Rabbinic Reflection: Rabbi Yael Splansky

Meeting Trepidation with Spiritual Courage

I understand there is some trepidation as we approach the Ten Days of Repentance, which include not only Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur and all the emotion that comes with these Holy Days, but also the first anniversary of the October 7th massacre.

I want to reassure everyone that we are all feeling it to one degree or another.  So we will bring our heavy hearts and many questions and we will do what Jews have also done.  We will try to make sense of this moment in our lives, against the backdrop of Jewish history, and informed by Jewish wisdom of sacred texts.  And we will do so, together.

Many are asking for the link to the sermon I gave last Kol Nidre.  No one – including me — could have foreseen how our world would change just a few days later, but looking back now, we can see that the vulnerability was already evident.  Here is the link, if you wish to revisit where we were a year ago.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFFOOiftML4

In addition, I’d like to call your attention to the many meaningful ways we will be commemorating the first anniversary of October 7.  Some are of these opportunities are online, some in person, some hybrid.  Some are geared for children, others for teens and adults.  Some are just for our congregation, others for our city or for the global Reform Movement. Click here for our October 7th Commemorations

Let us do our utmost to lift one another’s spirits and chart our way forward – together.

Shabbat Shalom.