Anshe Tikvah High Holy Days 2014 Cantor Rabbi Robert T. Jury www.anshetikvah.org SCHEDULE OF SERVICES S’LICHOT Sat., Sept., 20 Private Home Service……………………………….10:30 p.m. ROSH HASHANAH Wed., Sept. 24 Stevenson High School Evening Service……………………...8:00 p.m. Thur., Sept. 25 Stevenson High School Morning Service…………………….10:00 a.m. Tashlich…………...following morning services Youth Service……………………….10:30 a.m. Young Families’ Service…………….2:30 p.m. SECOND DAY ROSH HASHANAH Fri., Sept. 26 Vernon Township Community Center 2900 N. Main Street, Buffalo Grove Morning Service…………….……...10:00 a.m. SHABBAT SHUVAH Fri., Sept. 27 Hawthorne School 200 Glendale, Wheeling Shabbat Service…………………......6:30 p.m. YOM KIPPUR Fri., Oct. 3 Stevenson High School Kol Nidre……………………………...8:00 p.m. Sat., Oct. 4 Stevenson High School Morning Service…………………….10:00 a.m. Youth Service……………..………...10:30 a.m. Young Families’ Service……………. 2:30 p.m. Yizkor and Concluding Service.….....4:00 p.m. EREV SUKKOT Wed., Oct. 8 Hawthorne School Decorating…………………………....6:00 p.m. Service ……………………………….6:30 p.m. SIMCHAT TORAH Thur., Oct. 16 Hawthorne School Service …..…………………………...6:30 p.m. Call for additional information—847/ 917-7726 Elul 5774/Tishri 5775 From Cantor Rabbi Rob Jury As we approach the new Jewish year of 5775, I find myself writing a variation of the classic essay “what did you do over the summer”—in this case, what did I do over sabbatical? I spent the previous year serving as a Chaplain Resident at Advocate Lutheran General Hospital, the hospital in which I was born. The residency program in Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) is based on an action-reflection model and is comprised of two components: offering pastoral care in a clinical setting and reflective learning shared in a group context. My clinical service was divided into two areas of focus. I spent six months as the chaplain in the Advocate Addictions Treatment Program (AATP) where I focused on how to best support those who were facing addictions, be they patients, their families and their friends or colleagues. While at the AATP I ran a weekly spirituality group and developed a lecture series on spirituality based on the Twelve Steps. Continued on page 3 Tickets Available Anshe Tikvah offers a warm and communal ambiance to launch our Jewish New Year. Thanks to the generous size of Stevenson High School’s Performing Arts Center, we can accommodate many worshippers. We provide an ASL interpreter for the deaf. We request a tzedakah contribution of $159.00 per person to help us defray the cost of opening our doors to all those who are unaffiliated and wish to pray with us as we usher in the New Year. Your ticket cost may be counted as two times face value towards 2013-2014 membership. Youth Services For Students In Grades K-6 Students will join their parents at 10:00 a.m. for our regular service and then be dismissed at 10:30 a.m. to pray in their own interactive High Holy Day Service. This complementary service is a great way for children who are not yet ready to sit through adult worship to have their own High Holy Day experience. Afternoon Service For Families With Young Children Afternoon Family Services are designed for young children and their parents to introduce them to the themes of the High Holy Days and to provide a meaningful experience geared to their age level. We will pray, sing and tell appropriate stories. This service should not be considered as a substitute for adult worship. Afternoon Family Services are open to the community and tickets are not required. Prayer Books Tashlich The High Holy Day Prayer Book, Gates of Repentance, is not provided by Anshe Tikvah and will not be sold. We use the new edition, which includes gender-sensitive language. Prayer Books may be preordered at Rosenblums World of Judaica, 9153 Gross Point Road, Skokie, (773) 262-1700. Tashlich is a ritual that many Jews observe during Rosh HaShanah. "Tashlich" means "casting off" and involves symbolically casting off the sins of the previous year by tossing crumbs of bread or into a body of flowing water. Just as the water carries away the bits of bread, so too are sins symbolically carried away. In this way the participant hopes to start the New Year with a clean slate. Tashlich is traditionally performed on the first day of Rosh HaShanah, but if this day falls on Shabbat then tashlich isn't observed until the second day of Rosh HaShanah. In keeping with tradition Anshe Tikvah will observe Tashlich on the first day of Rosh Hashanah following morning services at the pond located at the South end of the front parking lot at Stevenson. Bring a few crumbs with you – Stevenson would appreciate us not throwing large pieces of bread. The Music Of The High Holy Days Yizkor Remembrance /Memorial Scroll Remember your loved ones in a meaningful way by purchasing a name plate. An order form is enclosed. The Y izkor Remembrance Booklet will be distributed during the Yizkor Service. The booklet will list the names of loved ones who have passed away. Only names listed in the Y izkor Remembrance Booklet will be read aloud from the bimah during Yizkor. A donation form is enclosed. L’Shana Tova From Our Family To Yours High Holy Day Services will begin promptly at the times shown on the front page. Please plan to arrive at least 30 minutes before the start of services Although it is not required, worshippers may choose to wear a kipah and/or a tallit throughout the Days of Awe. A tallit is traditionally worn during daylight and on Kol Nidre. Proper Holiday attire is expected. Ushers will be instructed not to let anyone enter the sanctuary while the ark is open, while the congregation is standing, during sermons and during the Kol Nidre prayer. Tickets for every adult and child are required for admittance to services. Please be prepared to show your High Holy Day ticket to the ushers. Calling All Shofar Blowers We invite everyone to bring their shofars to the concluding service on Yom Kippur Day. If you have a shofar, but are in need of lessons, please contact Cantor Rabbi Jury at [email protected] to set up a lesson. Food Drive Our post B’nai Mitzvah students will be participating in a High Holiday Food Drive. Food will be distributed to the Ark and to the Vernon Township Food Pantry. Bags will be distributed during Rosh HaShanah services. We ask that you take the bags and fill them with non-perishable food items. Kindly return your filled grocery bags on Yom Kippur morning. Anshe Tikvah is once again greatly blessed to have our professional quartet and Lori MackieHewelt, renowned choir director and accompanist. There is a Jewish tradition known as hiddur mitzvah, literally the beautification of the mitzvah, which seeks to enhance the observance of a mitzvah beyond the formal requirements of Jewish law. In our efforts to beautify the mitzvah of the service, Anshe Tikvah has sought out some of Chicago’s top musical talent. The members of our professional quartet are each accomplished musicians in their own right, some having performed with the Chicago Symphony Choir. Our music reflects two settings. The first setting is that of the people Israel, all of us, as we begin to climb the mountain of prayer—each of our souls striving to reach greater and higher heights so that our souls may connect with the Creator of souls and become one in G-d’s holiness. The second setting is that of the Heavenly Court, which sits off in the distance, but whose ethereal music (sung by the choir of angels), wafts down upon us as the dew on a midsummer’s morning. Music, with its sacred chant forming a shalshelet hakabalah—a sacred chain of tradition—extends from Sinai until today and offers us a chance to pray through listening. It is my hope that during these Days of Awe you will find melodies which will inspire your soul to sing out to G-d, as well as melodies that inspire your soul to practice the art of spiritual listening. From Cantor Rabbi Jury Continued from page 1 Of particular help and influence was the work of Rabbi Dr. Abraham J. Twerski and his book Ten Steps To Being Your Best: a Practical Handbook to Enhance Your Life in Every Way. I have had the honor of working with those who are working the program and continue to play an active role in helping those in recovery work on steps 4 and 5. For the second six months of the residency, I served as a Critical Care Chaplain where I served in the Emergency Room and the Medical Intensive/Cardiac Intensive Care Unit. The education that I received covered a broad array of topics including: screening for spiritual struggle, taking a spiritual history, making spiritual assessments, medical ethics and decision making, training in the Respecting Choices Advance Care Planning curriculum from Gundersen Health System, family systems and group theory, Just Culture, and the opportunity to collaborate with renowned congregational researcher, Russell Crabtree, on utilizing his Congregational Assessment Tool for Evidence Based Discernment and Organizational Intelligence in ministry. During my sabbatical, I was able to take time to reflect on the nine previous years serving Anshe Tikvah and contemplate what the next nine years might look like. In my reading, I was inspired by Rabbi Larry Kushner’s article : The Tent-Peg Business : Some Mischievous, Heretical, And Humorous Truths About Surviving And Healing Congregational Life. In it, Rabbi Kushner reminds us that the primary business of synagogues is Jewish learning (Torah), meaningful Jewish ritual (Avodah) and pursuing social justice (Gemilut Chasadim). As we, Anshe Tikvah, begin our tenth year together, I am excited to invite everyone to join together in learning, prayer and social justice. As we seek to engage in Torah, Avodah and Gemilut Chasadim in all aspects of our congregational life, we are initiating a new paradigm for engagement, I like to call this new paradigm Mitzvah School. We are a congregation of lifelong learners. Our mitzvah school will be the foundation of our Life-Centered Jewish Education which integrates classroom learning, Hebrew language reading, and service learning in order to enable us (students of all ages and backgrounds) to become critical readers and thinkers, practitioners of spiritually infused Jewish ritual, and religious activists for social justice. Every Sunday, our Mitzvah school will engage in service learning that connects our classroom curriculum with identified community issues and needs. Service learning engages students of all ages in projects that serve the community. Each service learning project has three components: Preparation, Action, and Reflection. Judaism is another word for activism and social justice is a key component of Jewish living. We transmit our values of tzedakah (just living), hesed (kindness), and tikkun ha'olam (repair of the world) by facilitating opportunities for us all to engage in this holy work. Learning ranges from basic vocabulary of Judaism and social justice, exploration of the concept of mitzvah heroes, engagement in direct service, understanding the Jewish mandate to participate in social justice. The mitzvah focus for the 5775 Mitzvah School year (2014-2015 school year) is Ra’av: Hunger, Homelessness and Poverty. We will utilize this theme to begin to integrate our Jewish mind (Torah) and heart (Avodah) into action (Gemilut Hasadim) while working towards systemic and long-term change on issues we find personally meaningful. Enclosed in our High Holy Day bulletin is a list of upcoming opportunities to engage in Torah, Avodah and Gemilut Chasadim. These opportunities are open to everyone who is interested Many of the opportunities require no previous knowledge. Opportunities for Torah (learning) include: Hebrew Reading Crash Course, Crash Course in Basic Judaism and Crash Course in Jewish History. Opportunities for Avodah (spiritual exploration) include both traditional Jewish rituals (havdallah, Shabbat and holiday worship services and kabbalah meditation) and opportunities to engage in complimentary spiritual modalities (walking a labyrinth and coloring mandalas). Opportunities for Gemilut Chasadim (social justice) include the adult cohort on Sundays and other mitzvah opportunities (like participating in our High Holy Day Canned Food Drive). I am very excited about this new initiative and invite you to join us in helping to change the world for the better. May 5775 bring you and your loved ones good health, prosperity and blessings. On behalf of my wife Rachel, and our children Max, Anna and Elijah, we wish you L’Shannah Tova Tikateivu v’tikateimu. Cantor Rabbi Rob Jury http://www.jcfs.org/sites/default/files/uploads/documents/JHNC%20Twerski%20on% 2012%20Steps.pdf http://www.gundersenhealth.org/advance-care www.justculture.org https://holycowconsulting.com/publications/owl-sight/ http://urj.org/worship/worshipwithjoy/letuslearn/s17tentpeg/ Anshe Tikvah P.O. Box 2455 Northbrook, 60065-2455 Anshe Tikvah wishes you and your family a Happy & Healthy New Year.