Rabbi's Corner – September 2023: Approaching the High Holy Days

By Rabbi David Evan Markus

Welcome to the Season of Meaning as we approach Rosh Hashanah 5784. 

​This Rabbi’s Desk column for September is about this year’s High Holy Day journey – my overall philosophy, what to expect, what’ll be similar to past years at Shir Ami, what’ll be different and why.  This column also includes links to two new melodies that we'll use, and a few suggestions for making the most of our journey together.  
​
​From my heart to yours, I send blessings for a 5784 of sweet goodness for each of you and your loved ones, and our beloved Congregation Shir Ami.  Here we go!

A Quick Summary

Many things about the High Holy Days at Shir Ami will be very similar to  last year.  The prayerbook, musical director and vocal quartet, Torah readers, Kol Nidre cellist, Yizkor experience and many tunes will be the same.  The confluence of Erev Rosh Hashanah and Shabbat require some liturgical changes on both Erev Rosh Hashanah and Rosh Hashanah's first morning, and Shir Ami will experiment with a Rosh Hashanah Day 2 to enfold rituals omitted the prior day due to Shabbat.

This year will feature two new tunes (Return Again and an Ahavat Olam setting) that the community is invited to hear in advance.  We'll use them on Selikhot evening (Sept. 9), when we'll co-write part of our Yom Kippur liturgy together.  This year also will make some changes to Unetaneh Tokef and Yom Kippur afternoon to freshen those offerings in close coordination with the community's leadership. 

Because the prayerbook omits many transliterations and translations, this year everything we do will be on user-friendly slides in addition to the prayerbook itself.  This addition also will help bring deeper meaning to what we do together.

Please read below for details, more information and a few invitations and requests from me.

---

Hakarat HaTov - Gratitudes

Before writing anything else, I want to publicly thank the minyan of Shir Ami folks who have been dedicating themselves so beautifully to bringing forward the High Holy Days to come:

• Marie Orsini Rosen and Jackie Marschall, as Shir Ami's co-presidents, for coordinating the whole (and so many individual parts!), and Phil Rosen and Ray Marschall for lending their beloveds to Shir Ami during this especially busy time;
  
  
• Evan and Barbara Salop, for painstakingly walking through all of Shir Ami's past High Holy Day services with me, bit by bit, and answering eleventy questions and counting; and especially to Evan for choreographing community participation opportunities (e.g. reading, aliyot, etc.);
  
  
• Rick Mason and Jenny Lake, for heroics ensuring that services can be heard and seen in not one, not two, but three different locations;
  
  
• Joan and David Green, for taking sweet care of Shir Ami's Sefer Torah to ensure that she's ready for the High Holy Day journey;
  
  
• David Green, Rick Lake and Barbara Salop, for gracing us with their Torah readings again this year.

I'm sure there'll be many, many more thank yous to come.  For now, I invite the community to join me in showering good juju on them and everyone who's been working so hard behind the scenes to make this year magical.

My Overall Philosophy

As hopefully some of you have observed, my basic rabbinic maxim is that it's about meaning.  Only when something is meaningful to us is it most likely to shape us; conversely, what we don't understand is prone to seem off-key, vapid or empty.  And nobody wants that.

So everything we do will be gauged to meaning.  It's why I've been laying groundwork in weekly columns.  (If you missed them or want to revisit them, they're on Shir Ami's blog.)  It's why I'm writing this column.  It'll be my North Star for most everything we do together.

In that spirit, I make a distinction between liturgy and prayer.  In essence, liturgy – what's written in a book – is important for lots of reasons, but it's not prayer.  Liturgy is like a cookbook, but it's not a meal: the meal is prayer.  We can't eat a cookbook, and similarly liturgy itself is at best freeze-dried, if not empty.  It's how we engage with liturgy that matters most to the experience we'll have. 

Below is a poem about the difference between liturgy and prayer. (This is Real participants may recognize it from our mid-August class session.) I commend it to everyone as food for thought and, hopefully, inspiration.

Just as liturgy is important but not the full experience of prayer, so too my role is important but limited.   Clergy can teach, curate, emcee and model, but we can't have anyone's experience for them.  In that spirit, during the High Holy Days I'll be doing a lot of things,  intending to model and hold space for everyone to have a meaningful experience – but I can't do it for you.  I can't have or make you have your experience.  Only you can pray, think, feel and be for your own authentic self – and that's an active rather than passive experience.

So I encourage you to lean in actively, take a few internal risks during this Season of Meaning, and don't be dissuaded if something gets in your way.  Notice what might keep you from leaning in with your whole self, because it may have a lesson to teach.  In the words of poet Jason Schinder, "Whatever gets in the way of the work is the work."  And I'm here to journey with you, wherever the depths and heights might take you during these precious weeks.

The Basic Map of Our Journey

Remember when we used to consult a map before setting off to an unfamiliar destination?  (Okay, some of us never consulted maps and would never ask for directions!)  Because I place meaning in the center, I want to map where we're going before we set off.  Here's a thumbnail sketch of the basic High Holy Days journey:

• Elul is the main portion of our runway of preparedness into the High Holy Days.  Even these words (and others sure to follow about the High Holy Days) are bending our awareness away from the rest of the year's routine: something's coming (ready or not).
  
  
• Selikhot limbers us up as we begin the final Jewish week of the year.  Holiday music keys us to lean deeper into introspection, in preparation for Rosh Hashanah.
  
  
• Erev Rosh Hashanah is mainly a celebration of the new year, especially when it coincides with Shabbat (more on that shortly).
  
  
• Rosh Hashanah pairs celebration and gratitude with individual and collective critique, to make amends and rivet ourselves to the repairs and changes we must make so that we and others can live to our fullest.
  
  
• Kol Nidre is the year's ritual culmination of forgiveness and purification.
  
  
• Yom Kippur (and the rest of Kol Nidre evening) is about making forgiveness and purification real.
  
  
• Sukkot through Simhat Torah is a time for reveling in the joy of emotional and spiritual abundance, rebooting time, and pivoting into the autumn-winter half of the year. 

You can expect our High Holy Day services and experiences to follow this general arc.

Brass Tacks: What's the Same or Similar This Year

This year's services will map very substantially to last year's experiences.  I explicitly took as this year's model what Shir Ami did last year – for maximum familiarity and comfort.  To that end, I watched hours and hours of recordings, connected with congregants, and designed services with full transparency to Shir Ami's leadership. 

In that spirit, expect Shir Ami's prayerbook and amazing musicians including Dr. Andrew Yeargin, the vocal quartet, and Kate Dillingham on cello.  Expect many of last year's tunes.  Expect Shir Ami's Yizkor video commemoration.  Expect ample opportunities for community participation (e.g. readings, aliyot at Torah, etc.).

What's Different This Year

A few things will be different from past years.  In the spirit of making meaning that is my True North, I want to explain the changes and their reasons.  (You'll hear me mention them again during the holidays themselves.)

• Two new "Through Tunes".  I'll be introducing two new tunes that will find expression throughout the holidays.  The first, Return Again, originally was composed by Shlomo Carlebach but was popularized by his daughter and my dear friend, Neshama Carlebach.  The second is an Ahavat Olam setting popularized online by Ben Platt and his brothers, Jonah and Henry.  They're worth a listen, because I'll start using them at Selikhot.  (There also will be two additional tunes that I myself wrote, one of them new for this year's services.)
  
  

• Selikhot.  Selikhot is an internal game changer because of the High Holy Day music and penitential experiences.  Please join us at 8pm on Saturday, September 9, at First Presbyterian Church, for a soulful and musical Selikhot starting with Havdalah.  We'll also be writing some liturgy that our community will use on Yom Kippur, so do please come and participate.
  
  
• Slides and Transliterations.  This year, everything we do will be projected onto a screen in real time, as part of my commitment to "visual tefilah" – using not only music but also visuality to inspire prayer.  Because I've created slides (something we tried together in June), the prayerbook itself might feel optional.  It'll be fully useful for everyone who wants one, but it won't be "necessary."  The slides also will include full transliteration and translations sometimes absent from Shir Ami's prayerbook.
  
  
• Honoring Shabbat.  Because this year Erev Rosh Hashanah falls on Kabbalat Shabbat, the celebratory feel of Erev Rosh Hashanah will be heightened, and we'll add a few liturgies for Shabbat (e.g. Lekha Dodi).  Because Shabbat invites us into joy rather than pleading or struggle, some Rosh Hashanah customs such as sounding shofar and Avinu Malkeinu will be moved to both (1) Erev Rosh Hashanah before candle lighting and (2) a Rosh Hashanah Day 2 that is new to Shir Ami.  Similarly, Tashlikh will be moved from Shabbat (Rosh Hashanah Day 1) to Rosh Hashanah Day 2.
  
  
• The Differences between Rosh Hashanah Days 1 and 2.  As noted, Rosh Hashanah Day 2 will include Avinu Malkeinu, the Shofar service and Tashlikh.  In a way, it'll lean into emotional and spiritual challenge more than Day 1, which will be more celebratory in alignment with Shabbat.  Day 1 will have our musicians, while Day 2 will be just us.  In that spirit, the Akeidah Torah reading of Genesis 22 that Rick Lake offers will be on Day 2 (its customary place), and the Day 1 Torah reading will be from Genesis 21, the ancestral legacy story of Abraham and Sarah, Hagar and Yishmael, which I will chant.  As Day 1 will have Andrew and the quartet, Day 1 have more of Shir Ami's familiar tune set.  Day 2, befitting the somewhat more somber feel, will have a few new cantorial offerings.  Most of all, Day 1 will feel bigger and longer, and Day 2 will feel more intimate and shorter.  Both will be meaningful and hopefully wonderful – but they'll be different.  Do please come and experience both.
  
  
• Aligning Theology.  I've received a bunch of feedback that the theology of Unetaneh Tokef and Yom Kippur's Martyrology, as Shir Ami has experienced them in the past, doesn't fully resonate with what people actually believe.  In that spirit, there will be some adjustments to map more closely to where the community's general sensibilities seem to be – with full support of community leaders and our musicians.  The effect will be that some music will feel emotionally different, the longest readings will be shortened, and new offerings will be added.  The hope is that Yom Kippur afternoon especially will feel refreshed, but without change to the Yizkor part of the day.
  ​
• Kol Nidre.  This year, the renderings of Kol Nidre itself will be offered by professional vocalists Leah Anne and John Myers as well as Kate Dillingham on cello.  I get chills listening to Leah Anne and John, and I hope they'll inspire you as they've inspired me.  (You'll hear a lot of me as well!)
  
  
• The Feel of Yom Kippur afternoon.  As noted above, the leadership and I are focusing substantially on the "feel" of Yom Kippur afternoon.  I can assure that it won't feel the same as last year.  Before the afternoon service, there also will be a class/discussion on the This is Real culmination, preparing for Sukkot, which will include time for personal sharing.  I invite everyone safely able to stay for the day to please plan to do so (whether or not you are taking the This is Real course.)  The afternoon service also will need to stretch somewhat, because Yom Kippur doesn't end until after sunset – which this year is "late" (6:50pm: next year's Yom Kippur sunset will be fully 30 minutes earlier).  In that spirit, the afternoon service of Yom Kippur will enfold extra spacious and quiet times for personal prayer, as well as a refreshed approach to Martyrology and Jonah with less reading and more experience.

A Few Suggestions and Requests

I'll mention these during the holidays themselves, but please note these suggestions and requests to make the most of everyone's time and the magic of this season:

• Please don't wear perfumes or cologne to services.  This request is in honor of all the vocalists (myself included) and anyone with sensitivities.  Thank you for helping make our space as inviting and welcoming to all as possible.
  
  
• Services will start on time.  Given sunset times, services need to start when they're scheduled to begin.  That means intro music will start at 6:25pm before the 6:30pm start of Erev Rosh Hashanah and Kol Nidre, and morning services will start 10:00 a.m. sharp.  Thank you for helping keep us moving forward together.
  
  

• "When is Yizkor"?  As always, the short answer is, "Well, it depends."  Because the Yom Kippur afternoon service needs to stretch, the goal is for Yizkor to begin around 4:00pm on Yom Kippur afternoon, so that Neilah can begin at 5:00pm and we can end "on time."  Folks choosing to leave and return for Yizkor are encouraged to arrive early to avoid missing any part of Yizkor, and to enter as quietly as possible.

 

• Self Care on Yom Kippur.  Fasting on Yom Kippur is an important custom for some, but please put self care first.  Anyone who needs to drink or eat on Yom Kippur is welcome to do so (and, in my book, required to do so).  The only request is to please consume any food and beverages outside the Sanctuary.  Anyone with questions, or who wishes to add meaning to their Yom Kippur food/drink practice whatever it may be, is invited to please be in touch with me.  Similarly, I encourage folks to pace themselves on Yom Kippur: I absolutely encourage folks to use the beautiful RHCC campus for a gentle stroll, to hang out on the outside benches, to lay down, to take secluded time upstairs – or whatever else would best serve body and spirit.  That said, I've found that there can be a tremendous uplift mid-afternoon for those safely able to push through.  Again, please let wisdom and health be your guides, and be in touch with me if I can support your discernment.
  
  
• Wearing white.  I will wear white for all of the holidays.  I invite everyone to consider wearing white particularly on Kol Nidre evening and Yom Kippur.  This custom has deep meaning in Jewish life – whether to remind us of our essential core that includes every color, symbolize ascent above routine time, map to the angelic sphere or, soberingly, remind us of our mortality. (Jews traditionally are buried in simple white shrouds.)  All of these are particularly resonant on Yom Kippur, so I invite everyone to consider wearing white: imagine a whole congregation wearing white!  I also will abstain from wearing leather on Yom Kippur (my shoes will be canvas), and I invite that custom as well.
  
  
• Tallitot.  If you have a tallit (prayer shawl), you may wish to have it for Rosh Hashanah mornings, Kol Nidre and Yom Kippur morning.  Tallitot are not required for anyone at Shir Ami.