Celebrating the High Holidays: A Non-Liturgical Spiritual Experience with Rabbi Michael Strassfeld
The Jewish New Year offers us an opportunity to welcome the possibility and potential of a new year. We celebrate the new on Rosh ha-Shana and only then we repent the ways we have failed ourselves and others on Yom Kippur—the Day of Atonement. What shall we carry into the New Year and what shall we leave behind? How can I change old habits and return (do teshuva) to the better self I so want to be?
In Celebrating the High Holidays: A Non-Liturgical Spiritual Experience we will mark the High Holidays as a time to reflect on these themes. Rather than reciting many pages of the traditional liturgy, our focus will be on these themes of change, of the old and the new, of striving for an awareness of what we have accomplished and what we still need to do. Through readings, spiritual teachings, singing wordless melodies, and quiet reflection, we will use the gift of these holidays to explore our inner life.
The Experience will take place in three gatherings, each lasting an hour and a half. We will begin on Rosh ha-Shana, focusing on our ability to change what we can and come to acceptance of what we can’t. We will explore our place in creation and in creating.
We will continue on Yom Kippur evening reflecting on promises kept and not kept. The moment when we become aware of our missteps is the moment we have an opportunity to change direction.
On Yom Kippur day we will continue focusing on change. Yet we also recognize that Yom Kippur and the sound of the shofar is not just about changing ourselves but a reminder to be concerned with all those who are in need whether our neighbors or people across the globe.
In too many High Holiday services, the starting question is how much or how little of the traditional liturgy to say. Instead, we begin with questions: what are we supposed to experience and what are we urged to accomplish during these holy days? We will give expression to those themes through specific liturgy, spiritual insights and reflection. We will say less and gather for a shorter time in order to be able to focus more.
Location: in a hall at West End Collegiate Church, at 245 West 77thStreet.
Monday, Oct. 3rd10:30-noon; Tuesday evening Oct. 11th6:30-8 pm; Wednesday, Oct. 12th10:30-noon
A suggested donation of $36 per person help cover the cost of this program.
Please e-mail Michelle Katz o order tickets.
A children’s program will be available.
Celebrating the High Holidays: A Non-Liturgical Spiritual Experience is being offered by the Society for the Advancement of Judaism, a Reconstructionist synagogue on the Upper West Side. This new alternative to regular High Holiday services will be led by Rabbi Michael Strassfeld, rabbi emeritus of the SAJ. Rabbi Strassfeld has been in the forefront of innovation in the Jewish community from his authorship of the Jewish Catalog to being a founding faculty member of the Institute for Jewish Spirituality.