organizing Mitzvah Day in May, wherever your interest and need show up. If you need a mezuzah put up at your home, call me to do a home dedication.  If you have a Simcha, let’s celebrate at a Shabbat service and plan an Oneg. If, God forbid, you have a crisis or loss, let me help you grieve, mourn, and celebrate the life of the loved one with the comfort offered by Jewish tradition.

Make connections to the wider community through local interfaith programs such as the Interfaith Thanksgiving and Mitzvah Day; stay informed about all the amazing achievements of Israel and speak up about unfair and incorrect press reports and condemnation.  Travel to Israel if you can, and see the marvels for yourself. I will invite our member Dan Gordon, who still serves as an army spokesman for the IDF and who was in Israel at the Gaza border through Operation Defensive Edge, to speak to us in the coming weeks about the truth and distortions reported about Israel’s situation. He is speaking on Yom Kippur at the Performing Arts synagogue in Los Angeles about his experiences in the recent war.

While we cannot know what is written about “Who shall Live and Who shall Die…” we can write in our own “book of living fully” each day, reaching out, connecting to others and feeling that our lives are worthwhile. Each of us is unique and has a special job while we walk this earth.

On these days of judgment and repentance, let us wipe the slate clean, start over again, and face the new year with confidence, joy, and hope.

L’shanah Tovah… May you be written and sealed in the Book of Life in the coming year.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 Rabbi Alicia Magal  

JCSVV 2014 - 5775

          Yom Kippur Day, Saturday, October 4, 2014

– Standing before God – the highest connection, and also the deepest, reconnecting with inner soul. Wrap it all up from the other drashot and bring it to a deep connection with soul, which is also the highest connection with God!

Today is Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, the Day of At-One-Ment… as we stand before our God.  We are connected, as we say at each prayer service, when we sing out the Shema – Hear O Israel, God is One, and we are all connected to God.

There are moments when we are moved to tears… why is that?  Words are simply not enough to hold the emotion bubbling up and it spills over …. Tears of joy and gratitude, tears of sorrow…. Just beyond logical, limited words. 

Maybe that is why poetry is so powerful, it cuts right through to the heart of feeling.  We have created - with the help of Ann Metlay, at our Elul workshop last month - a series of poems related to the themes of the High Holy Days, and hung them, with the help of Helen King, in our meditation garden behind the synagogue, at the corner of Meadowlark and 179.  You are invited to wander through there after the morning services and throughout the afternoon, before and after the Discussion, and before the Afternoon, Yizkor, and Neilah services resume later today.  Maybe you will be touched in a new way about some of the ideas of forgiveness, not carrying a grudge, seeing the best in others, and judging them with mercy in the way we each hope to be judged by God.

In the play put on by our members this past Sunday, The Gates Are Closing, we could hear the thoughts of the characters as they grappled with their connections with their family, with society, with God. If we could share those moments of deepest, most honest thought, today, what would we learn about each other?  What are the yearnings of your hearts?

Mine are to be more present, more attuned to the vital issues touching our congregants and our community.  And to balance that with being aware of my own needs for health and renewal as a person, wife, daughter, mother, and soon, grandmother, God willing.  Our daughter is pregnant and due to give birth in late January or early February.  How do I and Itzhak become good grandparents, helpful, but not meddling, offering our life experience, but leaving the new parents a sense of their own discovery, and not commenting on what we perceive as mistakes? 

I ask of you to be more connected, more welcoming and considerate of each other, and to offer rides, visit the sick, and do what you can and a bit beyond what you thought you could, for this mishpacha. 

---

I had a dream this past week that I was chanting the very Torah portion in the melody of the High Holy Days that I will be chanting this morning

Atem Nitzavim Hayom Kulchem… You are all standing here today, to receive the covenant, you and all the Children of Israel, and all the generations to come, yet unborn. , and then… in  my dream the chanting turned into Joni Mitchell’s song:

They paved paradise, and put up a parking lot. 

Don’t it always seem to go

that you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone,

they paved paradise, and put up a parking lot.

They cut down the trees and put them in a tree museum

And all the people paid a dollar to see’em.

Don’t it always seem to go,

that you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone,

They paved paradise, and put up a parking lot.

Wow, that woke me up at 3:47 a.m. on Monday morning.  The mystics used to awaken in these Days of Awe at 3 a.m. to meditate… so I guess I am part of a strong tradition.

Have we paved over entrance to “Paradise,”   the way in to the ultimate connection with our Creator, with a parking lot, a static place of leaving our cars when we aren’t there? Through our Torah portion we proclaim that we are all connected and are continuing to receive Torah, instruction, in constant relationship through the generations.

And yet… do we really listen to this or do we pave over and block out the message so that when the life-giving rain falls, it runs off and is lost?

Every time we say a blessing to do a mitzvah, such as studying Torah, we are connecting with holiness. That is how I translate the blessing formula: Baruch Ata Adonai, Eloheynu Melech Ha-olam, asher kidishanu b’mitzvotav, v’tzivanu…. And then whatever follows, lighting candles, studying Torah, etc…

“Holy One of Blessing, Your presence fills creation; you have given us the opportunity to connect with holiness through the mitzvah of….”

This past Sunday in our religious school, Diane Schoen, School Director and teacher, was telling the students the story of the prophet Jonah (which we will hear this afternoon, with commentary by Karyl Goldsmith).  The older children offered their idea of what a prophet is…

One who has sacred visions, and tells the rest of the people what God’s message for them is; who points out what the results will be if they continue to live their lives the way they are going now.

One of the younger children (Lola, Gail’s granddaughter) turned to me and asked, “Rabbi, are YOU a prophet?”

Well, that took me aback for a moment… and I replied, “I think part of my job is to be like a prophet.”

Out of the mouths of babes.

But Moses said, “Would that all my people were prophets!”  Let’s all open our minds and hearts to the messages this day and not pave them over.  Be guided by your own Inner Prophet as well as by the prophets of our tradition.

The words we hear today are part of Moses’ song to our people… this is truly “Our song” that we are playing today.

May we be written and sealed in the Book of Life and continue to sing our 'song of connectedness" together.

Connection - Theme for Rabbi's Words on Rosh Hashanah 5775 (2014)

Theme for Rabbi’s Drashot High Holy Days 5775   2014

Rabbi Alicia Magal

Jewish Community of Sedona and the Verde Valley

New Year 5775  September 24-25, 2014

My Words on Connection -   Kesher

           

Overview: CONNECTION with oneself, family, circle of community, Israel, the world, God, Shema Israel.     – knots, loops, knitting, unraveling. Connection with soul.

Erev Rosh Hashanah -  Wednesday night, September 24, 2014

My theme for these High Holy days is Connection – in Hebrew, the word is KESHER, which can also mean something that is tied, or a knot. 

Ilaine Packman loaned me a fascinating book on sailing and showed me a display of different knots used for securing sails, mooring a boat to a dock, and many other uses.  Each kind of knot has a specific purpose, a slip knot needs to allow for movement and adjustment;  a slippery reef knot is good for furling a sail, clove hitch is used to tie a line to a piling, bowline is easy and never slips or jams, sheet bend is an excellent way to tie two lines of different sizes or textures together, etc. …so many types of knots for each type of use.

There are other examples of useful tying-together of strings, ropes, fibers, or wool. This year for the very first time I am learning to knit.  Many of you know that our daughter Tali is pregnant.  I suddenly felt so connected to her in a new way, to the continuity of generations. 

I wanted to knit a blanket.. Actually I need to knit TWO blankets. 

What is knitting?  It is connecting one kind of loop to another small piece of wool; over and over and over again.  One loop connecting to another until you can see a whole piece of fabric emerge.  

Rabbi Alicia knitting a baby blanket

Yona showed me how to knit the way my mother did, the European way… a connection with my mother… with how I remember her knitting when I was a child.  Since I am a beginner, I made mistakes. Lisa showed me how to fix a small mistake like losing a few stitches, and Denise showed me that I had made a large error: I had put down the knitting, and when I picked it up again I went in the wrong direction; I didn’t see the signs and kept going for 7 or 8 more rows.  She told me that I would have to rip out all those rows and do them over.  But I really learned from that.

Despite the global instant connections you make through the internet, really most interactions and connections are like those knitted loops, one tiny word, one short call, one brief visit after another, until there is the whole fabric, a useful blanket, sweater, hat, or gift…the whole history of  a relationship.

This is like Teshuvah.  We can make a small mistake or let slip a word that can be repaired if we catch it quickly and make amends.  But sometimes we take a completely wrong direction and don’t realize it… and then it is a much bigger deal to repair. We might have to spend more time, effort, concentration, focus, and tears to dig out, rip out, talk out, the damage, and it can take some time and effort to build up again those rows, that friendship, that trust again.

We have come to services tonight, and if possible for the whole arc of the High Holy days from Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur, and then Sukkot afterwards as well.  At each one of these services, a particular prayer may suddenly take on new meaning and bring to light a teaching, a healing that you need right then. 

Maybe after saying “Ashamnu, Bagadnu… We have sinned, we have betrayed…” you may suddenly have the awareness that you dropped a few “stitches” or perhaps that you made a whole wrong direction and need to rip out several rows.  After hearing Avinu Malkeinu, Our Parent, our Ruler, you may feel that you wish to reconnect with God, or however you imagine your Highest Guidance.  After hearing the blasts of the shofar, you may feel your emotions stirred and reconnected with your essential soul.  And then you will feel strong, empowered, humble enough to make a tough call or make an apology that will bring you back to the state of wholeness, of shalom, of peace, so you can continue in a good and positive direction. Hopefully you will find it in your heart to offer forgiveness to those who have hurt you, so you do not have to carry the burden of that hurt and anger any longer.

These prayers shouldn’t stay on the printed page, or even in this Sanctuary. They are meant to penetrate our hearts and minds and remain with us when we leave.

If your knots are made correctly, your boat will stay safely moored when needed, and when you are ready, the sails will unfurl when the wind is right, and you will sail forward smoothly and safely.

Check your knots, check your stitches.  Do you have the right ones for the right job?  Do you need help in recognizing where the knots might be getting loose, or the stitches are not adding up to a straight row?

During Elul and right now during these Days of Awe, we each have the opportunity to check all those areas of connections.  The prayers offer a technology of connection –

How are we connecting with our own soul?  How are we connecting with our family and friends and co-workers? How are we connecting with the wider circle of Jews in the world, with Israel, and with humanity?  How are we connecting with nature and the environment?  How are we connecting with God, the Giver of life?

Through these days, I invite you to consider the prayers, the blessings, the songs, the opening of the Ark, the reading from the Torah, the bibliodrama making the prophetic words of Jeremiah on Day Two of Rosh Hashanah come alive…. All of these point the way to connect more closely, more fully, with the relationships that make up our lives.

RH DAY ONE September 25, 3014

 Connection with mishpacha, sometimes chosen, like congregation. Inevitable friction. Repairs, digging out the reason why the tiles were settling next to the building.  THEN placing tiles over the space. smoothing over. Rebirth.

My theme for these High Holy Days is KESHER – Connection. There are so many ways we are tied, linked, connected. This morning, when we read about the very beginning of creation, and the earliest families, I want to focus on our connections with family and close friends.  

       Last night I shared how I have been learning to knit, and because I started in the middle of a row to knit in the wrong direction, I had to rip out many rows.  Sometimes, as we add stitch upon stitch, row upon row of connections we make mistakes, or other people do, and the result has holes, uneven rows, or remains unfinished.

I have heard many stories of people who just felt they didn’t belong in the family into which they were born, and rather than continue the pain of disconnect with their birth family, chose friends to be their family.  That is one of the joys of membership in synagogue: connections with a larger Mishpacha, family.  From elders, to young people, partnered, and single, young children … we have here a beautiful connection that can fill those missing parts.  I never had grandparents, so I adopted other people’s grandparents. 

Those of us who are far from our family members can turn for socialization and celebration and help to other members.  We say as a whole community, Ashamnu, Bagadnu… not to hide, but to take responsibility for our own shortcomings in a safe embrace of community.  We hear “Who shall live, and who shall die…”  and we feel connected to all those who are ill and in need of a visit, or support, or hope through the life stages we are all going through.  We realize the preciousness of each moment of connection since, indeed, who knows when someone we just saw will not be there tomorrow?  The last words we always say should be loving and positive.

Our connections with others might be brief or of long standing, casual or intense, a thin thread or a solid heavy rope, but all those moments of contact have meaning and an impact.  Here, now, in the month of Tishrei, the beginning of the year, is where we gain strength to say what is in our hearts.  If you move around the Hebrew letters of Tishrei, you get Reishit, ‘beginning”, and that word comes from the root Rosh, Head, just as in Rosh Hashanah, the head of the year. This month, the head of the year, is like the Rosh, head of the body, that controls the functions, senses, and movement of the body.  So, our behavior every day throughout this month of Tishrei affects our lives during the days of the following year.

During the High Holy Days, the Gates of Repentance are Open, and it is a perfect time to review and consider our connection with our family and friends over the past year, to write in our Book of Living Fully that I have printed out, what we have achieved, where we have fallen short, and how we hope to strengthen those vital connections in the coming year. (Show “Book of Life,” and encourage them to fill theirs out. Show how I broke the seal and opened mine from last year, and filled out a new one for 5775).

This is the Birthday of humanity in the world.  It is a time for each of us to “rebirth” ourselves, to wake up those places in us that have become asleep, deadened, unaware.  The blasts of the shofar literally are a wake-up call, an alarm, a sobbing, and finally, a note of wholeness and repair.  A connection of sound between us and each other; between us and God. 

I wish you a sweet, healthy, and transforming New Year. May the sweetness of our honey and apples and round challah give us reserve strength to overcome challenges, and keep reconnecting.

Peace Gathering 9/11 at Hillside, Sedona, AZ

Rabbi Magal and Saeed Aslam at peace gathering for 9/11
Shalom, Salaam

On 9.11.14 people of many faiths gathered at the local Sedona Hillside patio for a ceremony of prayer and contemplation.  Among the speakers and presenters:
I (Rabbi Magal) sang a Hebrew song: Heveinu Shalom Aleichem - We have brought peace to you; a Sufi brought forth the strong teaching that we are all one, connected; Kenton Knepper stirred the vibrations of calm sound with his crystal bowls; and Saeed Aslam of Axion (www.axiomnow.org) offered a prayer culled from several holy books:

"I beseech you, one and all, to add your prayers to mine to the end that war and bloodshed cease, and that love, friendship, peace and unity reign in the world, because he who prays for his neighbor will be heard for himself.  So the great secret o f true success, of true happiness, is this: the man or woman who asks for no return, the perfectly unselfish person, is the most successful.  So, forgive the one who does you wrong, and should even one's enemy arrive at the doorstep, he should be attended upon with respect.  A tree does not withdraw its cooling shade even from the one who has come to cut it.  Remember that the Giver of Peace is eternally blissful and only through selfless service, eternal peace is obtained.

You want to be brave? Brave is he, who possessing strength displays it not, and lives in humble ways; the one who loves his fellow man when he least deserves it, because that is when he really needs it.  Remember that within every soul is a thirst for happiness and meaning.

Remember, God is a stranger to no one and no one is a stranger to God.  Indeed God is a friend to all, so if you want to please God, then do not judge between people when you are angry.  Do not be wise in words.... be wise in deeds, and leave this world that you are borrowing from your children a better place for them." 

Kenton Knepper of BowlSoundsinfo@bowlsounds.com

Rabbi's thoughts on High Holy Days and a Blessing

High Holy Days

We are entering the period of the High Holy days.  The dates are probably already on your calendar:  Wednesday, September 24^th is Erev Rosh Hashanah, Thursday and Friday, September 25 and 26, are the first and second days of the Jewish New year;  Friday evening, October 3^rd is Erev Yom Kippur, and Shabbat, October 4^th  is the Day of Atonement.

Have you ever asked why they are most often not called Holidays, but rather bring our attention to the root of that contracted word, and written as Holy Days?  And why are they called “High?”

Passover in the spring is also very holy, and certainly has elements of causing us to feel elevated, stirred, rising through the centuries of our history, approaching the path to Mt. Sinai on Shavuot.  We have so many festivals that bring us UP, that give us all an opportunity to connect with community, to relate personally to our people’s history, to renew our covenant of faith and ethics.  So why is it that in English these days have come to be given that description, that title, of High Holy Days?

Well, let’s go back to the original Hebrew names for the Jewish New Year and the Day of Atonement:

Rosh Hashanah - the Jewish New Year -  is called in the Torah Yom Teruah, the Day of sounding the shofar, a sign of judgment, the day on which it is said we are written in the Book of Life for the coming year.  It marks the beginning of the Ten Days of Awe, of prayer, self-examination, repentance, and forgiveness, culminating on Yom Kippur – the Day of Atonement - a day of fasting on which we are hopefully sealed into the Book of Life, and start again, purified, cleansed, reborn to the gift of another year of life. 

If those two days are the primary focus of what we call the High Holy Days, then we need to zoom out to a wider view of this season, as it actually begins at least a month earlier, in the Hebrew month of Elul, during which we are encouraged to reach out to family and friends and ask for forgiveness for offenses we might have committed, even unknowingly.  If we are asked sincerely, we are also supposed to forgive others (We will have a much more detailed discussion of this process of forgiveness at the Elul Workshop on Sunday, September 7 at 2 p.m.).    On the Shabbat before Rosh Hashanah, we observe Selichot, a service containing the melodies and some of the prayers of repentance to get us into the mind-set of the upcoming holy days. The Torah mantles are changed to white ones to symbolize for us a return from sin to purity.  By the time we reach Yom Kippur, we have done the work as much as possible regarding person-to-person relations, and so are ready to ask for forgiveness from God for our own failings when we “missed the mark” of fulfilling our soul’s purpose (Chet, the Hebrew word for one kind of “sin”  is an archery term and denotes missing the mark for which we have been aiming).

Let’s zoom out even farther for an even more expansive view of this season of the High Holy Days.  Four days after we break the fast at the end of Yom Kippur, we enter into the harvest festival of Sukkot, the time of inner transformation likened to a caterpillar transforming into a butterfly during its enclosed period in a chrysalis.    This joyous festival, at the conclusion of the autumn harvest of the year in Ancient Israel, was called He-chag, The Holiday, as it had such vital importance for an agricultural society.  Even though we live in modern times, and many Jews live in an urban environment, we still give thanks for our “harvest” to the Source of our bounty.  The American holiday of Thanksgiving was based on Sukkot!  For seven days (or eight days outside the Land of Israel) we enter into a small decorated hut with a leaf-covered roof through which the stars can be seen, we eat and “dwell” there as much as possible, and integrate the inner work we have achieved during the previous weeks of prayer and renewal.

When we emerge, we are ready to fly as our best selves, rededicating ourselves to our highest goals, and committing ourselves to doing mitzvoth, both in our personal lives, and as good work in our community.  Then… and we are not done yet!... comes Simchat Torah, the “Joy of Torah,” when we conclude our reading of the Five Books of Moses, and roll the scroll of the Torah back to Bereishit, Genesis, and begin our reading and study all over again, a portion a week for the entire yearly cycle.

These two months of Elul and Tishrei are filled with layers of meaning – the yearly cycle of nature, the intensity of repairing relations, reliving the lessons of Jewish history, and reconnecting with the Creator, the Holy One, the unnamable Essence of All Life.

If you would like to follow a day-by-day source on instruction and meditation, I suggest “60 Days: A Spiritual Guide to the High Holidays [sic]”  by Simon Jacobson. You will be immersed in the sensations and personal journey throughout the series of holidays that comprise our High Holy Days.

I invite you to expand your participation this year, so that these transformational days truly are for you “high” and “holy.”

Blessing for the month of Elul  5774

(August 27 – September 24, 2014)

May you  seek and offer  forgiveness during this time of preparation for the High Holy Days, and may this season be both solemn and joyous as we are stirred by the call of the shofar  to raise up the level of our soulwork during our lifetime, that precious gift.  May you be written and sealed in the Book of Living Fully, and be you be blessed with a sweet New Year.

-         Amen.