. . . the reminder and lesson of the High Holy Days is, "We are not prepared for our lives." We have failed, time and time again. This in itself is not an encouraging or uplifting notion, but Lew points out that it is the beginning, not the conclusion, of the High Holy Days journey. Through the prayerful month of Elul, the sweetness of Rosh Hashana and the heartbreak of Yom Kippur, being unprepared is the problem. Reaching out for God and each other brings us our solution. "In this journey, as we peel away the layers of defense and delusion, we get closer and closer to the presence of God," he said.This is real. And you are completely unprepared.
YOU ARE WALKING THROUGH THE WORLD HALF ASLEEP. It isn't just that you don't know who you are and that you don't know how or why you got here. It's worse than that; these questions never even arise. It is as if you are in a dream.Read the rest of the excerpt from Rabbi Lew's new book This is Real and You are Completely Unprepared.
Then the walls of the great house that surrounds you crumble and fall. You tumble out onto a strange street, suddenly conscious of your estrangement and your homelessness.
A great horn sounds, calling you to remembrance, but all you can remember is how much you have forgotten. Every day for a month, you sit and try to remember who you are and where you are going. By the last week of this month, your need to know these things weighs upon you. Your prayers become urgent.
Jewish troops get ready for High Holy Days in Iraq. The rabbi leading the service, chief chaplain of the New York National Guard, has served his congregants in Afghanistan and Operation Desert Storm.
All over the world, Jews wonder what kind of sermon they will be subjected to and rabbis wonder what they are going to talk about.
An oldie but goodie in the High Holy Days humor department.
May we all - all the peoples of the earth - be inscribed for a good year.
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