Selichot - Location & Program Change

Saturday, September 28

at Congregation Shalom

Join us this year for a combined Selichot service with Congregation Shalom. The evening will begin with an optional dinner and Havdalah service, followed by a screening and discussion of the movie The Man From Earth. After the movie and discussion, we will mark the beginning of the High Holy Days season with our meditative Selichot service.

Dinner - 6:00 pm

Havdalah – 6:45 pm

Movie - 7:00 pm

Service – 9:00 pm

Oneg to follow

Please RSVP by Monday, September 23rd HERE Dinner is $20 for members of Sinai or Shalom

$30 for non-members.

You may also bring your own dinner at no cost.

Note: There will be no Selichot service at Sinai. All Selichot activities will be at Congregation Shalom.

We Jews are a hopelessly communal people. It is therefore no surprise that many of our High Holy Day prayers are voiced in the first-person plural. Indeed, the prayer called in Hebrew the “Ashamnu”, meaning, “we have sinned,” that most exemplifies why, when it comes to Teshuvah (repentance), there is strength in numbers. 

Join us for our Selichot program and service. In addition to the contemplative 

prayers that comprise the Selichot liturgy, we will explore the Jewish understanding of repentance (Teshuvah) and the role of, and interaction between, individual and communal confessional prayers, chief among them the “Ashamnu.” Why do we give voice to confessions that we, ourselves, may not have committed? 

For a “forshpeiz” (Yiddish for a teasing taste of what’s to come): My friend and teacher, Dr. Arnie Eisen (Sinai’s Scholar-in-Residence in 1998), gives us a sense of how individual and communal confessional prayers combine to emphasize our 

personal responsibilities, even as we acknowledge the burdens we share, together. 

"Each of us becomes a human being when we answer that call, accept our share of responsibility, say the words “I have sinned” and mean them. The “I” is earned by the “we have sinned.” Until then, we might say, your “I,” like mine, is merely the voice of intentions and desires, struggling within us and competing for attention. When I take responsibility for my sin, do not avoid it, attain honesty with myself and with my neighbor, my self attains gravity, weight, personhood. And when you say it too, when you say it beside me, our assemblage becomes more than a random 

collection of individuals. At that moment every one of you becomes my neighbor, joined to me in mutual responsibility, and we together become a community."

Chancellor Arnie Eisen of JTS                                                                                                       

B’Shalom uveracha – in peace and with blessings,                                                                                                              Rabbi David B Cohen