RABBI ARTHUR SEGAL:JEWISH RENEWAL:ROSH HA SHANA:YOM KIPPUR:SELICOTH:growth

RABBI ARTHUR SEGAL:JEWISH RENEWAL:ROSH HA SHANA:YOM KIPPUR:SELICOTH:growth

 

 A Jewish Renewal, ( www.JewishRenewal.info ) and  Jewish Spiritual Renewal (www.JewishSpiritualRenewal.org) and Jewish Spirituality High Holy Day Message and Greeting from Rabbi Arthur Segal.

 

Prayer Baruch Atah AdoShem Elokeinu Melach ha'olam, asher kideshanua bemitzvotav vetzivanua la'asok devrei Torah. Blessed are You, Eternal our G!d, Ruler of the Universe, who has sanctified us with your commandments and commanded us to engage in words of Torah. Simchat Torah Learn the spiritual and ethical lessons of the Torah and Talmud. On Simchat Torah, October 11, 2009, we start again with Beresheit. A Spiritual and Ethical Compendium to the Torah and Talmud will bring these texts alive for you. Join Our Mailing List Wishes for a Sweet New Year 5770 A Holiday Message From Rabbi Arthur Segal's Jewish Spiritual Renewal August 2009 Shalom my dear friends: I hope you all had a joyous Shabbat, and that those of you who are members of my Shamash class took the lessons from our last installment to heart. If you have any questions from that class - or anything else for that matter - remember that you can email me any time at rabbisegal@jewishspiritualrenewal.net. Not a member of the class? Well, what are you waiting for? The online class is sponsored by Shamash.org, a service of Hebrew College. We are presently studying the ethical and spiritual teachings of the Torah, TaNaK, and Talmud. In the future we will study other subjects from a Jewish Spiritual Renewal point of view. It's absolutely free and you can sign up by sending me an email. Just say that you'd like to join the Shamash class and I'll be in touch with you. Send the email to rabbisegal@jewishspiritualrenewal.net. Also, if you have any friends or family members whom you believe would benefit from these classes, or would like to receive periodic holiday and spiritual messages like this one, please forward this email to them. High Holy Days The High Holy Days are coming up soon; next month in fact. Selicoth The evening of September 12 is Selicoth for us Jews. The name, Selicoth, is derived from the Hebrew word meaning, "I am sorry." From the beginning of the month of Elul - Friday, August 21 - until Selicoth is a time for taking stock of ourselves and making amends with those we have harmed in any way, great or small. Rosh Ha Shana Rosh Ha Shana begins at sundown on September 18, and ends at sundown on September 20. On these days we celebrate the new year of the Earth and the birth of Humankind. Each year many of us do Tashlich as part of Rosh Ha Shana, throwing our sins into the water on pieces of bread, only to find that those same sins jumped out of the water and into our back pockets when we weren't looking. In your Jewish Spiritual Renewal you learn how to rid yourself of character defects, resentments, grudges, etc., for good. Are you on your path to Renewal and recapturing your Judaism? Yom Kippur We go to Yom Kippur services, starting the evening of September 27 and ending at sundown on the 28th, and beat our chests as we rattle off an alphabetic list of sins. Some we have, some we don't. While we go through the list, many of us want to change, but by the next day, or definitely by Sukkoth, our selfish will - our ego - has taken over and we are back to where we were before Selicoth. You can rid yourself of behavior that sets you apart from G!d and from your fellows. You can tell your yetzer ha ra to get lost when it rationalizes that it is okay to do things that the "still small voice'' inside of you knows you'd be better off not doing. There is further commentary on how to make the High Holy Days a more personal, spiritual experience (Chapter 13), and lessons on casting away your character defects, or Tashlich (Chapter 6), in my book, The Handbook to Jewish Spiritual Renewal: A Path of Transformation for the Modern Jew. If you don't have a copy and would like one, you can get it here: www.JewishSpiritualRenewal.org. Let us all make this New Year a truly new year and may we all be inscribed into the Book of Life. Many Blessings, Rabbi Arthur Segal P.S. Be sure to keep up with my three regular blog posts: Jewish Spiritual Renewal Rabbi Arthur Segal Eco-Judaism

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