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 3rd
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.
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