Elul is the name of the Hebrew month that leads into Rosh Hashanah. It is a time for cheshbon ha-nefesh or “soul accounting” – looking inward and reflecting on the year that has passed.
The big idea of the season is teshuvah — “coming back” in every sense. To our truths, to each other, to core values. To your soul and the Divine within.
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Would you like to get to know someone new in our community? We’ll make the match and provide you some Elul conversation prompts. Meet by phone, by Zoom (we’ll help), or in person. Drop us a note if you would like to participate.
Rabbi Shai Held joins Rabbi Jon, Rabba Kaya Stern-Kaufman of Temple Israel in Portsmouth, and Rabbi Robin Nafshi of Temple Beth Jacob in Concord to discuss the themes of Rabbi Held's new book as a frame for the month of Elul. What does love mean and entail in Judaism? How is love a foundational Jewish posture in the world? How can love orient us toward the new year, and in particular the new year we are anticipating? Thursday, September 5, 2024 • 2 Elul 5784 | 7:00 PM - 8:30 PM
Enjoy a multimedia program on the reasons people have taken walks in the wilderness for over a millennium. Learn about the amazing connections between the health of your spiritual life and physical body with the natural world when we take a journey in the woods. Through images, music and dialogue you will discover wonderful ways the forests surrounding our communities can hold so many natural treasures that can keep us healthy and strong in mind, soul and body. Sunday, September 15, 2024 • 12 Elul 5784 | 12 :00 PM
Every new year brings us face-to-face with both possibilities and pain. For ourselves or for people we love there may be physical pains or illness, which bring uncertainty about the year ahead. There may be emotional pain, from mental illness, from ongoing struggles in life, or as we recall people no longer with us. Thursday, September 19, 2024 • 16 Elul 5784 | 7:00 PM - 7:45 PM Temple Beth Abraham and Zoom
Rabbi Jon shares six short explorations of teachings about teshuvah from the classic guide of Rabbi Moses Maimonides. (Pro tip: Listen to then at 1.25x speed!)
Are you a fan of The Good Place? It's a TV comedy about teshuvah. That’s not the terminology they ever use, but the show is an ingenious illumination of all kinds of teachings in Jewish tradition and sometimes improves on them! Tov! is a podcast that Rabbi Jon has been doing with a revolving group of rabbis and Jewish educators for the past two years. Visit the site or subscribe on your favorite app.
Links to nineteen teachings from past years that Rabbi Jon thinks still stand up today.
Rabbi Alan Lew explains how the Jewish calendar marks out seven stages for awakening our soul, from summer through the fall holy day
This brand-new book by Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg draws from the teachings of Rabbi Moses Maimonides to push back against the American preference for narratives of redemption and letting-go over repair and restoration. Rabbi Ruttenberg applies traditional Jewish teachings to the kinds of personal and public wrongs that are characteristic of our current world.