High Holy Days 5783
Tending the Sacred Every Day
Please register by September 23rd! Scroll down for registration Links.
We are living in challenging times, affecting the world we live in and our own spirits. How can we be healers of our hearts, our relationships, and our world? What are the spiritual tools Judaism offers us to experience holiness? How can we use these tools regularly to enliven our lives and remain engaged and resilient?
Over these High Holy Days we will deepen into our traditional work of release and repair. We will also explore practices to take into the new year to help us cultivate holiness in our lives and communities, to help bring a sense of the sacred to the work we do in the world, and to re-envision ourselves as messengers of holiness and justice.
Services at Ner Shalom are musical, creative, unorthodox. All services will be available on Zoom. There will also be limited seating in the sanctuary (when you register you will be asked what services you’d like to attend in person). A few events will have a component for people on Zoom and a parallel component for those who can gather together outdoors locally. Check out details below.
Welcome to the High Holy Days at Ner Shalom and to a New Year of Homey Holiness!
Schedule and Description of Services
(Click a Service for Details)
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Free and Open to All – on Zoom
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.
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Together we visit the Ner Shalom section at Pleasant Hills Cemetery, visiting 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.
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We welcome the new year 5783 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. On Zoom, with limited space available on site as well. Registration required.
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Join us on Zoom as Leiah Bowden leads us into a state of physical and spiritual wakefulness. Rosh Hashanah registration required.
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With the help 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 Jacob’s famous dream, and hearing the awe-inspiring blasts of the shofar. On Zoom, with limited space available on site. Registration required.
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We gather at the boat launch at Spring Lake Park to perform our ancient ritual of letting go of what no longer serves us. This is followed by a Seder Rosh Hashanah led by Rinat Abastado and friends, in which we bless and eat foods that symbolize our yearnings for the new year. This year we will lean especially into our longings for racial justice. Free and open to all. Parking at Spring Lake is $7 (unless you have a regional park pass). Bring a picnic for yourself if you’d like to make a meal of it.
This offering is in person only.
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We invite families with children to join Nitzanim to welcome the new year with song, play, and symbolism, as we enjoy a Seder Rosh Hashanah together. Held in person at Ragle Park in Sebastopol. Led by Mia Zimman and Reb Irwin. Co-sponsored by PJ Library!
This offering is free. For information on enrolling in Nitzanim for the rest of the year, visit nershalom.org/youth.
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Led by Reb Irwin and Friends
Free and open to all.
Being in the middle of the Days of Awe lends depth to everything we do, even a very simple welcoming of Shabbat (with the additional bits that are prescribed for the Shabbat between the High Holy Days). Expect this evening to be sweet and especially deep. On Zoom.
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Led by Reb Irwin and our spiritual leadership and musical teams.
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.
On Zoom, with limited seating on site as well. It is customary to wear white, and to wear your 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.
Registration required.
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Basha Hirschfeld leads us in a morning meditation focused on forgiveness and gratitude as mechanisms for finding sacred in the everyday. On Zoom. Yom Kippur registration required.
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Families with kids gather in the Ner Shalom courtyard to explore Yom Kippur themes together. Led by Mia Zimman with Reb Irwin. This offering is free. For information on Nitzanim, visit nershalom.org/youth.
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We move deeper into our practice of teshuvah, finding the path back to our own selves, repairing our relationships with self, others, and Earth. We will look at how we may imbue these relationships with greater holiness and mindfulness.
The service will include beautiful music, traditional and familiar Yom Kippur prayers, and a Storahtelling event. On Zoom, with limited seating available in person. Yom Kippur registration required.
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Gesher Calmenson leads us through our traditional Yom Kippur afternoon text, with an eye toward what it has to teach us about bringing a prophetic eye to the world problems around us. On Zoom. Yom Kippur registration required.
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Sally Churgel and Leiah Bowden lead us in a service to breathe into the healing we need and address it with song, mindfulness, and prayer.
Yom Kippur Registration Required.
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Part of the holiness of this day (and our lives) is connected to holding the memory of the ancestors and healing relationships with ancestors.
Join us for memory, story, and song, led by Stephanie Brown and Susan Levine.
If you wish your loved ones' names to be included in our Yizkor list, be sure to select the Yizkor item when you register.
On Zoom, with limited on-site seating available. Yom Kippur registration required.
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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 is followed at 7:00 PM by a short havdalah.
Folks attending by Zoom should be sure to have some food at hand so we can break our fast together.
On Zoom, with limited on-site seating available. Yom Kippur registration required.
(Click a Service 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 be available to all in our Online Sanctuary. And…
There will also be limited seating available in the synagogue building. When you register, you will be directed to a form telling us which service(s) you would like to attend in person. We will let you know which service(s) you have been assigned to attend in person. It might not be your first choice. We are grateful for your understanding. We’ve never had to do this before, and we will be trying very hard.
When you join us on site, we will ask you to wear your N95 mask whenever you are indoors. We request that you take a Covid rapid test before coming, and be conscious of your exposures in the week leading up to your attendance. 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
Since 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 will be offering High Holy Days experiences including music, story, and activities. These will take place on the second day of Rosh Hashanah Day at 10am in an orchard and on Yom Kippur Day at 9:15am in the outdoor courtyard at Ner Shalom. To find out more about Nitzanim programming, visit Nitzanim.
Art by Anna Belle Kaufman.