“May Israel Be,” Rabbi Zecher’s Shabbat Awakenings
September 29, 2023 | 14 Tishrei 5784
Welcome to Shabbat Awakening as we make our way to Shabbat and the holiday of Sukkot. I share with you here my sermon from Yom Kippur morning. Shabbat Shalom, Shanah Tovah and Hag Sameach!You can listen to it as a podcast here.
5784 Yom Kippur
On Yom Kippur Day in 1973, I was in my synagogue near Pittsburgh when I heard the news that Egypt and Syria had attacked Israel. I had watched my dad, who always stood in the back as a permanent usher, approach the bima and whisper something into the rabbi’s ear. The rabbi then turned to the congregation and told us the shocking news. I next saw my dad who was involved with running the Jewish newspaper of Pittsburgh on the telephone.
Somehow in my young mind, I thought my dad was on the phone trying to stop the war. I might have had unrealistic expectations of my father’s ability to assist in times of trouble. The war was important news to the greater Jewish community. Nevertheless, the outcome of the war did not depend that day on his or anyone’s actions in Monroeville, Pennsylvania. What mattered was what was going on in Israel and its military ability to defend itself.
On the 50th anniversary of the Yom Kippur war, time and history have revealed lessons we could not have known that day. Unlike the war of 1967 which brought jubilation and triumph tinged with concern about the Palestinian population west of the Jordan river, the Yom Kippur War changed Israel’s self-perception of its might and to the way it stood on the world stage.
Israel had approached the potential threat of Egyptian tanks at the Suez canal with a kind of hubris that ignored the growing danger. The movie, Golda, suggests that at President Nixon’s request they waited rather than attack preemptively. But their own military strategy impeded their initial success and ability to save lives.
The history books cite a lack of humility, of actions they might have taken instead of ignoring the peril at their border. In-fighting among the generals, loss of control and misreading the battlefields deprived them of clarity of vision. Anita Shapira in her book, Israel, a History asserts that their “assessment was a combination of complacency and exaggerated self-confidence, which assumed at least a 48-hour warning even if war did break out, ensuring the time needed to mobilize the reserves.” [i]
Though Israel prevailed despite its lack of preparedness, the Yom Kippur war caused Israel to engage in its own heshbon hanefesh, an accounting of its national soul. Israel prevailed but the war is not counted among her most triumphant or celebratory moments.
The Jewish people are no strangers to the need for heshbon hanefesh, to take an accounting of our own souls. It is fuel for the engine of activity that drives t’shuvah during every Yom Kippur. It is how we rediscover our best, more righteous selves. We are forced — not just encouraged to drive a wedge into our hubris to make room for humility.
Today Israel needs to engage in heshbon hanefesh. When those who lead the government and their supporters sat and stood in their synagogues today, were they able to pierce through their hubris? When they beat their chests in the alphabet of woe of misdeeds and wrongdoings offered, did they recount their own?
When they make such statements as Ben G’vir, the minister of National Security, did when he asserted on National television that for “him and his family, the right to move around freely on the roads of Judea and Samaria is more important than the right of movement of Arabs” did he feel any remorse for inflaming and inciting violence?”
When they proclaim all problems are a result of progressive Reform Jews as did Israel Eichler, Knesset Member of the majority and a Haredi leader, when he asserted that “Today’s anarchy is organized by the Reform assimilators. Much like the Arab Revolt, this is not a national or class struggle. Rather it is a war between a culture of evil and the existence of a Jewish state.”After uttering those inflammatory words did he beat his chest in sorrow?
When a group of this government’s followers blocked a woman from boarding a train, willfully ignoring the law that prevents gender-based discrimination in seating on public transportation, did they examine their own misdeeds of bias and exclusion?
It takes my breath away in disgust.
However, as distressed and roiled as we may be, these actions don’t mean the end of this very challenged era of Israeli existence. They do mean that the threat of a spiritual destruction looms large, as the writer and philosopher Yuval Noah Harari named it in an op ed piece in Israel’s newspaper, Haaretz.[ii] The inner life and existence of the nation may implode.
You can hear my grievances with the current government with the rise of zealotry in its leadership. Yet, I admit the larger picture points a finger at all members of the government and demands that all parties assess their accountability and consider the role of inflexibility and lack of compromise. The historical circumstances from the birth of the state to the 1970s to today show actions from all sides that have contributed to this moment. Hubris is never applicable to only one group.
As we dig deeper and articulate more of the issues and what is at stake, I want to be clear. This moment is a time for us to lean in and not pull away. We need to understand the situation because unlike the previous Jewish commonwealths over 2000 years ago, the Jewish diaspora exists in a way that would have been impossible in ancient times. We still have a voice.
The message today is to stay engaged. Learn more. We are responsible for one another through our resources and our articulated concerns.
This idea that we are responsible for each other may have seemed remote to ancient Jewish communities especially around the time of the second Temple and its impending devastation.
Here is a story based on pieces of information we know from Josephus, a historian [iii] who lived during and wrote about the destruction of the Second Temple and the people involved.
Imagine the commanders of the Roman armies besieging Jerusalem, frustrated that the great walls surrounding the fortress city were difficult to infiltrate. With the Jewish people inside protected from attacks from the outside, the various Jewish factions turned on each other. Josephus described the scene of the zealots at war with the moderates and the high priests and aristocracy set on defending and holding on to their power. Food became scarce and the zealots, in their desperation, made matters worse, by burning up this precious resource.
What might the commanders of the Roman armies have said to each other? Perhaps, some knew that their great strength of force could decimate the Temple and all those in their path. Why should they wait? They could easily move in and wreak havoc and destruction wiping out the Jewish people once and for all. Brute force and powerful weaponry would guarantee success.
Others however, because they were familiar with the way that the Jewish community operated may have taken a different view. I imagine one of the commanders saying to the others:
“Why should we destroy them when they will cause their own demise by being so entrenched in their own perspectives and plans that they negate and undermine people from their own community? The Zealots, the high priests, the aristocrats, even the so called learned ones do not perceive the problem caused by their distrust of each other. If we do nothing, but sit and wait it out, they will be gone by their own hand.”
Were these words ever spoken? We will never know. But we know how the events unfolded. The Roman commanders were correct. The rabbis of the Talmud called it Sinat Hinam, hatred without cause. People were more willing to live out their hate and scorn rather than find a common cause in the face of those terrible challenges. It weakened the community and allowed the Romans to destroy it all.
We also know that the famous rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai escaped by feigning his own death and leaving the walls of Jerusalem in a coffin carried by his followers. Some say he sought to confuse the Romans, but others say he fled from the Jewish factions within the walls. Why else would he get far enough away to approach the Caesar who could very well have communicated Ben Zakkai’s method of departure back to Jerusalem? Yohanan ben Zakkai was very clear with his request. “Give ME Yavneh” and he was granted it. There he built up a community where it was believed that rabbinic Judaism was born.
But there is more to the story, as there always is. Some rabbis didn’t go to Yavneh; they went North to the Galilee to a place called Usha, and created a particular kind of culture where rabbinic Judaism grew stronger, where diverse opinions and perspectives flourished. Instead of discord they created harmony appreciating what they could learn from one another.[iv]
An Israeli society that is open to pluralistic, diverse, and righteous ideas has sustained our people through the generations. And yet today, the situation with the present government seems like a contorted conundrum backed into a corner.
I’m not prepared to give up hope for the strength, stability, and the recovery of Israel’s moral and political compass. It is what we do as a people. We can be angry, disagree, even disgusted but to toss it all away at this moment in time means to give up hope.
In the national anthem called The Hope, Hatikvah,
there is one particular line that inspires me to believe in the future of Israel.
Hatikvah bat sh’not elpayim. התקוה בת שנות אלפיים
It can be translated as Hope is the child of thousands of years of longing.
The generations before us suffered under pogroms, holocausts, hate, and discrimination. The ones before us did not give up and neither should we, even when the biggest challenges are caused by internal strife and disagreement.
When the rabbis cited in the Mishnah died, the Talmud details that wisdom and deep understanding of the Torah disappeared with them.[v] But then the worst happened. When Judah Hanasi, the one who had written down the Mishnah, died, humility and fear of sin ceased as well.
In ancient history and in our own time, we have witnessed the rise of hubris and wrongdoing without the fear of consequence. Sound familiar? But the Talmud does not end there and neither does our story today. The rabbis who came after those spoken of in the Mishnah countered that there remained those who could right the wrong. Rav Yosef said: Do not teach that humility ceased, for there is still one who is humble, namely me. Rav Naḥman similarly said… Do not teach that fear of sin ceased, for there is still one who fears sin, namely me.
In Israel today, there are those still there working tirelessly for the hope, strength, and possibility we yearn for from thousands of years of longing from the past into the future.
My experience over the past four years at the Hartman Institute demonstrated the results of diverse colleagues learning and studying together. We were drawn from many denominations but, it wasn’t just our group. Hartman works with scholars across communities of Israeli Jews and Arabs, between Palestinians throughout the land in their Shared Society initiative and throughout the Institute[vi] to build a new kind of liberal Zionism, an antidote to religious Zionism that has squeezed out and seeks to eliminate human rights for vulnerable and diverse people living throughout the region.
I believe in the growing community of progressive and Reform congregations in Israel[vii] to experience Judaism in ways that are vital, inclusive, and celebratory of a Judaism that is real and authentic. It is complemented by the Israel Religious Action Center[viii] who has been the leading advocate to ensure the reasonable protection of human rights. Israel no longer needs to characterize Jewish practice as either traditional or secular.
AND the Arava Institute[ix] located in the desert not far from Eilat has a special place in my heart for it bridges environmental efforts by bringing together American and Israeli Jews, Arabs, Palestinians, and Jordanians to seek solutions together to protect the earth.
And keep your eye on the thousands of protesters who tirelessly march and speak up to secure a better Israel that promotes righteousness and justice. For every person who may have voted for this government, there is another person who believes Israel must change for the better.
These are all the tip of the iceberg of productive, positive, and hope producing actions happening in Israel right now.
Israel’s government may be at a low point, but we cannot turn away; our attention matters.
Fifty years ago on this day in the Jewish calendar, the world watched the potential demise of the state of Israel. In all of its imperfection like every other nation of the world including our own, has its defects, Israel rose despite and because of a tenacious will to live in the light and not the darkness.
Today, we watch and engage with heavy hearts filled with the potential of despair and also hope that there are those still here armed with humility and the ability to engage in a righteous struggle to ensure the perpetuation of the nation of Israel.
As we enter this year, we pray the coming year will be different:
Humility over hubris
Listening over blaming
Humanity over hegemony
Discourse over discord
The future of our people depends on it.
May it be so
Lu Yehi
We make a transition to the rest of our service with these words written 50 years ago by Naomi Shemer during the Yom Kippur War. First the translation, then the song.
What is the sound that I hear
The cry of the shofar and the sound of drums
All that we ask for — may it be soIf only there can be heard within all this
One prayer from my lips also
All that we seek — may it be soThen grant tranquility and also grant strength
To all those we love
All that we seek, may it be soMay it be…
May Israel be written and sealed in the book of life.
Shanah tovah.
[i] pg.329
[iii] author of The Jewish War
[iv] Based on this midrash: “At the end of the persecution our rabbis entered a place called Usha, and these were they: Rabbi Yehuda and Rabbi Nehemia, Rabbi Meir, and Rabbi Yossi, and Rabbi Shimon ben Yochai, and Rabbi Eliezer, sons of Yossi HaGalili, and Rabbi Eliezer ben Yaakov. They sent to the house of the Elders of the Galilee and said, “All who have already studied, let them come and study, and all who have not yet studied, let them come and study.” They entered and learned and met all their needs (Song of Songs Rabbah 2:5:3) detailed in the Hartman Journal, “Sources” Spring 2021, in the article, What Happened to Jewish Pluralism?, by Yehuda Kertzer
[v] Sotah 49b
[vi] https://www.hartman.org.il/envisioning-shared-society-transcript/
[vii] https://reform.org.il/en/about/who-we-are/
[viii] https://www.irac.org/our-work
[ix] https://arava.org/about-our-community/about-arava/
I continue to value the many comments you exchange with me through these Shabbat Awakenings. Share with me what you thinkhere.Your email goes directly to me!
- Erev Sukkot & Qabbalat Shabbat: Sukkah of Justice & Compassion.Gather with us onsite INDOORSor online.
5:30 p.m.Schmooze and Nosh for All Ages (onsite)
6:00 p.m.Rejoice in the Sukkah of Justice and Compassion (in mixed presence, onsite andviaZoom,Facebook Live, orlivestream)
7:30 p.m.Celebrate with a festival meal (onsite) - Sukkot Festival Service and Torah Study gathersonsite oronlineat 9:00 a.m.
- Sukkot Celebration for Families with Young Children (onsite) gathers at 9:30 a.m.Register here.
- Gather online to say goodbye toShabbatwith a lay-led Havdalah onZoomat 8:00 p.m.
September 29, 2023 | 14 Tishrei 5784
Welcome to Shabbat Awakening as we make our way to Shabbat and the holiday of Sukkot. I share with you here my sermon from Yom Kippur morning. Shabbat Shalom, Shanah Tovah and Hag Sameah!You canlisten to it as a podcast here.
5784 Yom Kippur
On Yom Kippur Day in 1973, I was in my synagogue near Pittsburgh when I heard the news that Egypt and Syria had attacked Israel. I had watched my dad, who always stood in the back as a permanent usher, approach the bima and whisper something into the rabbi’s ear. The rabbi then turned to the congregation and told us the shocking news. I next saw my dad who was involved with running the Jewish newspaper of Pittsburgh on the telephone.
Somehow in my young mind, I thought my dad was on the phone trying to stop the war. I might have had unrealistic expectations of my father’s ability to assist in times of trouble. The war was important news to the greater Jewish community. Nevertheless, the outcome of the war did not depend that day on his or anyone’s actions in Monroeville, Pennsylvania. What mattered was what was going on in Israel and its military ability to defend itself.
On the 50th anniversary of the Yom Kippur war, time and history have revealed lessons we could not have known that day. Unlike the war of 1967 which brought jubilation and triumph tinged with concern about the Palestinian population west of the Jordan river, the Yom Kippur War changed Israel’s self-perception of its might and to the way it stood on the world stage.
Israel had approached the potential threat of Egyptian tanks at the Suez canal with a kind of hubris that ignored the growing danger. The movie, Golda, suggests that at President Nixon’s request they waited rather than attack preemptively. But their own military strategy impeded their initial success and ability to save lives.
The history books cite a lack of humility, of actions they might have taken instead of ignoring the peril at their border. In-fighting among the generals, loss of control and misreading the battlefields deprived them of clarity of vision. Anita Shapira in her book, Israel, a History asserts that their “assessment was a combination of complacency and exaggerated self-confidence, which assumed at least a 48-hour warning even if war did break out, ensuring the time needed to mobilize the reserves.” [i]
Though Israel prevailed despite its lack of preparedness, the Yom Kippur war caused Israel to engage in its own heshbon hanefesh, an accounting of its national soul. Israel prevailed but the war is not counted among her most triumphant or celebratory moments.
The Jewish people are no strangers to the need for heshbon hanefesh, to take an accounting of our own souls. It is fuel for the engine of activity that drives T’shuvah during every Yom Kippur. It is how we rediscover our best, more righteous selves. We are forced —not just encouraged to drive a wedge into our hubris to make room for humility.
Today Israel needs to engage in heshbon hanefesh. When those who lead the government and their supporters sat and stood in their synagogues today, were they able to pierce through their hubris? When they beat their chests in the alphabet of woe of misdeeds and wrongdoings offered, did they recount their own?
When they make such statements as Ben G’vir, the minister of National Security, did when he asserted on National television that for “him and his family, the right to move around freely on the roads of Judea and Samaria is more important than the right of movement of Arabs” did he feel any remorse for inflaming and inciting violence?”
When they proclaim all problems are a result of progressive Reform Jews as did Israel Eichler, Knesset Member of the majority and a Haredi leader, when he asserted that “Today’s anarchy is organized by the Reform assimilators. Much like the Arab Revolt, this is not a national or class struggle. Rather it is a war between a culture of evil and the existence of a Jewish state.”After uttering those inflammatory words did he beat his chest in sorrow?
When a group of this government’s followers blocked a woman from boarding a train, willfully ignoring the law that prevents gender-based discrimination in seating on public transportation, did they examine their own misdeeds of bias and exclusion?
It takes my breath away in disgust.
However, as distressed and roiled as we may be, these actions don’t mean the end of this very challenged era of Israeli existence. They do mean that the threat of a spiritual destruction looms large, as the writer and philosopher Yuval Noah Harari named it in an op ed piece in Israel’s newspaper, Haaretz.[ii] The inner life and existence of the nation may implode.
You can hear my grievances with the current government with the rise of zealotry in its leadership. Yet, I admit the larger picture points a finger at all members of the government and demands that all parties assess their accountability and consider the role of inflexibility and lack of compromise. The historical circumstances from the birth of the state to the 1970s to today show actions from all sides that have contributed to this moment. Hubris is never applicable to only one group.
As we dig deeper and articulate more of the issues and what is at stake, I want to be clear. This moment is a time for us to lean in and not pull away. We need to understand the situation because unlike the previous Jewish commonwealths over 2000 years ago, the Jewish diaspora exists in a way that would have been impossible in ancient times. We still have a voice.
The message today is to stay engaged. Learn more. We are responsible for one another through our resources and our articulated concerns.
This idea that we are responsible for each other may have seemed remote to ancient Jewish communities especially around the time of the second Temple and its impending devastation.
Here is a story based on pieces of information we know from Josephus, a historian [iii] who lived during and wrote about the destruction of the Second Temple and the people involved.
Imagine the commanders of the Roman armies besieging Jerusalem, frustrated that the great walls surrounding the fortress city were difficult to infiltrate. With the Jewish people inside protected from attacks from the outside, the various Jewish factions turned on each other. Josephus described the scene of the zealots at war with the moderates and the high priests and aristocracy set on defending and holding on to their power. Food became scarce and the zealots, in their desperation, made matters worse, by burning up this precious resource.
What might the commanders of the Roman armies have said to each other? Perhaps, some knew that their great strength of force could decimate the Temple and all those in their path. Why should they wait? They could easily move in and wreak havoc and destruction wiping out the Jewish people once and for all. Brute force and powerful weaponry would guarantee success.
Others however, because they were familiar with the way that the Jewish community operated may have taken a different view. I imagine one of the commanders saying to the others:
“Why should we destroy them when they will cause their own demise by being so entrenched in their own perspectives and plans that they negate and undermine people from their own community? The Zealots, the high priests, the aristocrats, even the so called learned ones do not perceive the problem caused by their distrust of each other. If we do nothing, but sit and wait it out, they will be gone by their own hand.”
Were these words ever spoken? We will never know. But we know how the events unfolded. The Roman commanders were correct. The rabbis of the Talmud called it Sinat Hinam, hatred without cause. People were more willing to live out their hate and scorn rather than find a common cause in the face of those terrible challenges. It weakened the community and allowed the Romans to destroy it all.
We also know that the famous rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai escaped by feigning his own death and leaving the walls of Jerusalem in a coffin carried by his followers. Some say he sought to confuse the Romans, but others say he fled from the Jewish factions within the walls. Why else would he get far enough away to approach the Caesar who could very well have communicated Ben Zakkai’s method of departure back to Jerusalem? Yohanan ben Zakkai was very clear with his request. “Give ME Yavneh” and he was granted it. There he built up a community where it was believed that rabbinic Judaism was born.
But there is more to the story, as there always is. Some rabbis didn’t go to Yavneh, they went North to the Galilee to a place called Usha, and created a particular kind of culture where rabbinic Judaism grew stronger, where diverse opinions and perspectives flourished. Instead of discord they created harmony appreciating what they could learn from one another.[iv]
An Israeli society that is open to pluralistic, diverse, and righteous ideas has sustained our people through the generations. And yet today, the situation with the present government seems like a contorted conundrum backed into a corner.
I’m not prepared to give up hope for the strength, stability, and the recovery of Israel’s moral and political compass. It is what we do as a people. We can be angry, disagree, even disgusted but to toss it all away at this moment in time means to give up hope.
In the national anthem called The Hope, Hatikvah,
there is one particular line that inspires me to believe in the future of Israel.
Hatikvah bat sh’not elpayim. התקוה בת שנות אלפיים
It can be translated as Hope is the child of thousands of years of longing.
The generations before us suffered under pogroms, holocausts, hate, and discrimination. The ones before us did not give up and neither should we, even when the biggest challenges are caused by internal strife and disagreement.
When the rabbis cited in the Mishnah died, the Talmud details that wisdom and deep understanding of the Torah disappeared with them.[v] But then the worst happened. When Judah Hanasi, the one who had written down the Mishnah, died, humility and fear of sin ceased as well.
In ancient history and in our own time, we have witnessed the rise of hubris and wrongdoing without the fear of consequence. Sound familiar? But the Talmud does not end there and neither does our story today. The rabbis who came after those spoken of in the Mishnah countered that there remained those who could right the wrong. Rav Yosef said: Do not teach that humility ceased, for there is still one who is humble, namely me. Rav Naḥman similarly said… Do not teach that fear of sin ceased, for there is still one who fears sin, namely me.
In Israel today, there are those still there working tirelessly for the hope, strength, and possibility we yearn for from thousands of years of longing from the past into the future.
My experience over the past four years at the Hartman Institute demonstrated the results of diverse colleagues learning and studying together. We were drawn from many denominations but, it wasn’t just our group. Hartman works with scholars across communities of Israeli Jews and Arabs, between Palestinians throughout the land in their Shared Society initiative and throughout the Institute[vi] to build a new kind of liberal Zionism, an antidote to religious Zionism that has squeezed out and seeks to eliminate human rights for vulnerable and diverse people living throughout the region.
I believe in the growing community of progressive and Reform congregations in Israel[vii] to experience Judaism in ways that are vital, inclusive, and celebratory of a Judaism that is real and authentic. It is complemented by the Israel Religious Action Center[viii] who has been the leading advocate to ensure the reasonable protection of human rights. Israel no longer needs to characterize Jewish practice as either traditional or secular.
AND the Arava Institute[ix] located in the desert not far from Eilat has a special place in my heart for it bridges environmental efforts by bringing together American and Israeli Jews, Arabs, Palestinians, and Jordanians to seek solutions together to protect the earth.
And keep your eye on the thousands of protesters who tirelessly march and speak up to secure a better Israel that promotes righteousness and justice. For every person who may have voted for this government, there is another person who believes Israel must change for the better.
These are all the tip of the iceberg of productive, positive, and hope producing actions happening in Israel right now.
Israel’s government may be at a low point, but we cannot turn away, our attention matters.
Fifty years ago on this day in the Jewish calendar, the world watched the potential demise of the state of Israel. In all of its imperfection like every other nation of the world including our own, has its defects, Israel rose despite and because of a tenacious will to live in the light and not the darkness.
Today, we watch and engage with heavy hearts filled with the potential of despair and also hope that there are those still here armed with humility and the ability to engage in a righteous struggle to ensure the perpetuation of the nation of Israel.
As we enter this year, we pray the coming year will be different:
Humility over hubris
Listening over blaming
Humanity over hegemony
Discourse over discord
The future of our people depends on it.
May it be so
Lu Yehi
We make a transition to the rest of our service with these words written 50 years ago by Naomi Shemer during the Yom Kippur War. First the translation, then the song.
What is the sound that I hear
The cry of the shofar and the sound of drums
All that we ask for — may it be so
If only there can be heard within all this
One prayer from my lips also
All that we seek — may it be so
Then grant tranquility and also grant strength
To all those we love
All that we seek, may it be so
May it be…
May Israel be written and sealed in the book of life.
Shanah tovah.
[i] pg.329
[iii] author of The Jewish War
[iv] Based on this midrash: “At the end of the persecution our rabbis entered a place called Usha, and these were they: Rabbi Yehuda and Rabbi Nehemia, Rabbi Meir, and Rabbi Yossi, and Rabbi Shimon ben Yochai, and Rabbi Eliezer, sons of Yossi HaGalili, and Rabbi Eliezer ben Yaakov. They sent to the house of the Elders of the Galilee and said, “All who have already studied, let them come and study, and all who have not yet studied, let them come and study.” They entered and learned and met all their needs (Song of Songs Rabbah 2:5:3) detailed in the Hartman Journal, “Sources” Spring 2021, in the article, What Happened to Jewish Pluralism?, by Yehuda Kertzer
[v] Sotah 49b
[vi] https://www.hartman.org.il/envisioning-shared-society-transcript/
[vii] https://reform.org.il/en/about/who-we-are/
[viii] https://www.irac.org/our-work
[ix] https://arava.org/about-our-community/about-arava/
I continue to value the many comments you exchange with me through these Shabbat Awakenings. Share with me what you thinkhere.Your email goes directly to me!
- Erev Sukkot & Qabbalat Shabbat: Sukkah of Justice & Compassion.Gather with us onsite INDOORSor online.
5:30 p.m.Schmooze and Nosh for All Ages (onsite)
6:00 p.m.Rejoice in the Sukkah of Justice and Compassion (in mixed presence, onsite andviaZoom,Facebook Live, orlivestream)
7:30 p.m.Celebrate with a festival meal (onsite) - Sukkot Festival Service and Torah Study gathersonsite oronlineat 9:00 a.m.
- Sukkot Celebration for Families with Young Children (onsite) gathers at 9:30 a.m.Register here.
- Gather online to say goodbye toShabbatwith a lay-led Havdalah onZoomat 8:00 p.m.
Rabbi Elaine Zecher