FROM WHERE I SIT
By Keren Alpert, Rabbinic Associate

I don’t know how things are at your house, but here at Temple, September is the month of High Holy Day madness, also known informally as Rosh Hashana-palooza.

While the New Year might mean apples and honey, brisket and challah, friends and family, for your Temple clergy and staff, the High Holy Days means preparing ourselves and the Temple for the great assembly.

It is a time of transition, of ceremony, of joy, of remembrance, of loss, of celebration, of reflection, and of togetherness.

There is something energizing about "seeing" the high holidays from our bimah. So, as best as I can, here’s my quick brain scan of what I see from my seat on the high holidays.

I see families racing to get back to "their" seats, to the places that feel like their spots in the sanctuary, out of tradition, or out of preference.

I see the seats in the sanctuary that were filled last year by treasured loved ones and which now hold different bodies in different configurations, as families figure out new traditions following the deaths of precious people.

I see, all dressed up, young men and women who have been students in our school. They’ve returned home from college and this place is a touchstone, a place that is fixed while their whole world is changing around them.

I see my own daughters and husband, arriving at the last possible moment and heading to the front left. They try to look un-harried, even though I made them eat dinner at 4:30 pm so we could be at Temple in a timely manner.

I see my congregants, my friends, the good people who have come into my office in years past to tell me good news and awful news. I think of their joy and their pain and pray for this year to be a good one for them.

I see the new Jews, those who were born this past year and whose parents can’t bear to miss services, and I see those brave souls who have chosen Judaism after much study and reflection. I am grateful to their joining our people, despite all circumstances.

I see people scanning their prayer books and participating, scanning their phones and replying (yes, I see that), and I see people in honest contemplation about the passage of time and their hopes for the year.

I hope that I will see you soon at Temple, as unharried as possible, and that this year will be for you and for your family a year of prosperity, health and peace.

L’shanah Tovah!