Ruach Israel Religious Calendar Fall 5770-71
Saturday night, September 5th (26 Elul)
Midnight Selichot (Penitential Prayers) Service

Wednesday, September 8th (29 Elul) – Erev Rosh HaShana
7:30 pm Evening Service

Thursday, September 9th (1 Tishri) – Rosh Hashana Day 1
10:00 am Morning Services
12:30-1:30 pm Meal
1:30-2:00 pm Minchah Minyan
Tashlich (following Mincha Minyan)

Friday, September 10th (2 Tishri) – Rosh HaShana Day 2
10:00 am Shacharit and Mussaf
12:30 pm Yizkor
1:15pm Meal

Saturday, September 11th (3 Tishri) – Shabbat Shuva
10:00 am Morning Services

Friday, September 17th (9 Tishri) – Erev Yom Kippur
7:30 pm Kol Nidre and Evening Service

Saturday, September 18th (10 Tishri) – Yom Kippur
10:00 am Morning Services
Yizkor (following Morning Services)
Afternoon Study of Jonah
6:35 pm Neilah Service
7:35 pm Ruach Israel Break-fast

Wednesday, September 22nd (14 Tishri) – Erev Sukkot
6:00 pm Decorating the Sukkah
7:00 pm Sukkot Service and Meal

Thursday, September 23rd (15 Tishri) – Sukkot Day 1

Friday, September 24th (16 Tishri) – Sukkot Day 2

Saturday, September 25th (17 Tishri)-Shabbat Chol HaMoed Sukkot
10:00 am Morning Services

Sunday, September 26th- Tuesday 28th (18-20 Tishri) – Intermediate Days of Sukkot

Wednesday, September 29th (21 Tishri) – Hoshanah Rabbah

Thursday, September 30th (22 Tishri) – Shemini Atzeret
7:00 pm Yizkor
7:30 pm Simchat Torah Evening Service

Friday, October 1st (23 Tishri) – Simchat Torah

A Holy Days Message from Rabbi Russ Resnik
Shalom friends,

We're in the midst of the month of Elul, traditionally a time of spiritual preparation for the High Holy Days that begin Wednesday evening, September 8, with Erev Rosh Hashanah. Whether or not the High Holy Days are part of your tradition, there's a lot to learn from the traditional practice of teshuvah, or repentance, which is an essential part of this season.

I was recently trying to encourage a friend who felt he’d really made a mess of his life and wasn’t sure he could put it back together again. I agreed that he couldn’t fix all his mistakes or undo all the damage he’d done, but I said the real issue now is whether he is still going in the wrong direction, or heading back toward God and his ways. This is a good definition of teshuvah, perhaps the dominant theme of the High Holy Day season—turning back to God’s direction instead of wandering away from it.

Before we can make this redemptive change, however, we have to realize that we’re headed in the wrong direction. This is the purpose of heshbon nefesh, the accounting of the soul. It is traditional during the month before Rosh Hashanah to take an account of your soul that will guide and deepen your teshuvah during the High Holy Days themselves. Heshbon nefesh prepares us to enter the holy period between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, traditionally called the Days of Awe or Days of Teshuvah.

One method of heshbon nefesh is to spend time each day in Scripture that is particularly rich in moral implications, such as the Psalms (traditionally read during this period) or Yeshua’s Torah from the Mount (Matthew 5–7). Read contemplatively, open to the Spirit to bring home personal applications and implications of the text. You may want to record these insights in a journal, or in the margin of your Bible. (In either case I recommend dating your entries for review later.) This practice involves two steps in teshuvah: recognition or acknowledgement of our wrong doing or wrong attitudes; and confession of these wrongs, at least in the form of journaling. If you become aware of some way you’ve wronged another person, you may need to confess this to him or her. It is also good spiritual practice to confess to a spiritual advisor or friend, as the Scriptures say, “Confess your sins to one other and pray for one another that you may be healed (James 5:16). Individual confession helps prepare the way for the corporate confession of sin traditionally practiced on Yom Kippur throughout the entire Jewish community.

Preparation for the Days of Awe involves another step in teshuvah, or really two steps, which we might term remorse and resolve. We don’t confess our wrongs as a detached personal inventory; rather we seek to connect emotionally with the impact and implications of straying from God’s way. This step runs counter to the modern belief that guilt and regret are unhealthy. You often hear people today look back at their lives and say, “I have no regrets”—even when they should have regrets. Sometimes people speak of guilt itself as the problem, instead of as the result of other problems. But this belief arises from a modern worldview doesn’t know what to do with guilt, since it tends to view all moral standards as relative and impersonal. Biblically, guilt is unhealthy if we just let it hover vaguely about us, but it’s healthy if it leads us to the step of resolve, or returning to the right way, and if it points us to the forgiveness that God offers through Messiah Yeshua.

The wisdom of the ages teaches us that guilt or remorse can empower our return to the right path. Yeshua’s story of the prodigal son (which really should be part of the High Holy Day readings every year, in my opinion), reaches its climax with this:

But when he came to himself, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger! ‘I will arise and go to my father, and will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you, and I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired servants.”’ And he arose and came to his father. (Luke 15:17-20)

Return entails a resolve to change our behavior, but, of course, this resolve must be shaped by the realization that it is Messiah’s power that enables us to change, and that he forgives us even before we change. We do not accomplish teshuvah only after we’ve straightened everything out, but as soon as we head back in the right direction . . . and accept God’s forgiveness for the wrongs we’ve done. As it is written, “Return to me and I will return to you” says the Lord of hosts, (Malachi 3:7), and Turn us back to you and we shall return; renew our days as of old (Lam. 5:21).