High Holy Days 5784
Masking & Unmasking
Please register by September 13th! Scroll down for registration Links.
The Days of Awe are upon us, inviting us to drop our masks and reveal our inner soul-workings to ourselves, to our loved ones, and to the Divine.
Nothing against masks per se! They serve us. They can be ways that we express aspects of ourselves to the world. They can be ways we protect ourselves from some harms that would come if we revealed ourselves in risky circumstances. (In Jewish tradition the Divine always approaches us from behind a mask or a veil because of risk of harm.) In these last few years a different kind of mask has become our close companion, protecting ourselves and our loved ones from infection, while simultaneously placing another barrier between ourselves and the world we inhabit. (For our Covid policy click here.)
So if, in this tender time, we were to look behind all our masks, we might ask: Who am I? Who have I become? Who am I being invited to become? What are the masks I wear? How do they hide me, how do they serve me, and how do they help reveal me? And when might I risk letting any of them down?
Join us to welcome the High Holy Days. Services at Ner Shalom are musical, creative, and unorthodox. Services will take place at Ner Shalom, and all major services will be available on Zoom.
Schedule and Description of Services
Click a service below for details. Be sure to scroll all the way down.
There are 4 Sections: Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Special Offerings, and Learning Opportunities
Plus Family Activities and Congregational Food Drive
Rosh Hashanah Services & Activities
-
Registration Required. In person and in the High Holy Day Zoom Room.
The unmasking begins! We welcome the new year 5784 with joy and song and prayerful deepening. Expect melodies from around the Jewish world, and words of inspiration from our rabbi. Led by Reb Irwin and other members of our spiritual leadership and musical teams.
-
This offering is free, but you must register by clicking here.
We invite families with children to join Nitzanim to welcome the new year with song, prayer, and play, led by Reb Mia, Rabbi Irwin, and other members of the Nitzanim faculty.
Families are invited to afterward to join the congregation for “Storahtelling” – a theatrical, participatory presentation of the Torah portion – and then for our Shofar Service.
For information on enrolling in Nitzanim for the rest of the year, click here.
-
In-Person Only. Registration required. Those registered for the in-person morning service may also join Leiah on site.
Join us as Leiah Bowden leads us into a state of physical and spiritual wakefulness to welcome the New Year and the sacred everyday.
-
Registration Required. In person and in the High Holy Day Zoom Room.
With the guidance of Reb Irwin and our spiritual leadership and musical teams, we continue leaning into the sacredness of this day and the new year. This morning service includes High Holy Day prayers, a lively Torah reading about Hagar and her names, and hearing the awe-inspiring blasts of the shofar.
-
When we finish the morning service, stick around to picnic with us. You bring your own brown-bag lunch. We will supplement with challah and beverages and apples and honey! Outdoors in the Ner Shalom Courtyard.
-
Free and open to all. In person only. Meet at Ner Shalom and we will stroll together to a spot on Cotati Creek to perform our ancient tashlikh ritual of letting go of what no longer serves us.
Yom Kippur Services & Activities
-
Registration Required. In person and in the High Holy Day Zoom Room.
Led by Reb Irwin and our spiritual leadership and musical teams, this is a serious night, in which we contemplate the mark we each make on this world and on each other, and whether it is all that we would wish. We chant the Kol Nidre prayer and touch into traditional and new music from around the Jewish world.
It is customary to wear white, and to wear a tallit if you have one. If joining by Zoom, consider planning your physical space: tidy it, put out photos of loved ones or ancestors, have candles ready to light.
-
Free and open to families with young children. On site at Ner Shalom’s outdoor courtyard. Registration is required. Register by clicking here.
Led by Reb Mia and Rabbi Irwin, we explore Yom Kippur themes in kid-friendly ways, using song, story, and activity.
For information on Nitzanim, click here.
-
Registration for Yom Kippur morning required. Not available on Zoom.
Between judgment and compassion lies the heart we tap on to awaken during Yom Kippur. Come and awaken the heart of longing and connect to Source through meditation with Basha.
-
Registration Required. In person and in the High Holy Day Zoom Room.
We move deeper into our practice of teshuvah, finding the path back to our hearts, repairing our relationships with self, others, and Earth. We look at how we may learn to better drop our masks in these holy relationships.
The service will include beautiful music, traditional and familiar Yom Kippur prayers, and an engaging Torah reading about Moshe at the Burning Bush, where the Divine drops its masks.
-
Registration Required. In person and in the High Holy Day Zoom Room.
We gather for a group reading of the Book of Jonah and ask some key questions. What was the mask Jonah wanted to show the world, and how did it interfere with his ability to receive and respond open-heartedly to a Divine call?
-
Registration Required. In person and in the High Holy Day Zoom Room.
Rita Rowan and Leiah Bowden lead us in a service to breathe into the healing we need, and address it with song, mindfulness, and prayer. Don’t miss this beautiful experience.
-
Registration Required. In person and in the High Holy Day Zoom Room.
Together and individually we hold and honor the memory of our beloveds who played such key roles in our lives.
Join us for memory, story, and song, led by Stephanie Brown and Sharon Ziff.
If you wish your loved ones' names to be included in our annual Yizkor list, be sure to select the Yizkor item when you register and offer us the names you want included in this year’s ritual.
-
Registration Required. In person and in the High Holy Day Zoom Room.
The climax of Yom Kippur, the Neilah service is our last communal opportunity to make amends, to reach new resolve, to write our intentions in the Book of Life. The service. led by Reb Irwin and our Musical Team, is followed at 7:00 PM by a short havdalah in the courtyard and a vegetarian/kosher fish break-the-fast potluck .
Please join us for a break-the-fast potluck after havdalah. Bring a vegetarian or kosher fish dish to share in your own container, along with your own serving utensils. We’ll be serving inside and eating outside, so bring a jacket!
Folks attending by Zoom should be sure to have some food on hand so we can break our fast together.
-
At 7, those who are attending in person will go out to the Ner Shalom Courtyard to make havdalah and enjoy a potluck break-the-fast under the stars. (Vegetarian / kosher fish only.)
Our friends on Zoom will enjoy havdalah led by Gesher Calmenson, and are invited to stay in the Zoom Room to chat as they break their own fast.
Special High Holy Day offerings
-
Free and Open to All – Zoom Only (in the regular sanctuary Zoom Room)
Led by Reb Irwin & Shoshana Fershtman
Selichot is one of the most beautiful rituals of our year. Not a traditional prayer service, it is an opportunity to begin the High Holy Day flow, moving as a community into a deeper place of gentleness, forgiveness, expansiveness and beauty. The service will include short teachings, meditation, some of our favorite High Holy Day songs and chants, and a blast of the shofar. About one hour, soup to nuts.
-
Free and in person only.
Join us to visit the Ner Shalom section at Pleasant Hills Cemetery, honoring members of our Ner Shalom community buried there, and offering songs and prayers.
Meet at Pleasant Hills Cemetery, 1700 Pleasant Hill Road in Sebastopol. The Ner Shalom section is in the far northwest corner of the cemetery. Parking available on the gravel lane near the Ner Shalom section.
Consider bringing a folding lawn chair if you would like to sit during this visit.
Read more about the cemetery by clicking here.
-
Our beloved Celebrations Program, now starting its 16th year, offers Jewish ritual, song, and celebration to kids and adults with disabilities, and their families. Find out more about Celebrations by clicking here.
-
“Who’s Behind Your Mask” is a daily invitation between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur to discover some of the masks you may wear and will include a gentle invitation to shed the mask to bring your authentic self front and forward.
In the morning you will receive an email that will focus on a different mask and will be accompanied by a recorded guided visualization with music, a journal prompt, and angelic guidance.
At 7:30 in the evening, you are invited to join Sally Churgel and Sheridan Gold on Zoom for a 30-minute check-in to see what bubbled up during the day. The Zoom link will be in the daily “Who’s Behind Your Mask” email.
-
Free and open to all. On Zoom only, in the usual Ner Shalom Zoom sanctuary.
Being in the middle of the Days of Awe lends depth to everything we do, even a very simple welcoming of Shabbat. We will rest gently with each other, breathe, sing, and pray. We will notice the special additional prayer language added during these Ten Days of Awe. Expect this evening to be sweet and especially deep.
-
Ner Shalom community members of all ages join our B.Mitzvah Academy students to celebrate Simchat Torah. We will dance with our Torah scrolls, unroll one of them around the room, peek inside, and read both ending and beginning. Come ready for a good time. In-person only.
Pre-Holiday Learning Opportunities
-
Led By Leiah Bowden
Praying is more than reading or saying words directed to God. In the first hour we will journey through guided visualization from ordinary reality to the inner realm – Hamakom – in which communication with and in the sacred has potent agency. We’ll share our experience (optional) in dyads and come together again in the larger group. In the second hour we’ll look at different kinds of prayer, enter again into sacred space and find or create our own prayerful expressions in whatever form they arise.
In the Zoom Classroom (see your weekly eBlast for the link).
-
Taught by Reb Irwin
The High Holy Days feature deep and memorable prayers and poetry. For many of us these words, melodies, and rhythms are in our bones – we understand the feel of these texts without knowing quite what they mean. For others of us, these prayers are all new – mysteries waiting to be opened. Join us as we explore the history, meaning, and psycho-spiritual landscape of some of the Days of Awe’s most beautiful words and listen to them in their musical settings.
This evening: “Facing Our Fears: Unetaneh Tokef”
In the Zoom Classroom (see the weekly eBlast for the link).
-
Taught by Reb Irwin
The High Holy Days feature deep and memorable prayers and poetry. For many of us these words, melodies, and rhythms are in our bones – we understand the feel of these texts without knowing quite what they mean. For others of us, these prayers are all new – mysteries waiting to be opened. Join us as we explore the history, meaning, and psycho-spiritual landscape of some of the Days of Awe’s most beautiful words and listen to them in their musical settings.
This evening: “Father, Mother, Beloved: Avinu Malkenu and Ki Anu Amecha”
In the Zoom Classroom (see the weekly eBlast for the link).
-
Taught by Reb Irwin
The High Holy Days feature deep and memorable prayers and poetry. For many of us these words, melodies, and rhythms are in our bones – we understand the feel of these texts without knowing quite what they mean. For others of us, these prayers are all new – mysteries waiting to be opened. Join us as we explore the history, meaning, and psycho-spiritual landscape of some of the Days of Awe’s most beautiful words and listen to them in their musical settings.
This evening: “Forgiveness and Longing: Al Chet and Ya’aleh ”
In the Zoom Classroom (see the weekly eBlast for the link).
-
Led By Sheridan Gold And Sally Churgel
Preparing your soul for the High Holy Days doesn’t have to be serious business. We are offering a playful, contemplative and unique artistic experience designed to open yourself for this year’s Holy Days.
In a guided, gentle manner, Sally and Sheridan will offer music, poetry and art for a deeper connection to your soul. You will create a mask that will allow you to explore the face you present to the world and the one you retain just for yourself and the Divine. We believe that creative imagining supports you to nourish your soul, and deepening your connection to yourself, in surprising and elegant ways.
This workshop will take place in person at Ner Shalom.
We will provide all the supplies but we encourage you to bring your own images if you have any.
Optional: bring a photo or two of yourself at different stages in your life that you wouldn’t mind cutting and refashioning for your mask.
-
Led by Reb Judith Goleman
Sign Up Here
In this class we will look at our families of origin, in terms of masks we may have needed in relating to them.
We all have human failings. The particular style of human failings in our parents very naturally has effects on us.
In this class we will look for defensive styles in ourselves, masks, that are appropriate to our families of origin.
Our goal is to become more aware of these masks, so that we can put them away in situations when, as adults, we don't really need them.
(Click any Service or Event above for Times and Details)
Attending in Person
Congregation Ner Shalom is dedicated to creating community and ritual space that is safe. This year’s High Holy Day services will take place both in the building and online in our Zoom Sanctuary.
Your registration entitles you to attend either in person or on Zoom, as you wish.
Registrations are per person. If you are only attending on Zoom, and your whole household will be with you, there is a special Zoom Household rate.
Covid Policy
While no longer require masking, we are in a world-wide uptick of Covid right now. So we strongly encourage you to mask as a means of protecting your own health and that of vulnerable people around you.
To help us keep each other safe, we also encourage you to be mindful of your exposures in the week leading up to your attendance and to take a Covid rapid test before coming. And, of course, if you are feeling any symptoms, please keep your fellow Ner Shalomers safe by joining us on Zoom instead.
Come One, Come All
Our services are open to all. Like most synagogues, our gathering together on High Holy Days is also how we support our community financially. If you would like to attend services and are not able to pay the full fee, there is a low/fixed-income rate available.
Some additional scholarships may also be available. Read our scholarship policy by clicking here. Full or partial scholarships must be requested at least five days prior to Rosh Hashanah or Yom Kippur.
Making a Mishkan at Home
If you will be attending some of this year’s services on Zoom, consider how you might turn your home environment into sacred space. Where you will sit, how is it lit, how will the air flow, what objects are nearby, what scents, flavors and colors? Will you gather objects from nature? Photos of ancestors? Delicious morsels to eat before or after? Set some intention so your home can be alive with holiness and be a true extension of our collective sacred sanctuary.
Family Experience!
For families with children through 8th grade, Ner Shalom’s Nitzanim Program is offering High Holy Days services including music, story, and activities. These will take place on the mornings of Rosh Hashanah Day and Yom Kippur Day at 9am in the outdoor courtyard at Ner Shalom. These services are free, but you must register by clicking here. These services are followed by additional learning and activities. On Rosh Hashanah (only), families are invited to then join the congregation for “Storahtelling” and the Shofar Service. Families wishing to attend other High Holy Day services (childcare available) can register by using the registration buttons at the top and bottom of this page. To find out more, visit Nitzanim.
High Holy Day Food Drive
As the High Holidays approach, we will be remembering those in need. So we continue our Ner Shalom tradition of collecting food donations during the High Holy Days. Please bring canned and non-perishable food items to Congregation Ner Shalom to benefit the Redwood Empire Food Bank. We will be collecting items in bags in the Sanctuary throughout the High Holy Days. If you are attending services in person, you can bring your donations then. Otherwise, contact Vicki in the office to make arrangements for dropoff. You can reach her by clicking here or at (707) 664-8622. Office hours are typically Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday from 9am-2pm. The office is closed on Wednesdays.
Help us continue this wonderful mitzvah!
Pomegranates by Anna Belle Kaufman.