September 2023

I am so looking forward to seeing everyone at the synagogue for our High Holiday services this year! As you know, the first day of Rosh Hashanah falls on Shabbat and, as such, we add insertions for Shabbat and we omit others. We do not blow the shofar on Shabbat, but you will certainly hear the shofar on the second day at our new Family Service, on Sunday. 
 
It is a Rabbinic tradition not to blow the shofar on the Sabbath, not a Torah prohibition. One of the reasons is that we don’t want anyone to think that we carried the shofar to the synagogue on Shabbat, as that is a prohibition. Even if we brought it in the day before and left it there, it might look like it was carried in on Shabbat, and so to avoid the awkwardness of not knowing and not wanting to ask, lest we embarrass anyone, we just do not blow it. Be sure to attend on Sunday to hear the shofar and to participate in our newly created service and Machzor for that day.
 
Our Yom Kippur afternoon service, from 4pm-6pm, will include a special segment entitled, “Hope, Healing, and Hoda’ah (gratitude).” If you don’t know how a marble, a bridge, and a partner of God go together, you will find out. Through story, song, prayer and anecdote we will journey through the last hours of the holidays together, concluding with Havdalah and a Break Fast. 
 
Shana tova tikateivu. May you be inscribed for a good year.
 
B’shalom,
Cantor Rena