Clergy Blog

Dear Friends,

Hoshaya, the community in which Lori and I live, is located in the Lower Galilee, in a rich and lush part of the country.  Our apartment is small but adequate.  With two months-worth of additions and improvements, new appliances, and redecoration, we are now settled in a place which feels much more like home.  The front of our unit faces south toward the hills of the Galilee, home to ancient olive trees and grazing goats.  In the morning we look to our left as the sun rises filling the view with its radiance.   Each evening, as the sun disappears behind the hills to our right, the coyotes cry out with mournful howls, as if comforting one another as the darkness descends.  We are frequent witnesses to it all, silently sitting, watching, and listening.

With the month of Tishre, and its Holiday-filled days behind us, we take this moment to reflect on the past several weeks, on the beauty that surrounds us and to take stock of the profound changes in our lives created, in great part, by our move to Israel. Beyond the geographic relocation, Lori and I have moved to a new community, which speaks a different language and adheres to different norms.  Many of these changes stood out in bold relief during the High Holidays.   

For 40+ years, as you know, I have served as a pulpit rabbi.  In that position, the High Holidays have been celebrations to enjoy with our congregation, with trepidation and self-doubt never far from the surface.  During the months before the High Holidays, I would use the slow pace of summer to prepare sermons and comments which I would present during our synagogue services.  Writing sermons, for me, was a challenging process which involved study, creative writing, and an annual attempt to uncover in our rabbinic sources the right message and mood to enlighten and inspire us on the precipice of a new year. At the same time, I would repeatedly ask myself:  Which topics will touch those who have come to services?  What guidance could I give to a community of educated and sophisticated members?  What special knowledge do I possess to help others navigate a dangerous, complicated, and violent world? These are some of the questions which would occupy my thinking each summer.  But not this summer.

This summer was a time of pre-occupation with the challenges of moving to a new country, adapting to a new community and, as we had done decades ago, finding our place to live and grow in a new and unfamiliar place.  This year, the High Holidays became significant, not because of my preparations, but because I did not have those preparatory tasks.  Instead, I found myself returning to some of the basic, more personal questions of the Holidays:  Who am I?  Now that I have moved, where am I? What have I done to bring me to this moment?  What shall I do to assure that the year ahead is one of personal growth, learning and joy?  With these questions in mind, I took note of some interesting liturgical differences between the High Holiday services to which I and we have become accustomed, and those conducted here, in one of the many services one might choose to attend.

I viewed the many service options as a smorgasbord from which to choose.  On each day of Rosh HaShana I prayed in different services, one small and intimate, one large and more formal.  On Yom Kippur, I enjoyed a Yeminite Kol Nidre, which included only a few of the “piyyutim” with which I was familiar.  For Mincha, I attended a smaller, Ashkenazi-style service and for Neilah, a traditional Moroccan service.  But no matter the origin of the variations of words, poetry, and tunes, one feature was constant:  singing.  And it was the full-throated, melodious, and joy-filled singing which moved and inspired me the most.

This community is unique, in that it is home to a wide variety of Jews who trace their heritages to different places around the globe.  Services at TBH-BE reflect traditions of the Western and, to some degree Eastern European traditions of Jewish liturgy.  But here, we have a mix of European Jewish traditions, North African traditions and Eastern / Edot HaMizrach traditions carried to Israel by Jews of Iraq, Yemen and other Arab countries of that part of the world.

As the Day of Yom Kippur began to fade in the afternoon, I attended a gathering of a hundred or so members of the community for Mincha.  In that room were Jews in Hasidic garb and boys wearing tee shirts.  There were black hats and baseball caps.  There were Jews with dark complexions and those with red hair.  Old men and young boys.  And all sang together. 

We tend to categorize Jews as Orthodox, Conservative or Reform.  Here, it is not possible to create groups of Jews based on theology, belief, or observance.  Here, the only way to describe Jews is by the service they attend.  But, more importantly, I was struck by the powerful image of Jews, from different liturgical traditions, outlooks, and heritages, who were united and lifted together by song.

One of the additions to High Holiday services of which I noted, were a series of Psalms known as “Shirei HaMa’a lot” literally, Songs of Ascent.  Originally these were the Psalms sung, when the Temple stood in Jerusalem, by pilgrims bringing sacrifices and “ascending” the steps leading to the Temple.  This year, these Psalms became vehicles for a different ascent. This year, the Songs of Ascent were songs helping each of us to ascend, our combined voices lifting us and elevating the experience.

There is no doubt that Lori and I missed our High Holidays at TBH-BE.  We missed our friends and all the familiar faces.  We missed the services we have come to love.  In addition, I missed greeting you after services.  But mostly, I missed the songs we would sing, sometimes with the Cantor, sometimes with the choir.  Yet, the familiar of the past gives way to the new songs of the present.  The “Songs of Ascent” chanted in Hoshaya became songs able to lift and hold us all together.  And, if I could not be held by the warmth and love of our community in Wynnewood, I cannot think of a place I would rather be.

L'Shana Tova and Shalom,

Rabbi Neil Cooper