Shalom Temple Beth Shalom,
I am so looking forward to celebrating our High Holy Days together as we approach 5787! To prepare for our upcoming High Holy Days, I have been meditating on the traditional psalms we focus on during this preparatory month of Elul. During my reflections, I keep coming back to the instruction in Psalm 31: “So love God, all you faithful; God guards the loyal…Be strong and of good courage, all you who wait for God.” This psalm, and my colleague Rabbi Karyn Kedar’s collection of poetry, “Amen: Seeking Presence,” inspired this prayer for our TBS community as we enter this new year together.
L’Shanah tovah,
Rabbi Rose
A New Year’s Prayer for Our TBS Community
God, hear our prayer.
We pray for the soul of our synagogue.
May the words we speak inspire.
May our outstretched arms embrace and understand.
May our hearts widen this community, and may we kindle a joy that catches, that spreads, that will not stay quiet.
May our heimish little Vero Beach shul walk toward the future with open hands: for good, for life, for love.
We pray for those who lead us, that they find the spiritual strength to move past discomfort and disagreement, toward the growth our future asks of them.
We pray for our members, that we feel held by our own togetherness, we small-town Jews, and that this ruach, this spirit of belonging, gives us the confidence to open the door wider still.
We pray for our children and our families, that they hold fast to learning and to connection, especially when it grows hard, because they will know we are holding them.
We pray that our hearts do not harden against the ignorance, the arrogance, the hatred in our midst.
Let us not surrender to cynicism, to apathy.
Let us instead reach for each other as fellow children of Israel, and let today’s actions be the proof of tomorrow’s hope.
May we find strength in our faith and in our community.
May we strengthen our resolve to be messengers of peace and of healing, bringing comfort to the disenchanted, the unaffiliated, the broken-hearted among us.
God, we pray for the ruach of this community, that it grow, that it flourish, with creativity and vision.
Our little shul, growing stronger, proof enough of goodness and of miracle.
May we be strong, and may our hearts have courage.
For us and for our children.
As this new year opens before us:
For what we can mend in ourselves, there is t’shuvah, turning.
For what we can mend in our community, there is t’filah, our prayers united together.
For what we can mend in the world, there is tzedakah, our hands at work.
So let this be the year we turn, we pray, we give and let our little shul, page by page,
help write a beautiful Book of Life for the Holy One to read.
Ken Yehi Ratzon, may it be God’s will, as well as our own.