Jewish Cultural Society Rosh Hashanah Observance This ceremony has been prepared by the Jewish Cultural Society. It has evolved over the past several years and will continue to change. Our goal has been to create a service which meets the needs of Ann Arbor's secular Jews: to mark the Jewish New Year together as a community, to reflect together on the year that has passed and to express together our hopes for the year to come. We have attempted to integrate into the service what is meaningful to us in our Jewish tradition with what is meaningful to us in other aspects of our lives. As this is a secular observance, our themes have centered on Jewish culture and peoplehood and ethical and human concerns. We maintain our connections with a Jewish past by participating in an annual observance which extends that past into the present and projects the present into the future. 1996 - 5757 Rosh Hashanah celebration Welcoming remarks by President of JCS. Member 1: Let there be peace for those who are far and near. How goodly are your tents, O Jacob, Your dwelling place, O Israel! "Blow the horn at the new moon, at the full moon for our feast day. All the ministering angels assemble before the Holy One and say, "Master of the universe, when is the New Year's Day?" And he says to them, "Is it me you are asking? Let us both ask the Court below." Because of the verse: "For it is a statute for Israel, an ordinance of the God of Jacob." In the month of Tishri the world was created, in Tishri the patriarchs were born, in Tishri the patriarchs died. On Rosh Hashanah Sarah, Rachel and Hannah were remembered on high and conceived, on Rosh Hashanah Joseph left prison, on Rosh Hashanah the bondage of our ancestors ceased in Egypt. In Nisan they were redeemed, and in Tishri they will be redeemed in time to come. GROUP: (Group singing) Havenu shalom aleichem, Havenu shalom aleichem, Havenu shalom aleichem, Havenu shalom, shalom, Shalom aleichem. (Repeat) Today, under the inspiration of our tradition, we examine our innermost selves for those deeper thoughts and feelings which only too often we shut from our hearts and our minds in our daily preoccupations with worldly pursuits and pleasures. The solemn advent of the New Year brings us together to fulfill in fellowship with our brothers and sisters throughout the world the biblical instruction, as it is written: GROUP: And in the seventh month, In the first day of the month You shall hold a solemn gathering; You shall do no manner of servile work; It shall be the day of the Sounding of the Shofar. Sound the Shofar on the new moon, In the time appointed for our festival day. It is a statute for Israel, An ordinance of the God of Jacob. Leader: (Candlelighting) Ashreinu bi'rushateinu she'masrah lanu et hatoreshet l'hadlik ner shel yom tov. GROUP: We rejoice in our heritage which has given us the tradition of lighting the holiday candles. Leader: (Blessing over wine) Ashreinu bi'rushateinu she'masrah lanu kos pri hagafen l'mo'adim u'l'simkha ki samakhnu b'khageinu. GROUP: We rejoice in our heritage which has given us the cup of wine as the symbol of our happiness. Leader: (Blessing over challah) Ashreinu bi'yerushateinu she'morah lanu le'ehuv et ha'adamah, matsmikhat dagan, u'l'khabed et ha ikar ha'motsi lekhem men ha'artetz ve'et ha po'el ha'ofeh khalot. GROUP: Blessed is the bounty of nature. Blessed is the bounty of labor. Blessed are the two, nature and labor; for together they bring forth bread from the earth. Leader: Ashreinu bi'yerushateyno, ha'ko'akh shehekhianu V'kee y'mah nu la'z'man hazeh. GROUP: Blessed is the world Which has preserved us in life And has sustained us And has brought us to enjoy This season. Leader: The Meaning of This Holiday GROUP: We rejoice in our heritage which teaches us that the New Year is our opportunity to make our lives anew. Teen member 1: I Had a Box of Colors, by Tali Sorek President JCS: Tonight, on Erev Rosh Hashanah, we begin Ha-Yamin Noraim -- the ten days ending with Yom Kippur, the Days of Awe. A time of self-evaluation; A time to look back at the year that has passed and to prepare for the year ahead. Let us make our hearts clean. At this time, let us remember -- with sadness -- those who will not enter the new year with us: Ben Raven, father of Ruth Friedman, Alfreda Stoolman, mother of Lloyd, Clifford Sheinberg, father of Zena, and Pauline Saks, grandmother of Jan Price. And with celebration of the goodness of the lives they lived. And let us welcome with joy those who have entered into a new status in our community this year: Matthew Baker, Andrea Brandell, Eric Burnstein, Kori Kavrigaru, Dylan Goings, Ethan Halter, Hannah Holtzman, Liz Kaminsky, Eli Morrel-Samuels, Stephan Richter, and Ben Yates, who achieved their Bat and Bar Mitzvahs in our society. And we rejoice in the birth of Jay Friese Banet to Jeff and Shelly Banet (and to first-time grandparents Bernie and Barbara Banet), and Avery Sanders Feingold to Eleanor Feingold and David Sanders (and to Avery's grandparents Marcia and Eugene Feingold), and in the graduations from high school of Sarah Soebbing, Ben Martz and Catherine Root, and from college of Sarah Prostak. Member 2: Memories President JCS: For us as a community this is a time to look within -- a time to reflect on our gradual and continuing evolution, from Sunday School to Congregation. A time to reflect on old and time-honored forms, and to consider them in the light of our experience and needs. A time to sift through our traditions, reaffirming those cherished kernels which remain as vital forces in our lives. We Jews are a community based on memory. GROUP: A common memory has kept us together and enabled us to survive. President JCS: One generation passes on to the next a memory which gains in scope. This expanding memory is a power which sustains, feeds and quickens the Jewish existence itself. Leader: In its strength the Jewish people is renewed. Hee-nay ma-tov u-ma nah-yeem; Sheh-vet amin gam ya-chad. GROUP: (group singing) Hee-nay ma-tov u-ma nah-yeem Sheh-vet amin gam yah-chad. Hee-nay ma-tov u-ma nah-yeem Sheh-vet amin gam yah-chad. Hee-nay ma-tov, sheh-vet amin gam yah-chad. Hee-nay ma-tov, sheh-vet amin gam yah-chad. (Repeat first four lines of song) Teen member 2: Kaddish, adapted by Charles Reznikoff GROUP: As Jews, whatever happens to Israel and to Jews throughout the world, happens to all of us. As human beings, whatever happens to any people, happens to all of us. President JCS: May we, as citizens of the United States, move our government to seek justice for all our citizens; to respect the autonomy of other nations, however small, and to earnestly and unceasingly seek peace with our neighbors in this hemisphere and in the world. ** Schlomo went to shul every day, and prayed. And at the end of each prayer he would add his own personal one: "Please God, let me win the lottery." And every day he waited for his notification. Week after week he prayed. But notification never came. So much did he want to have an opportunity to pray that he became known throughout the community as one who would come whenever and wherever a minyan was needed. And at every prayer he would add his own. "Please, Lord, I am a pious man. I keep all the commandments. So let me win the lottery." But week after week passed and he did not win the lottery. And one day, after Rosh Hashanah, he pleaded once more, "I have been a good Jew. It is a new year; let me win the lottery just once?" And at this, the heavens opened and a thunder rolled forth, forming itself into words: "So help me, Schlomo. Buy a ticket." GROUP: In the coming year, and years, may each of us do our part to help these vows to become reality, a reality of peace and justice in the world. Choral Ensemble: Bashana Haba'ah. Words by Ehud Manor, music by Nurit Hirsch; arrangement by John Leavitt (paraphrased): Next year, when peace will come, we shall return to the simple pleasures of life so long denied us. You will see, you will see, O how good it will be, next year! Member 3: In Our Hands, by Jerald Bain Leader: Said Isaiah: Lo yis-a goy el goy che-rev lo yil-ma-du odd mil-cha-ma. And they shall beat their swords into plowshares And their spears into pruning hooks. Nation shall not lift up sword against nation Neither shall they learn war anymore. But they shall sit Everyone under a fig tree And none shall make them afraid. GROUP: (group singing) Lo yis-a goy el goy che-rev lo yil ma-du odd mil-cha-ma Lo yis-a goy el goy che-rev lo yil ma-du odd mil-cha-ma (Repeat) And everyone beneath a fig tree Shall live in peace and unafraid. And into plowshares, beat their swords Nations shall learn war no more (Repeat) (Repeat Hebrew verse) Silent Meditation and Readings "A hundred years and more ago, if our children had approached us and asked, 'Who are we?' or 'What is this all about?', we'd likely have pulled down a book of Amos or Isaiah from our bookshelves, opened to the relevant chapters and said, 'Read these words. This is who and what we would be if we were in charge of our own destiny, if we were an empowered people.' But an empowered people is exactly what we have since become, empowered here, empowered in Israel, and now our children, the best of them, come to us and ask, 'Now that you can be who you said you would be if only you could be, are you?' We cannot answer them by referring them to our words; today it is our works and not our words that provide the best evidence. And if there turns out to be no truth in Jewish self-advertising, if all we have become is a partnership in chutzpah, then our children will walk away from us in disdain, or simply be swallowed up in the credibility gap, the gap between our words and our works, between our claims and our conduct.É Insofar as our concern is with the nature of Jewish claims, we need, I believe, to resist the constant temptation to self-congratulation. Jewish self-love is every bit as dangerous a phenomenon as Jewish self-hate, and our conviction that we are a morally superior people needs to be tempered by the recognition that being Jewish is not, in and of itself, a magic bullet; it does not provide us with immunity from all the flaws and foibles to which all humankind is so manifestly susceptible.É And, as to our conduct, let it, too, be what it was meant to be, the conduct of a people that had its earliest origins in the work of smashing idols. I refer, of course, to the story É of young Abraham (then still 'Abram') the idol-smasher, the Abraham who took a hammer and smashed all the idols in his father's shop, the Abraham who explained his action by asserting that these idols could not be gods, for 'eyes have they but they see not; ears have they but they hear not.' É What Abraham teaches is that the negative proscription is not enough, that our duty is not merely to refrain from worshipping idols but to engage in smashing themÉ . Our critical faculties -- except, perhaps, when it comes to critiquing the idols to which we ourselves render homage -- are wonderfully acute. There's genuine excitement in that, but it takes work. The disposition to smash idols is not in our genes; it is in our culture and in our tradition. And in America, that culture and that tradition are besieged by all the temptations of prosperity, of vulgarity, of sham and of hype -- in short, of major league idolatry. America is about tomorrow. It invites us to amnesia, prefers that we remember nothing of what we have learned as history has been inflicted upon us. But we must, of course, remember, we must insist on remembering everything, all the triumphs and all the tragedies, all the nightmares and all the dreams. And we must know that there is a cost to that: if and as we succeed in remembering, we will always remain outsiders, idol-smasher. Yet lest the fate of permanent outsiderness seem too difficult, too painful, there is this: America invites us as well to move beyond criticism and into construction. Here we can smash the idols, and we can build the tabernacles; in the one hand, Abraham's hammer, in the other, Jacob's ladder. And that is an immensely attractive posture and program, for it takes more than criticism to craft justice; it takes painstaking attention to gritty detail.É Only if the smashing is followed by the building will we ever reach the time of plowshares and pruning hooks. Unless we are there the morning after the idols have been toppled, unless we come with the tools of mending, history becomes farce-- farce, and then tragedy." -- Leonard Fein, Jewish Currents "Only to my Jewish nature did I owe the two qualities which had become indispensable to me on my hard road. Because I was a Jew I found myself free from many prejudices which limited others in the use of their intellect, and, being a Jew, I was prepared to enter opposition and to renounce agreement with the 'compact majority.'" -- Sigmund Freud Our Concern Over a Troubled Age What disturbs one now is not the fear that the earth might cease to yield, but the unhappy realization of the growing discontent with the manner in which the earth's increase is shared and enjoyed by the human family. Great plenty and abject poverty, limitless power and utter weakness exist side by side. Everywhere earnest minds are seeking to know whether these inequalities are justified, or whether a way may not be found that shall lead to more contentment and greater mutual respect and confidence the world over. As Jews, we should hold foremost in our minds the belief of our fathers, that human life is of the utmost value and that all duties and responsibilities have for their purpose the safequarding of the life of man and his well-being. On this day of self-examination let us search and examine our ways, and in genuine integrity of mind and humility of spirit make acknowledgment that we ourselves have not been sufficiently mindful of the interest and rights of our fellow-man. Let us resolve to be helpful to the men and women who earnestly and sincerely strive to make a better world and let us on our own part seek to establish this world by our genuine sympathies and sacrifices. The world is before you and you need not take it or leave it as it was when you came in. -- James Baldwin I know this well, that if one thousand, if one hundred, if ten men whom I could name -- if ten honest men only -- aye, if one honest man, if this State of Massachusetts, ceasing to hold slaves, were actually to withdraw from this co-partnership, and be locked up in the county jail therefor, it would be the abolition of slavery in America. For it matters not how small the beginning may seem to be: what is once well done is done forever. -- Henry David Thoreau If one could have influenced his/her household and failed to speak out, one is implicated in household misdeeds. In the case of one's city, the same holds true: could one have influenced by speaking out but instead maintained silence, she/he is implicated in communal misdeeds. --Talmud No revolution can ever succeed as a factor of liberation unless the Means used to further it be identical in spirit and tendency with the Purposes to be achievedÉ The ultimate end of all revolutionary social change is to establish the sanctity of human life, the dignity of man, the right of every human being to liberty and well--being. -- Emma Goldman, 1924 Conclusion (The children are invited in for apples and honey, and to hear the Shofar) Choral Ensemble: Circle Chant, words and music by Linda Hirschorn "Circle round for freedom, circle round for peace For all of us imprisoned circle for release. Circle for the planet, circle for each soul. For the children of our children keep the circle whole." President JCS: We have considered the circle of the seasons and of life. GROUP: We have considered tradition and change. We have considered our hopes for Israel, and our hopes for peace in the world. President JCS: Here in Ann Arbor, as our New Year begins, we pause to reflect and be thankful that our lives are not without hope, that our shelves are not without food, that our hearts are not without friends. And we must also remember that there are those to whom we can give hope, those with whom we can share food, and those whose hearts we can befriend. Teen member 4: Is This the Fast I have Chosen? Isaiah 58:5-7, adapted by Hershl Hartman GROUP: Blow the Shofar and proclaim: The search for knowledge The search for understanding The search for peace (The Shofar is blown by a teen member.) Leader: Tir-r'-oo ba-shofar Hash-mee-oo to-ra. Hash-mee-oo ha-vah-nah Hash-mee-oo shalom. T'kee-a, sh-va-reem, T'roo-a, T'-kee-a May the Shofar which assembled ancient Israel for the task of new adventure, Awaken each of us to the adventures which beckon in the coming year. GROUP: (Group singing) Shalom chaverim, shalom chaverim Shalom, shalom L'heet ra-ot l'heet ra-ot Shalom, shalom (repeat) President JCS: May you be inscribed for a good year. Shalom, l'shanah tovah! We wish to thank Renee Robbins for her piano accompaniments to our group singing, and to The Choral Connection Women's Ensemble, Carolyn Tjon Burnstein, Director, members Jan Carpman, Julie Nelson, Norma Graflund, Mary Ellen Weakley, Deanna Hicks, and Alice Rhodes, pianist.