A most unusual High Holy Days during a most unusual time

By Steve McCloskey, President

When we gathered in our sanctuaries in late September and early October of last year to commemorate the High Holy Days, it was not within the contemplation of any of us that we would not be able to congregate together for this year’s High Holy Days services. Our world has literally been “... turned upside down” by the global pandemic and its myriad, rippling effects on every aspect of our lives. The last seven or eight months have been wrenchingly disruptive and emotionally draining. Reaching out to others has become a virtual act, rather than a physical one. Hugs have been supplanted by screen shots of love and friendship.

What has remained constant, a “virtual” anchor for us, has been our loving and caring NJC family, which observed this year’s High Holy Days on Zoom and YouTube Live. When we last gathered for Shabbat services on Friday, March 13, we were in the very beginning of the throes of the novel coronavirus. It seems so very long ago — a distant world almost — yet it has been a mere seven months. We at NJC had to adroitly pivot to a new, and as yet unknown and unexplored, virtual world in order to remain connected with members to provide them the spiritual succor that they craved.

We had never live-streamed our services before, nor had we ventured into cyberspace with our NJC family. Led by our intrepid Dick Lechtner, who took it upon himself to learn how to conduct our services on Zoom and YouTube Live, and ably assisted by Rabbi Howard Herman; Jane Galler, our Cantorial Soloist; Alla Gorelik, our Music Director and accompanist; Peter Weissman, one of our revered choir members; and Barry Goldenberg, our Ritual Chair, we were providing members with virtual Shabbat services by early April. We did not have the time for a learning curve with a long arc.

Our members have wholeheartedly embraced our virtual services on Zoom and YouTube Live, best demonstrated by the number of views for each of our services. This is a testament to the quality of the services we are providing to members through the stellar rabbinical leadership of Rabbi Herman and the wonderful and spiritually uplifting music from Jane, Alla and Peter. This year’s High Holy Days services were remarkable for their ruach and neshama, embracing the timeless Judaic precepts of justice, mercy and compassion and humility before God.

Rabbi Herman’s messages during our High Holy Days services were steeped in meaning and purposefully powerful, designed to engage us in critically thinking about our Judaism, our lives, and perhaps most importantly, how we can meaningfully touch the lives of others and make our world just a little better by our presence in it.

Rabbi Herman spoke about the Judaic obligation to speak truth to power, including from the bima, in order to repair our world; about living the life that we intended; about being a good ancestor; about the standards of leadership demanded by our faith, particularly as it relates to our treatment of the least advantaged in our society; about the often elusive and ephemeral pursuit of happiness; and about the critical importance of expressing gratitude, especially for those who enrich our lives.

We are certainly expecting that we will be able to gather in person again for next year’s Days of Awe, which begin in early Sept. 2021. May our hope for next year’s High Holy Days be that we and our world will be in a better place.