SEPTEMBER 2018 • LONGISLANDPRESS.COM 15
FAITH ON LI
SHANA TOVA (“GOOD YEAR”)
HIGH HOLIDAYS UPON US
BY RUTH BASHINSKY
The month of September marks the
High Holidays, a very meaningful
period for the Jewish people.
Rosh Hashanah, meaning “beginning
of the year,” starts at sundown
on Sunday, September 9 and ends at
sundown on September 11. One of
the main observances of the holiday
is hearing the sounds of the shofar (a
ram’s horn). The piercing sound of
the shofar has been described as an
alarm, a call to repentance, a time to
look back at the mistakes of the past
year and make changes in the new
year.
“Rosh Hashana is not just the
Jewish New Year, but we believe the
turning point in the year for the
entire world,” says Rabbi Charles
Klein, the head rabbi and spiritual
leader of the Merrick Jewish Centre, a
conservative synagogue, and former
president of the New York Board of
Rabbis. “On Rosh Hashana we really
understand that we are citizens of a
world and have a responsibility that
we are in this together.”
Rosh Hashanah is also a time that
commemorates the creation of the
world and marks the beginning of
the Days of Awe, a 10-day period
of introspection and repentance
that culminates in the Yom Kippur
holiday.
On Sept. 18 at sundown begins Yom
Kippur, the holiest day of the year for
the Jewish people; it ends on the eve
of September 19 and is referred to as
“The Day of Atonement.” This solemn
religious day is a time of prayer, reflection,
and fasting.
Rabbi Klein, who has delivered
hundreds of sermons spanning four
decades, explains that on Yom Kippur
“the focus is on us.”
“We turn the spotlight on our
own lives,” says Klein, who has more
than 2,500 worshippers who fill his
A Yemenite Jew blowing the shofar to signal the start of Rosh
Hashanah.
synagogue during the High Holidays.
“I know it is very popular to take
selfies. I spoke last year about Yom
Kippur and about taking a SOULfie,
a picture of our soul and asking
ourselves if we are fulfilling what our
souls could do.
“Are we acting morally and ethically
as we should in our human relations
in what we say and what we do?”
he asks. “Are we being honest in our
self-evaluation? Are we really facing
up to our wrongdoings and our faults
or are we just camouflaging them and
looking away from things we have done
wrong that really need to be done
differently and better?”
Other religious holidays this
month are Sukkot (Sept. 23) and Simchat
Torah (Oct. 1).
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