How to honestly enter Rosh Hashanah

Finding hope for the new year amidst the loss of the last year

Welcome to the Ritual Home! This is a project of Modern Ritual, written by Rabbi Samantha and Rabbi Rena, illustrated by the incredible Susan Alexandra. We’ve been dreaming for a while about creating a space that has depth and personality and Jewishness and joy. In all of the horror and suffering, we still want a space that feels beautiful. Where Judaism can be lovely and complex and good all at the same time.  

We send out a Ritual Home every 2 weeks. Our first few issues will be ~free~ and then we’ll move to a paid model. We have been thinking about how to make Modern Ritual more sustainable for a while now, and this is an option that allows us to keep creating and to be supported by you. We can’t wait to hear from you! 

Shana tovah !!  

It’s hard to know exactly what to say this year for the High Holy Days. There’s so, so much wrong in our world. So much disconnect and pain. From Israel and Palestine and our own election and the recent flooding in the South, it’s easy to feel like we are in over our heads. It’s easy to feel stuck, overwhelmed, and angry or sad. Or all of the above. 

I think every Rabbi we know feels the weight of these High Holy Days - the ramifications of the horrors of October 7th have now been with us for a year. And right in between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, we’ll mourn this anniversary. 

We have good reason to feel dejected. We might even have good reason to despair. 

And yet, and yet, and yet. 

This is exactly why we have Rosh Hashanah - the new year. On Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, we don’t start with the big picture problems. Of course, we don’t ignore them! We simply don’t start with them. 

Instead, we start with ourselves. 

We ask ourselves: 

• How was my year? 

• What do I have to be proud of? 

• What could I do better? 

• What do I want to leave in the past? 

• What do I need to change, in order to move toward the life I want? 

We allow these questions to sit with us, to percolate. And then we gather - whether in sanctuaries (like synagogues) or sanctuaries (like dinner tables with loved ones) - and remind ourselves that though we each have our own work to do, we don’t do this work alone. We remind each other that forgiveness and renewal are possible. We remind ourselves that we can do the work of tshuvah, (repentance, repair, returning to our best selves), even when it’s hard. 

The prevalent metaphor for God on the High Holy Days is Judge. For me (Sam) this invokes a serious, harsh guy in robes with a big, scary book. But the more we double down on this metaphor (which is an inescapable part of our High Holy Day prayerbook), the more we miss the nuance of the image.

The God who we pray to on the High Holy Days is a judge, yes, but a loving, attentive one. A God who believes, deeply, that repair is possible and that we are capable of making it happen. A God who wants us to make mistakes, so we can gain the perspective that mistakes provide. A God who believes in us. (More on God in a future Ritual Home post).

Wishing you a shanah tovah - a better year ahead, 

with love and sweetness, 

S + R 

Four Cool Jewish Things for this Week

Sometimes these recs will come from us, sometimes it will come from other people!

1. Molly Yeh’s Challah Recipe. This Rena’s go to recipe because it has so much sugar and oil in it and that’s what makes it amazing! The challah it produces isn’t always instagram-perfect-looking (it tends to separate a little in the middle), but it tastes SO GOOD and that’s what matters. Let us know what you think if you end up making it! 

2. Following Alana Zeitchik on instagram. Alana has been an outspoken hostage return/ceasefire/make a deal/peace advocate since soon after October 7th. Members of her family are being held in Gaza and she does an incredible job of reminding us that we can advocate for hostage return & Palestinian people in the same breath. 

3. Our Elul playlist. We put this together last year and it’s still great. Write back to us and tell us what you’d add. 

4. Are you home for the holidays this year? You can watch or play services online at both of the congregations where Sam & Rena work! Click here for services at Congregation Emanu-El of San Francisco and here for services at Temple Micah in DC.

We want to hear from you!

We want to include a Q+A section of this project, but we need your questions so we can answer them! Please submit a question here. Thank you!

xoxo,

Rabbis Rena and Sam

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