A popular High Holy Day reading, entitled "Now is the Time for Turning" (Rabbi Jack Riemer), captures the essence of this Labor Day / Selichot / Back to School / Start-of-the-Program-Year / Holy Days / Autumnal Solstice moment:
"Now is the time for turning. The leaves are beginning to turn from green to red and orange. The birds are beginning to turn, and are heading once more toward the south. The animals are beginning to turn to storing their food for the winter. For leaves, birds, and animals turning comes instinctively. But for us turning does not come so easily …. God, help us to turn — from callousness to sensitivity, from hostility to love, from pettiness to purpose, from envy to contentment, from carelessness to discipline, from fear to faith. Turn us around, O God, and bring us back to You."
September is indeed a time of transition in every way. The natural world’s turning is reflected over and over again in our personal and spiritual lives, and in our civic, scholastic, professional, and religious worlds. Here at Adat Shalom, where September enters as Elul (the month of getting ready to return) and exits as Tishrei (the month of beginning again), the High Holy Days of course dominate our communal experience. But the Yamim Nora’im — Days of Awe — take place in a rich seasonal context, from Elul’s spiritual preparations through Selichot, and continuing on with Sukkot, Chol Hamo’ed (the intermediate days of celebration), Hoshana Rabbah (the 7th day of Sukkot), Shemini Atzeret (the Eighth Day of Assembly), and Simchat Torah.
Moreover, our eyes are as focused on the days before and after The Ten Days of Repentance, as they are on the High Holy Days themselves. A new year of Torah School begins next week, alongside its secular counterparts. A busy season of Adult Education unfolds at the same time, itself just one part of a thriving congregational program shaped by a minyan of committees and scores of volunteer leaders. In the office, it’s the weeks on either side of the High Holy Days that are actually our busiest, since the start of the program year requires a huge amount of planning, coordination, publicity, and preparation. There is much, throughout all of 5765, for us to look forward to.
But first, we have to usher in that new year with spirit. Now, in early September, we busily prepare ourselves for the Days to come. The logistics alone are enormous; a huge thank you to Camilla Day and Ralph Nitkin, and to Diane and Dennis Horn, among others, for shepherding that process with such energy and sensitivity.
Our inner preparations, however, pose the greater challenge. We must step back from the workaday world, and give ourselves the time and space for introspection. We must muster the courage to admit our shortcomings, first to ourselves, and then to others affected by them. “For sins between a person and God, Yom Kippur atones; but for sins between one person and another, Yom Kippur does not atone until the one has [apologized to and] appeased the other” (Mishnah Yoma 8:9).
This is a rich time, though much of that richness is lost when we celebrate only the “top two or three days” in this transitional season. The somber tone of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur melts into the festivities of Hoshana Rabbah and Simchat Torah; we head outside for Sukkot after the inwardness and indoor-ness of the Day of Repentance. Please join us throughout this season, from our S’lichot observance (together with many other communities, at Bnai Tzedek, starting at 9:30 pm on Saturday the 11th), all the way through a rollicking and melodious Simchat Torah celebration on Wednesday 10/6.
I hope that we’ll see you around Adat Shalom in the weeks ahead, at least as much as we’ll see you at Wheaton High School. Shanah Tovah to all!
Fred Scherlinder Dobb
1. Yes, Pete Seeger and the Byrds are quoting chapter 3 of Qohelet — a.k.a. Ecclesiastes — whose scroll is traditionally read during Sukkot.