On the Saturday evening before Rosh HaShanah, Jews begin the special Selikhot (”forgiveness”) prayers which help us prepare for the Days of Awe.
Usually the Portland Jewish community gathers for a community-wide Selikhot service, but this year the Board of Rabbis decided that it was too early for a successful program to be conducted, so we are on our own!
Come and help make the minyan - we’ll pray, study, and eat together.
WHERE: Bridgeport
WHEN: a typically beautiful Havdalah at 8.30 pm, followed by study and Selikhot prayers and a nosh
PLEASE BRING a dairy or vegetarian (finger-food) snack to share
These evenings are designed to conclude with Selikhot prayers at midnight but we’re going to have them earlier, allowing whoever would like to stay to do so. More study and food will be available until it gets late!
MORE INFO ON SELIKHOT:http://www.jewfaq.org/elul.htm

Today we begin the fourth and final week of Elul.
Today, Rosh HaShanah is eight days away. We have one more week to muse upon the way we live and the improvements we might choose to make in 5771. This coming Shabbat, by popular request, we will discuss “How to Speak about Another” in our Elul assignment, Creating an Ethical Jewish Life. It will be our topic as much as possible on erev Shabbat at our erev Shabbat Family Tefilah, and certainly also on Shabbat morning.
Rabbi Jose ben Zimra taught:

come and see how vicious is an evil tongue….
The tongue…is imprisoned with the cheeks and teeth surrounding it,
and with many other restraints upon it. Yet no one can withstand it. (p. 194)

In medieval Jewish philosophy, we are called the hai medabeyr, the “animal that talks”. It is our special gift and a terrible responsibility. Some Jews have fasted from speaking as a ritual way to try to become more sensitive to the power of speech. When to speak? when to keep silent? when is it a mitzvah to talk about another’s troubles, and when is it lashon hara‘?

This Shabbat we’ll share our impressions of this chapter in our book, ask our own questions, and consider our own powers of speech.

In spite of the cool weather, quite a few bagel and challah lovers showed up at Overlook Park. At least six dozen bagels and five loaves of challah were loaded with schmears of all varieties and toppings galore; desserts, fruits, veggies and juices rounded out the repast. Hevra worked off in the distance, planning goals for the upcoming year, while younger children enjoyed the playground and the adults talked and talked. Thanks for making it such a success!

The third week of Elul begins today - did you notice that the moon is completely full? We are only two weeks away from Rosh HaShanah and the beginning of the Days of Awe.
So far in our Elul reading of Creating an Ethical Jewish Life we’ve surveyed two topics which are both included in the first section of the book, a section devoted to God.
This week I invite you to read with me a chapter from the second section, devoted to the Self: “How to Deal with the Ego.”

In the same way that a hand held before our eyes can keep us from seeing a mountain, one’s own worries and preoccupations with oneself can keep us from seeing what is really going on in our relationship with the world, and our place in it. Dr. Sherwin writes: “The Biblical verse I stood between God and you (Deuteronomy 5.5) was interpreted by a Hasidic master to mean that the “I”, the ego, often stands between God and us, obstructing the divine-human relationship.” (p. 82, Creating an Ethical Jewish Life)

It is said that the Hasidic Rebbe Simkha Bunem of Pshyshke used to carry two notes in his pockets; on both was written one true Jewish teaching.
He used to take out whichever one he was in need of remembering at any given moment. He would read it, meditate upon it for a moment, and then act.
What was written on those pieces of paper?
On one: “I am but dust and ashes.” On the other: “the world was created for my sake.”

I look forward to exploring the fine line between those two notes with you on this Shabbat.

Here is a related theme for the Days of Awe:
Unetaneh Tokef: http://www.myjewishlearning.com
Who By Fire (Leonard Cohen): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2T274bXIxU

I hope you find your readiness for the High Holy Days to be waxing, even as the last moon of 5770 now will begin to wane.

Rabbi Ariel

“If someone tells you that he loves God but hates his neighbor, don’t believe him.” (old Hasidic saying)

We begin the second week of Elul, the month of our spiritual preparation for the Days of Awe, today. This week’s topic is How to Love God. We are, after all, commanded: You shall love HaShem your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your being in the Shema that we recite every week! But what does that mean? Everything that follows in the Shema prayer’s first paragraph seems to spell it out. But what does it mean for our daily life, this prayer’s prescriptions that we all know by heart?

As this week’s reading assignment in our Elul text, Creating an Ethical Jewish Life, I invite you to join me this coming erev Shabbat to talk about Dr. Byron Sherwin’s chapter on How To Love God. We’ll have a chance to review the text he chose and his treatment of it, and ask questions you yourself might have wondered about.

I hope that your Elul preparations are meaningful and anticipatory, as we count down - or up, actually - toward our Days of Awe.

Rabbi Ariel