Rosh Hashanah “A Different Kind of Service”

Rosh Hashanah Second Day

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Hineh Mah tov umah na'im shevet achim gam yachad.

הנה מה טוב ומה נעים .גם יחד שבת אחים

Yea, how good and how pleasant it is for brothers and sisters to dwell together in unity! (Psalm 133:1)

To see a world in a grain of sand,

And heaven in a wild flower, Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,

And eternity in an hour.

(William Blake, 1757–1827)

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“Walk, Don’t Run” (Rob Bell)

Walk, don’t run. That’s it. Walk, don’t run. Slow down, breathe deeply, and open your eyes because there’s a whole world right here within this one. The bush doesn’t suddenly catch on fire, it’s been burning the whole time. Moses is simply moving slowly enough to see it. And when he does, he takes off his sandals. Not because the ground has suddenly become holy, but because he’s just now becoming aware that the ground has been holy the whole time. Efficiency is not God’s highest goal for your life, neither is busyness, or how many things you can get done in one day, or speed, or even success. But walking, which leads to seeing, now that’s something. That’s the invitation for every one of us today, and everyday, in every conversation, interaction, event, and moment: to walk, not run. And in doing so, to see a whole world right here within this one.

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 Prayer for the soul:

Elohai n'shama shenata'ta bi t'hora hi.

נשמה שנתת בי . אלהי טהורה היא

O my God, the soul which you gave me is pure.

prayer for gratitude: (e.e. cummings) i thank you god for most this amazing day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything which is natural which is infinite which is yes (i who have died am alive again today, and this is the sun’s birthday; this is the birthday of life and love and wings: and of the gay great happening il-limitably earth) how should tasting touching hearing seeing breathing any- lifted from the no of all nothing-human merely being doubt unimaginable you? (now the ears of my ears awake and now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

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NISIM B'CHOL YOM - FOR DAILY MIRACLES (to give thanks for the miracles around us and to give thanks for our bodies) For awakening: Baruch Atah Adonai Eloheinu Melech Ha-Olam who has given the mind the ability to distinguish day from night. For vision: Baruch Atah Adonai Eloheinu Melech Ha-Olam who opens the eyes of the blind. For the ability to stretch: Baruch Atah Adonai Eloheinu Melech Ha-Olam who frees the captive. For rising to the new day: Baruch Atah Adonai Eloheinu Melech Ha-Olam who lifts up the fallen. For firm earth to stand upon: Baruch Atah Adonai Eloheinu Melech Ha-Olam who stretches the earth over the waters. For the gift of motion: Baruch Atah Adonai Eloheinu Melech Ha-Olam who strengthens our steps. For clothing the body: Baruch Atah Adonai Eloheinu Melech Ha-Olam who clothes the naked. For renewed enthusiasm for life: Baruch Atah Adonai Eloheinu Melech Ha-Olam who gives strength to the weary. For reawakening: Baruch Atah Adonai Eloheinu Melech Ha-Olam who removes sleep from the eyes, slumber from the eyelids.

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Yotzer - poem for outdoors and renewal:

Morning Poem (Mary Oliver) Every morning the world is created. Under the orange sticks of the sun the heaped ashes of the night turn into leaves again and fasten themselves to the high branches --- and the ponds appear like black cloth on which are painted islands of summer lilies. If it is your nature to be happy you will swim away along the soft trails for hours, your imagination alighting everywhere. And if your spirit carries within it the thorn that is heavier than lead --- if it's all you can do to keep on trudging --- there is still somewhere deep within you a beast shouting that the earth is exactly what it wanted ---

each pond with its blaz-ing lilies is a prayer heard and answered lavishly, every morning, whether or not you have ever dared to be happy, whether or not you have ever dared to pray.

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Ahavah Rabbah - gathering four corners

We are loved by an unending love.

We are embraced by arms that find us, even when we are hidden from our-

selves. We are touched by fingers that soothe us, even when we are too

proud for soothing. We are counseled by voices that guide us, even when we

are too embittered to hear.

We are loved by an unending love.

We are supported by hands that uplift us, even in the midst of a fall.

We are urged on by eyes that meet us, even when we are too weak for

meeting.

We are loved by an unending love.

Embraced, touched, soothed, and coun-seled, ours are the arms, the fingers, the voices; ours are the hands, the eyes, the

smiles;

We are loved by an unending love.

- Rabbi Rami Shapiro

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Sh'ma Yis'ra'eil Adonai Eloheinu Adonai echad. Barukh sheim k'vod

הינו, יהוה אחד שמע, ישראל: יהוה א ברוך שם כבוד מלכותו לעולם ועד

Sh’ma

Listen you Israel person, Adonai Who Is, is our God. Adonai Who Is, is One, Unique, All there Is. Love Adonai, who is your God, in what your heart is, in what you aspire to, in what you have made your own. May these values which I connect with your life be implanted in your feelings. May they become the norm for your children, addressing them in the privacy of your home, on the errands you run. May they help you relax, and activate you to be productive. Display them visibly on your arm. Let them focus your attention. See them at all transitions, at home and in your environment. May these values of mine reside in your feelings and aspirations marking what you produce, guiding what you perceive. Teach them to your children, so that they are instructed how to make their homes sacred, and how to deal with traffic May these values of Mine reside in your feelings and aspirations, even when you are depressed and when you are elated Mark your entrances and exits with them, so you will be more aware. Then you and your children and their children will live out on earth that divine promise given to your ancestors, to live heavenly days right here on this earth. That is the truth!

Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi

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Preparing for Contemplative Prayer: Your Soul-O Site & Hitbodedut (being alone with yourself)

1. Your Soul-O-Site

Find a site that contains only you - if your body is re-laxed, you're in a good site Disturb Nothing Pay close attention to what you see - each blade of grass, each pebble, each piece of dirt. What do you notice when you quiet things and really slow down What appears to you that you didn’t see there before

2. Offer these words:

אדני שפתי תפתח ופי יגיד תהלת

Adonai, open up my lips, so my mouth may declare

Your glory. (Psalm 51:15).

3. Hitbodedut (being alone with oneself) instructions.

Stop what you’re doing.

Find a tree or a bush to befriend

Take a deep breath.

(continues)

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4. Speaking Out Loud:

Thank God for any two things in your life—one cur-rent, the other current or past.

Ask God for two material things—one related to to-day, one related to the future.

Ask God for two spiritual things—one related to to-day, one related to the future.

Ask God to help the Jewish people in two ways.

5. Either: (a) Ask God to talk again tomorrow and say, “Thank You,” or (b) Keep talking. When you finish, go to to #1 and re-peat.

A prayer to utter during Hitbodedut (if you don’t know what else to say) Grant me the ability to be alone; may it be my custom to go outdoors each day among the trees and grass - among all growing things and there may I be alone, and enter into prayer, to talk with the One to whom I belong. May I express there everything in my heart, and may all the foliage of the field - all grasses, trees, and plants - awake at my coming, to send the powers of their life into the words of my prayer so that my prayer and speech are made whole through the life and spirit of all growing things, which are made as one by their transcendent Source. May I then pour out the words of my heart before your Presence like water, O Lord, and lift up my hands to You in worship, on my behalf, and that of my children!

- Rebbe Nachman of Bratzlav

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Torah: The Story of Creation

A couple of thoughts on Creation: “In the wilderness your possessions cannot surround you. Your preconceptions cannot protect you. Your logic cannot promise you the future. Your guilt can no longer place you safely in the past. You are left alone each day with an immediacy that aston-ishes, chastens, and exults. You see the world as if for the first time” (Rabbi Lawrence Kushner) Imagine if at every moment we each embraced the world as the gift it is: an apple is a gift; the color pink is a gift; the blue sky is a gift; the scent of honeysuckle is a gift… We are called not merely to notice casually now and then that something is special and nice but to sustain and deepen a profound and sustained gratitude. Indeed, the more we acknowledge our gratefulness, the more we temper our tendency to be users, despoilers, arro-gant occupiers. We are on the way to holiness. (Rabbi Marcia Prager)

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Genesis 1:1-13 Bereshit

When God began to create heaven and earth— the earth being unformed and void, with darkness over the surface of the deep and a wind from God sweeping over the water—God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light.

God saw that the light was good, and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, a first day.

God said, “Let there be an expanse in the midst of the water, that it may separate water from water.” God made the expanse, and it separated the water which was below the expanse from the water which was above the expanse. And it was so. God called the ex-panse Sky. And there was evening and there was morning, a sec-ond day.

God said, “Let the water below the sky be gathered into one ar-ea, that the dry land may appear.” And it was so. God called the dry land Earth, and the gathering of waters He called Seas. And God saw that this was good.

And God said, “Let the earth sprout vegetation: seed-bearing plants, fruit trees of every kind on earth that bear fruit with the seed in it.” And it was so. The earth brought forth vegetation: seed-bearing plants of every kind, and trees of every kind bear-ing fruit with the seed in it. And God saw that this was good. And there was evening and there was morning, a third day.

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A Pale Blue Dot (Carl Sagan)

The following excerpt was inspired by an image taken by Voyager 1 on February 14, 1990. As the spacecraft was de-parting our planetary neighborhood for the fringes of the solar system, it turned it around for one last look at its home planet.

“Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, every-one you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffer-ing, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and eco-nomic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every moth-er and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there--on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

“The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could be-come the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabit-ants of some other corner, how frequent their misunder-standings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fer-vent their hatreds.

(continues)

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“Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delu-sion that we have some privileged position in the Uni-verse, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our plan-et is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

“The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

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וביום צום כפור יחתמון, בראש השנה יכתבוןB’rosh Hashanah, Yikteivun, uv’Yom Tzom Kippur, Yech’a’teimun. On Rosh Hashanah it is written and on Yom Kippur it is sealed.

ON ROSH HASHANAH, we plunge like swimmers into a sea of words On Yom Kippur, the sea rises, then crests - and we emerge, sealed by the wax, warmed by the fire, of braided candle.

The New Year is like a trailhead - opening wide before us; the Day of Fasting - narrow, breathless, so quick to close.

We contemplate a new year, and this we know: On Rosh Hashanah it is written, on Yom Kippur it is sealed: That this year people will live and die, some more gently than others and nothing lives forever. But amidst overwhelming forces of nature and humankind, we still write our own Book of Life, and our actions are the words in it, and the stages of our lives are the chapters, and nothing goes unrecorded, ever. Every deed counts. Everything you do matters. And we never know what act or word will leave an impression or tip the scale. So, if not now, then when? For the things that we can change, there is t’shuvah, realignment, For the things we cannot change, there is t’filah, prayer, For the help we can give, there is tzedakah, justice. Together, let us write a beautiful Book of Life for the Holy One to read. (Rabbi Joseph Meszler)

God of holiness, God of hope, let us glimpse Your truth, as we attach our hope to Yours.

בראש השנה יכתבון, וביום צום כפור יחתמוןB’rosh Hashanah, Yikteivun, uv’Yom Tzom Kippur, Yech’a’teimun. On Rosh Hashanah it is written and on Yom Kippur it is sealed.

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Avinu Malkeinu - read together: Avinu Malkeinu - We stand in awe; we draw close in love. Avinu Malkeinu - The Power that passes through us and pervades all things. Avinu Malkeinu - The Divine that is present within and among us We speak this sacred truth aloud We stand as one, accountable for our sins. We yearn for true compassion - for our children most of all. May we resist the ravages of illness, fear, and despair. Let us summon courage to withstand our enemies. Let the goodness of this gift of life be engraved up on our hearts. May we taste anew the sweetness of each day. Let us wake up to the blessings already in our grasp. Avinu Malkeinu, choneinu vaaneinu; Ki ein banu maasim. Aseih imanu tz'dakah vachesed, V’hoshi-einu. However small our deeds, let us see their power to heal. May we save lives through compassion, generosity, and justice.

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Preparing for Kaddish:

Your life is your life don’t let it be clubbed into dank submission.

be on the watch. there are ways out.

there is light somewhere. it may not be much light but

it beats the darkness. be on the watch.

the gods will offer you chances. know them. take them.

you can’t beat death but you can beat death in life, sometimes. and the more often you learn to do it,

the more light there will be. your life is your life.

know it while you have it. you are marvelous

the gods wait to delight in you.

Charles Bukowski, “The Laughing Heart”

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Yitgadal v'yitkadash sh'mei raba. B'alma di v'ra chirutei, v'yamlich malchutei, b'chayeichon uv'yomeichon uv'chayei d'chol beit Yisrael, baagala uviz'man kariv. V'im'ru: Amen. Y'hei sh'mei raba m'varach l'alam ul'almei almaya. Yitbarach v'yishtabach v'yitpaar v'yitromam v'yitnasei, v'yit'hadar v'yitaleh v'yit'halal sh'mei d'kud'sha b'rich hu,

l'eila min kol birchata v'shirata, tushb'chata v'nechemata, daamiran b'alma. V'imru: Amen. Y'hei sh'lama raba min sh'maya, v'chayim aleinu v'al kol Yis-rael. V'imru: Amen. Oseh shalom bimromav, Hu yaaseh shalom aleinu, v'al kol Yisrael. V'imru: Amen.

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Exalted and hallowed be God's great name in the world which God created, according to plan. May God's majesty be revealed in the days of our lifetime and the life of all Israel -- speedily, imminently, to which we say Amen. Blessed be God's great name to all eternity. Blessed, praised, honored, exalted, extolled, glorified, adored, and lauded be the name of the Holy Blessed One, beyond all earthly words and songs of blessing, praise, and comfort. To which we say Amen. May there be abundant peace from heaven, and life, for us and all Israel, to which we say Amen. May the One who creates harmony on high, bring peace to us and to all Israel. To which we say Amen.

TEKIAH GEDOLAH - תקיעה גדולה

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