L’Shana Tovah!
Yes, additional costs as a member to cover the unfortunate need for extra security.
Shanah tovah to all! Hope my kid is blowing shofar, i delivered the yemenite one to them ealier in the week. Kid can get three tones out of it, just like the opening to west side story (which is of course where bernstein took it from - i only realized that this week!)
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Shana Tova. My brother, who is a jazz trumpet player and music teacher (now retired), can play jazz on the shofar. Many tones. Also, can blast the t’kiah gadola very loudly and for a long time. Very moving. Though no shofar today.
I ceased being observant long ago (the day I left for college) but I have always appreciated that Judaism focuses not on beliefs but on actions. The way you get avert the decree and redemption is not by faith but by your acts towards others – teshuvah (repentence but more returning to your original pure soul), tefillah (prayer but more strengthening one’s attachment to the divine) and tzedakah (righteous acts). I try to use Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur to think about my life and what I want and especially what I can do better in the New Year. Repentence, prayer and righteous acts
We attend a very spiritually focused Reconstructionist synagogue. Today, it focused me on a couple of things: What I’m grateful for and one thing I can commit to to in the New Year. I realize that I am grateful for how well things have turned out in my life. Just completed 39 years of marriage to a great wife. Terrific kids who for the most part are adulting very well. We live in a really nice house sited in a spot that gives me peace daily and awe sometimes. Work that keeps me excited even though I do not need to work.
I have decided to express my gratitude and love to my wife more consistently and frequently.
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ShawD hasn’t picked a synagogue since she returned from 4.5 years in the Bay Area. She asked to attend services with us today. She attended Chabad when she was in college/grad school but thinks she needs a new home. But, what was interesting is that both ShawWife and she separately were thinking about a song that would put them in the mood for Rosh Hashanah and they independently came up with the same song: One Day by Matisyahu. ShawD played it in her car on the way to our synagogue and ShawWife played it at home before leaving for shul.
This is what my kids and grandkids in the E Bay did yesterday for erev Rosh Hashanah Child’s dream of Rosh Hashanah event now draws more than 1,000 to Oakland (ktvu.com)
Shana Tova to all… More people coming over tonight. We host both nights.
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We had a nice video call with son where we all blessed the wine, challah, and apples in honey. Then I opened my birthday cards since this year the world and I share a birthday. Beats a Yom Kippur birthday, which I also have every few years!
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@Marilyn, we and another family have hosted a “Birthday Party for the World” for over 35 years at the end of the first day of Rosh Hashanah. It started with an interpretative reading of The World’s Birthday: A Rosh Hashanah Story. The reading of this story continued each year, although all of our kids grew old and the kids who come now are children of protoge’s etc. We and the other family are still awaiting grandchildren. A Supreme Court Justice and grandchildren were there, which was interesting.
@jym626, looks amazing. I think when ShawD was in SF, she was affiliated with a congregation called The Kitchen, which met outdoors I think and also seemed pretty cool.
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Shana tova to all who celebrated! We had a really nice holiday full of food and family. Each year that my parents are still at my holiday table is a wonderful one.
@Marilyn My D20 celebrated her 21st birthday yesterday. She, too, has had birthdays occur on Yom Kippur, which is a hard sell when you’re a kid.
She opted to stay in Boston for the weekend rather than come home - I gave her a pass this year.
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Spent Rosh HaShana with my mother and her sisters. Along with her sisters came my uncle and one cousin, and D19 flew out to spend the holiday with her parents and her Bobbie. We also had D19’s best friend (more like sister) who has moved, for a job, to the city in which my mother lives. My mother adores her and has made it clear that she (D19’s friend) is invited to visit , and that turning down the invitations is not an option.
It’s not the friend’s first Rosh Hashana, either, since we had her family over multiple times when she was young (we’re very close to her parents as well).
H wanted a small one, just our little nuclear family. I was disappointed and relieved at the same time. Then two families we know found themselves in transition, getting ready to move and about to skip the holiday this year. H changed his mind—he couldn’t let them treat this as an ordinary day. So we had company and it was great!
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