Rabbi or other Reader:
We have changed these services, these siddurim and machzorim, with our minds, our hands and our hearts.
Reader:
We change tradition—even our own tradition—because we honor it.
Reader:
If we honor it, we make it an example of a good deed.
Reader:
What helps us make sense of the world and does not harm another, we may do.
Reader:
Honoring our tradition of change comes from we who have made the tradition and changed it.
Reader:
When a measure of learning is ended, a chapter, a division, we mark the ending.
Reader:
Ending yields space for beginning.
Reader:
When the leaf falls, the tree does not sigh.
Reader:
Several past services and other material are part of this recycling. The last words of the Rosh HashanahThe Jewish New Year, also considered the Day of Judgment. The period of the High Holidays is a time of introspection and atonement. The holiday is celebrated with the sounding of the shofar, lengthy prayers in synagogue, the eating of apples and honey, and round challah for a sweet and whole year. Tashlikh, casting bread on the water to symbolize the washing away of sins, also takes place on Rosh Hashana. service taken out of the loose-leaf binder and replaced with the spiral-bound binder are these:
May we live in peace.
And may our words and actions bring peace to all the world.
Amen.
Reader:
We are going to mark the transition from older to newer by reciting a chatzi kaddishThe Aramaic memorial prayer for the dead. Mourners recite this prayer at every service, every day, in the presence of a minyan (prayer quorum) over the course of a year (for a parent) or thirty days (for a sibling or offspring). The prayer actually makes no mention of the dead, but rather prays for the sanctification and magnification of God's name., the short, or half-kaddish, prayer used when one section of a service has been completed but the entire prayer service has not been completed.
Reader:
We think Bnei HavurahLit. Group of friends Commonly has come to mean an alternative prayer community. In the 1970’s, havurot (plural) developed as an alternative to large syngagogues. Some havurot pray together; others study, socialize, or engage in some alternative activity. will never complete our prayer service; we will be revisiting and revising—reconstructing—as long as we’re around. This chatzi kaddish in English is adapted from the Ed Towbin version:
All readers:
May the wellspring of life be blessed as life unfolds, forever
and ever.
May the source of life be blessed, and praised, and glorified, and
held in honor, viewed with awe, embellished, and
revered; peace is sanctified… it is blessed;
elevated higher than all the blessings, songs,
praises, and consolations that we utter in this
world.
And we say: Amen
Reader: [these are the first few lines of our current Rosh Hashanah service]
One thing have I asked of god, one goal do I pursue:
to dwell in the eternal’s house throughout my days,
to know the bliss of the sublime, to visit in god’s temple.
Awaken,
Here.
Awaken to light,
to breath,
to hope.
Enwrapped in the warmth of our community,
Embraced in the joy of our tradition.
Awaken to creation,
to beauty,
to awe,
to the blasts of the shofarA ram's horn that is blown on the High Holidays to "wake us up" and call Jews to repentance. It is also said that its blast will herald the coming of the messiah. proclaiming:
Remember.
Forgive.
Return.
Gail A benEzra, Ed Towbin
Reader:
Nu, may new leaves grow.
