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September 19, 2025 - 26 Elul 5785
Dear Friends, The High Holidays begin next week and we look forward to having you join us for an uplifting, meaningful, and Hamish holiday season in the comfort of our beautiful sanctuary. If you have any friends, neighbors, or relatives who don’t yet have plans for the holidays, please share our information and encourage them to join us too. Even though the deadline to reserve a seat is today, as long as they contact us by noon on Monday, we will accommodate them. Please be sure to scroll down in this email for all the information you will need for the holidays, including parking and service times. This Shabbat, our Kiddush luncheon will be sponsored by Ed Cohen to honor and celebrate the memory of his mother, Ray Cohen. We thank Ed for his generosity and hope you will join us at the Kiddush table tomorrow. As we enter into the last Shabbat of 5785, and prepare to welcome the new year of 5786, we offer a brief word of Torah as inspiration. This week we read the entirety of Parashat Nitzavim, a portion that is so important in our tradition, we'll read it again on Yom Kippur! Nitzavim begins with Moses addressing the entire Israelite people, renewing the Covenant with God. It is all-inclusive and all-encompassing: “You stand this day, all of you, before your God יהוה —your tribal heads, your elders, and your officials, every householder in Israel, your children, your wives, even the stranger within your camp, from woodchopper to waterdrawer—to enter into the covenant of your God יהוה, which your God יהוה is concluding with you this day, with its sanctions; in order to establish you this day as God’s people and in order to be your God, as promised you and as sworn to your fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob." It is awe-inspiring to picture myself, gathered with 600,000+ Israelites, hearing and receiving the Covenant with God, knowing, even in the moment, that it would be part of our people's story forever. Though we are likely to be a slightly smaller crowd than that, I am very much looking forward to standing, figuratively and literally, together with all of you, to celebrate the arrival of Rosh HaShanah 5786 on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Wishing all of us a Shanah Tovah Um'tookah, a happy, healthy, sweet, and meaningful new year! Shabbat Shalom, Rabbi Joshua Strom
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