Elul 2022: Getting Ready for the High Holidays
In the month of Elul, we have 29 days before Rosh Hashanah to start reconnecting with our inner life and realigning with God and with those around us. FTJC offers multiple ways in to this fertile period of time. Let's really use Elul to enter the atmosphere of the High Holidays, to do our spiritual work, and to set ourselves up for a powerful experience of this year's Days of Awe.
Prayer and Ritual Experiences
Sept 3, 6:10 PM
Sept 10, 5:55 PM
Sept 17, 5:45 PM
Sept 24, 5:30 PM
Bennett Park, SE Corner
Rabbi Guy will lead us in this powerful late-night intensification of our preparations for the Days of Awe: a singing, swaying service that brings us closer to the poetry and passion of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. For Zoom link please e-mail operations@ftjc.org
Our weekday minyan is back, three days a week, concluding each morning with blasts of the shofar and the Psalm for the Season of Repentance. These services begin with an abridged Selichot from the week before Rosh Hashanah.
No service on Sunday September 18 (after Late-Night Selichot).
Service on Sunday September 25 (Erev Rosh Hashanah) includes Hatarat Nedarim (Release of Vows) but not Shofar.
Learn with FTJC's Rabbi Guy Austrian. Through a scholarly detective story, we'll search halachic texts for the criteria about whom a community should appoint as its prayer leaders during Elul and the High Holidays--specifically, whether there is a minimum age requirement and if so, how old. The results may surprise us, as we consider the role of regret, grief, and imperfection in our leaders' lives--and our own. For Zoom link please e-mail operations@ftjc.org
Learn with FTJC's student clergy intern, Amalya Volz. One of the major themes of the High Holidays, teshuvah, can be translated as both ‘return’ and ‘repent’. In this shiur and discussion, we will explore the difference between these meanings, and think about which feels like a better personal approach as we enter the chagim. For Zoom link please e-mail operations@ftjc.org
Please join us immediately after shul on Saturday September 10 in Bennett Park for ice cream, schmoozing, and games in Bennett Park, around 11:30am-12:30pm. Baseball mitts and a frisbee will be provided - please bring whatever sports equipment and Shabbat-friendly games you'd like to play. We're looking forward to reconnecting after our long, eventful summers! Questions to Diya, diya@ftjc.org
