It always amazes me how Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, collectively called the high holy days, bounces around on the calendar. I recall my dad saying things like, “Rosh Hashanah is late this year,” or “Roberta, do you believe how early New Year is going to be this time around.”

The truth is, the High Holy Days come right on time every year. They are always on the 1st of Tishrei through the 10th. It’s only, of course, that the Jewish calendar is a lunar one and the Roman one we now use in the Western world is solar, explaining the discrepancies.

This year, as my dad would say, “the Holy Days come early.” I’ll say. We’re barely done with Labor Day and boom, two days later we’re hearing the shofar. But that’s an exciting way to get the time of year where we are on the cusp of autumn, schools reopening, a fresh wind (hopefully not Santa Anas) at our backs. So circle Wednesday evening, the 8th of September. That’s Erev Rosh Hashanah. And that night and the next morning on Thursday the 9th, we will once more gather at UCLA’s Ackerman for what we feel have now become moving, intimate, meaningful services with which to greet the year and motivate our lives.

10 days later, on Friday night, September 17, we will hold the always inspiring Kol Nidre service where those gathered reconnect to the Torah, both physically and spiritually, and where we challenge ourselves and find renewed energy to greet the challenges of our lives. The next day, Saturday the 18th (auspiciously, the number 18 stands for CHAI, meaning “Life”) we will share the day in prayer, discussion, questions, answers, and always, music in the morning on into the afternoon, gathering again for a Q and A with me and music with Debbie Friedman and the concluding service as together we make meaning out of the holiest day of the year.  
 

Debbie Friedman will be with us again this year, accompanied by Bruce Garnitz, and an ensemble from the California Philharmonic will provide inspiring musical interludes.

B’Shalom,

Jan

Rabbi Jan Goldstein