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Rabbi John Rosove's Blog

Monthly Archives: September 2018

When prayer is projected onto large screens in place of using prayer books

30 Sunday Sep 2018

Posted by rabbijohnrosove in American Jewish Life, Inuyim - Prayer reflections and ruminations, Musings about God/Faith/Religious life

≈ 6 Comments

Several years ago I attended a session at the Biennial Conference of the Reform movement (the Union for Reform Judaism) on the visual benefits of projecting the prayer book and the weekly Torah portion onto large screens in place of prayer books. It was at the time a new way to draw a congregation together while freeing the pews of books and papers. Though I understood the benefit of having the text available in plain sight to everyone present, especially in a large congregation, and the ability to add new songs and poetry that are not contained already in prayer books, I was uncomfortable with it and preferred then and still prefer to have an actual prayer book in my hands.

Having said this, at my congregation we use large screens for prayer twice a year, on the mornings of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur at our family services with pre-school age through first grade children, their parents and grandparents. All the 700 in attendance need to do do is look forward towards the bimah and there they can read/sing the blessings and view colorful illustrations and photographs. For this particular population, projected prayer works well.

It’s one thing, however, to use projected prayer and illustrations/photographs for small children and their parents, and it’s quite another to use it in place of prayer books at Shabbat services for elementary school-age students, teens, and adults.

In recent days on the private Reform Rabbi List-Serve called RAVKAV where rabbis talk to each other about anything and everything of current concern, there has been a thoughtful discussion about the benefits and deficits of projected prayer in place of using actual siddurim. I found the discussion provocative and engaging, and so I shared some of the posts (I removed the writers’ names to maintain confidentiality) with my fellow clergy in my congregation. I received the following statement from our cantorial soloist and music director, Shelly Fox. Shelly is a 2nd year cantorial student at the Academy for Jewish Religion (AJR) here in Los Angeles. She is a world class singer and a thoughtful, evocative and sensitive Jew and prayer leader. I share her words with her permission:

“It’s one thing to project the words to prayers and enable people to follow along and lift their faces out of a book and sing together, but once we start talking about projecting imagery and then taking it further and using a large screen LED TV for clear, bright images, now we’re getting into the territory of another screen to watch.

I think that when people see a TV screen they shut off their brains. They get lulled into watching, not doing. I also think that prayer is both communal and personal and to give everyone imagery to watch takes them out of their own heads. It’s my same argument to musical settings of prayers in what I call “interpretive English.” I am not opposed to singing prayers in English but it bothers me when a prayer isn’t a direct translation[i.e. from the Hebrew, Ladino, or Yiddish] but is the songwriter’s impression of the prayer. I want the freedom to interpret a prayer how I feel it, which can change on any given day or at different times in my life. Giving someone a specific image to look at while praying cuts them off from their own inner dialog. …I think this is part of a larger trend of the dumbing down of our society. The less people think for themselves, the less they engage in critical thinking. We will have a nation of people plugged into (lulled by) screens and that leaves them vulnerable to whoever wants to control them, be it for good or for ill.” 

I agree with Shelly. After all, we Jews are Am haSefer – The People of the Book. I always prefer holding a book in my hands. I don’t read books on Kindle and though it’s more convenient to download books especially when traveling instead of carrying them in my luggage, I prefer the latter to the former.

A colleague wrote to me after I posted Shelly’s response on RAVKAV. He agreed with her saying: “We are a book culture — which means that we should be able to browse through a book and study it. The last thing we need is to strengthen our addiction to screens.”

 

Reform Judaism doubles down on Israel engagement and Reform Zionism

27 Thursday Sep 2018

Posted by rabbijohnrosove in American Jewish Life, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History, Jewish Identity, Social Justice, Women's Rights

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Our Reform movement has taken the drift among some American liberal Jews seriously and is stressing the importance of the peoplehood and State of Israel as intrinsic to the fabric of American liberal Jewish identity.
 
Read this article – it’s important!
 
http://jewishjournal.com/analysis/239498/reform-judaism-doubles-zionism/

High Holiday Sermons 2018-5779 – Temple Israel of Hollywood, Los Angeles

20 Thursday Sep 2018

Posted by rabbijohnrosove in American Jewish Life, Ethics, Holidays, Inuyim - Prayer reflections and ruminations, Israel and Palestine, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History, Jewish Identity, Jewish-Christian Relations, Jewish-Islamic Relations, Musings about God/Faith/Religious life, Social Justice

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The following are my farewell sermons after serving Temple Israel of Hollywood for 30 years. This is my last High Holiday season before my retirement at the end of June, 2019. These are highly personal sermons, but they reflect the greater themes and challenges that Judaism presents us during the High Holidays, and were the best personal reflections on a forty-year rabbinate and thirty years at my home congregation.

For all TIOH Rabbis’ Sermons in 2018, go to

https://www.tioh.org/worship/rabbis/clergystudy  These include sermons by Rabbi John Rosove, Rabbi Michelle Missaghieh, and Rabbi Jocee Hudson

The following are the sermons I delivered, the final High Holiday sermons I am ever likely to deliver:

Rosh Hashanah 5779  – “Carrying forward the Life of Our People”

Video Direct Link – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqcY1nwo0tc

Text – https://www.tioh.org/images/Worship/ClergyStudy/HH_Sermons/John_Rosove/5779/Carrying_Forward_the_Life_of_Our_People-RH2018.pdf

Kol Nidre 5779 –  “What I Wish for You”

Video Direct Link – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPHP_ui4YQ4

Text – https://www.tioh.org/images/Worship/ClergyStudy/HH_Sermons/John_Rosove/5779/What-I-wish-for-you-RJohn-KN-2018.pdf

Yom Kippur Yizkor 5779 – “Midrash on the Death of Moses”

Text only – https://www.tioh.org/images/Worship/ClergyStudy/HH_Sermons/John_Rosove/5779/Midrash-on-the-Death-of-Moses-RJohn-YK-2018.pdf

 

 

Ha’azinu – A World with Teshuvah and Messianic Expectancy

20 Thursday Sep 2018

Posted by rabbijohnrosove in Divrei Torah, Ethics, Health and Well-Being, Holidays, Inuyim - Prayer reflections and ruminations, Musings about God/Faith/Religious life, Uncategorized

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“Give ear, O heavens, that I may speak, / Hear, O Earth, the utterance of my mouth. / Let my teaching drip like rain, / Let my words flow like dew, ‘ Like droplets on new growth, / Like showers on grass.” (Deuteronomy 32:1-2)

“Like an eagle protecting its nest / Over its young-birds hovering, / He spread out his wings, he took him, / Bearing him on his pinions.” (Deuteronomy 32:11)

“See now that I, am he / I myself bring-death, bestow-life / I wound and I myself heal, / And there is from my hand no rescuing! / For I lift up my hand to the heavens, / And say: As I live, for the ages.” (Deuteronomy 32:40)

These are among the fifty-two verses in this week’s Torah portion Ha’azinu (Deuteronomy 32), one of the shortest portions in the annual Torah reading cycle.

Though these verses are magnificent poetry, the Torah isn’t largely a poetic text. Rather, it’s a series of legal texts set in a narrative context. For poetry we have to search elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible – the soaring visions of the prophets, the yearnings of the Psalms, the saga of Job, and the eroticism of the Song of Songs.

Despite the Torah’s narrative and legal style, this portion closes in a burst of poetry as Moses nears the end of his life.

Essentially, Parashat Ha’azinu is a poetic meditation on the covenantal relationship between God and Israel. It’s graphic and written from the prospective of God, not Moses. Its themes dwell not upon the strength of the divine-human bond, but upon its weakness. Israel is characterized not as a covenantal lover, but as a treacherous adversary prepared to smash the covenant and cavort with other gods.

Towards the end of the poem, Moses shifts suddenly from speaking as a third-person narrator into the first person as God’s prophet. We envision an enraged God Who intends to hand Israel over to its most vicious enemies and its ultimate devastation. Fearing Israel’s demise to polytheism and oblivion, God reverses the divine decree, vanquishes Israel’s enemies and renews the covenant.

One scholar suggested that this poem is a CAT scan of God’s mind embracing the totality of divine rage, longing and love. Though God did indeed reverse the divine decree, it wasn’t because of divine compassion; rather, it was the consequence of divine pride.

There is something especially shocking about this poem, and that it’s missing utterly the idea of Teshuvah.

One would think that at the end of the annual Torah reading cycle that coincides each year with the close of the Yamim Noraim that Torah would affirm the covenantal bond between God and Israel as a consequence of Israel’s Teshuvah and return to God. But, the poem ignores the possibility of Israel’s repentance and presents a world devoid of the capacity of the people to alter God’s will through its contrition and Teshuvah.

It’s difficult to imagine living our lives without Teshuvah. Perhaps, that’s the point of the poem, to show us what such a world would be like without the possibility of our return, without the life-sustaining value of hope.

Judaism understands that Teshuvah is so indispensable for human welfare that the Talmudic sage Resh Lakish insisted that God conceived of Teshuvah before creating the world and wove Teshuvah into the fabric of creation itself.

The prophetic and rabbinic concept of repentance is among Judaism’s most ennobling and inspiring affirmations. Judaism rejects a fatalistic world, one in which what was will always be without the possibility of personal and communal evolution. Judaism affirms that we do indeed have a measure of control over our lives, that we can improve ourselves and be better morally and spiritually than we were. Though perfection isn’t the goal of the Yamim Noraim, self-improvement is.

Since our beginnings as a people we Jews have been buoyed by hope and messianic expectancy, all made possible by Teshuvah.

And so, perhaps, Ha’azinu is a warning about what our lives really would be like without the covenant and without our capacity to be better than we were.

Shabbat Shalom.

Note: Translation of the Hebrew are from “The Schocken Bible: Volume 1 – The Five Books of Moses” with a new translation and Introductions, Commentary, and Notes by Everett Fox

 

 

 

25 Years ago hope was in the air – Not anymore for now!

14 Friday Sep 2018

Posted by rabbijohnrosove in American Politics and Life, Israel and Palestine, Israel/Zionism

≈ Leave a comment

Former Ambassador Martin Indyk writes in The Atlantic…

“The Day Israeli-Palestinian Peace Seemed Within Reach: Perhaps when Mahmoud Abbas, Benjamin Netanyahu, and Donald Trump leave the scene, it will be time to try again. Perhaps then someone will dig up the video of that magical day in September 1993, when peace seemed within reach, and when an American president promised Israelis and Palestinians “the quiet miracle of a normal life.”

https://bit.ly/2x9ep4w

theatlantic.com
The Day Israeli-Palestinian Peace Seemed Within Reach
Twenty-five years after the Oslo Accords were signed, the process is…

Meet the Israeli Volunteers Who Offer Rides and Hope to Sick Palestinians – Haaretz by Dina Kraft

13 Thursday Sep 2018

Posted by rabbijohnrosove in Israel and Palestine, Israel/Zionism, Jewish Identity

≈ 1 Comment

In the context of so much negative press about Israeli policies in the West Bank, this story from the Israeli daily newspaper “Haaretz” is powerful, inspiring, and unexpected. Haaretz’s story speaks for itself. Jews the world over ought to feel proud that 1400 Israeli volunteers are helping thousands of Palestinians reach hospitals and clinics in Israel from the West Bank on a daily and weekly basis.

The following is the Haaretz story. Share it especially with those who ought to know that Israelis are performing the mitzvah of g’milut chassadim (loving-kindness) for their Palestinian neighbors without expectation of compensation or reward.

 

“The Road to Recovery organization collects Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza borders and takes them to Israeli hospitals for treatment.

It’s almost 6:30 A.M. and the sun is rising quickly over the Sha’ar Efraim checkpoint separating Israel and the West Bank. Amid the rush of Palestinian workers heading toward vans that will take them to jobs inside Israel stand the Alwaneh family, including 3-year-old Kais clutching a “Bob the Builder” backpack.

The father, Samir Alwaneh, 41, smokes a cigarette, his face tense. The family is waiting for a driver from Israel – someone they have never met before – who will collect them and take them the 32 kilometers (20 miles) to Israel’s largest hospital, Sheba Medical Center, near Tel Aviv. It is time for another surgery for Kais, who was badly burned in a fire last year, leaving his face severely disfigured and his hands as stumps. This will be his fourth surgery and is meant to help repair damage to the skin around one of his eyes.

The family looks up to see Orli Shalem, 56, driving up in a blue hatchback. Shalem, a member of Kibbutz Ma’abarot, is with Derech Hachlama (The Road to Recovery), an organization boasting some 1,400 Israeli volunteers who drive Palestinians from border checkpoints – both in Gaza and the West Bank – for medical treatment inside Israel.

Tens of thousands of Palestinians are treated in Israeli hospitals every year, most for cancer or heart problems, and many of them are children. There are between 30 and 60 rides given per day; without them, the Palestinian patients and their families would be left to foot the cost of taxis to the hospitals, which can cost anything from 150 to 400 shekels ($41 to $110) each way.

“It’s a small way of helping, but it is some kind of help, and a way to show we care so they [the Palestinians] can see there is not just the brutal, threatening side of Israel,” explains Shalem as she heads west to the hospital.

Shalem and the Alwanehs had exchanged a quick and limited greeting of “Shalom” when they met, since Shalem does not speak Arabic and the Alwanehs do not speak Hebrew. It is a common problem.

Tami Suchman, 71, from Kibbutz Beeri near the Gaza border, started volunteering as a driver five years ago. In the past she would try to talk to her passengers as much as possible, even if it meant pushing through the language barrier with hand gestures and facial expressions. “But these days I prefer to speak less,” admits Suchman.

“What is there to say after we agree conditions are bad?” she asks. “We both want things to be good, but understand that it’s going to take a long time till things get better. For me personally, I feel guilt. I find myself apologizing for the situation that I’m ashamed we are even in.”

“I don’t justify what they are doing – for example, with the burning kites,” Suchman adds, referring to the recent incidents that have set thousands of dunams of kibbutz fields ablaze, “but I understand where it comes from.”

This language gap can feel like a metaphor for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict itself. Road to Recovery was founded in 2006 with the hope that, amid the seemingly intractable conflict, the human connection and goodwill forged in these rides might eventually help break down walls, both psychological and real, between Israelis and Palestinians.

It was established by Yuval Roth, who had become active in the Parents Circle Families Forum – which brings bereaved families from both sides of the conflict together – after his brother was killed by Hamas terrorists in 1993. It was at one of these meetings, in 2005, that he met a Palestinian woman whose brother was ill. She asked Roth to drive him from a checkpoint for treatment in Israel – and that one ride developed into a nonprofit that is now on the brink of expanding inside the West Bank as well, offering Palestinians rides to both sides of the checkpoint. Legendary Canadian singer Leonard Cohen was the project’s first donor.

Road to Recovery describes itself as an apolitical organization, drawing volunteers from across the political spectrum – including retired army officers and even a small number of Jewish settlers. For people like Shalem, however, the act of volunteering is also a political one. She opposes the Israeli occupation and says the rides are one of the few ways she has found to express that opposition in a practical and, she says, hopefully helpful way.

Alwaneh says the round-trip rides to the Israeli hospitals are a big help. And the medical care his son has received in Israel has moved him, noting: “Their treatment of Israeli and Palestinians is the same there – they treat Kais like a boy, like any other boy.”

Neely Gardin, 53, opens the gate that leads from her house to her car on a narrow street in a Tel Aviv suburb. This is her first day as a volunteer driver and she has given herself extra time to get to the Efraim checkpoint. Once there, she will rendezvous with Shalem – who will help if there are any problems – and the Palestinians she is driving to hospital.

She’s never been to a checkpoint before and says she does not know any Palestinians from either the West Bank or Gaza. She is not a particularly political person, she points out, but heard about the organization and just knew she wanted to help out.

The dawn sky grows lighter as she navigates her car past olive groves, open fields and, eventually, the sprawling Arab-Israeli city of Taibeh. The checkpoint comes into view and she calls Naim Albeida when she parks.

Palestinians need permits to enter Israel, and the permit system can be cumbersome and slow – final authorizations from the Israeli army usually only come a day before a patient’s appointment at the hospital, and if they arrive too late the patient cannot travel. Albeida, a Palestinian who lives in the West Bank, oversees the logistics for the Palestinian patients, working as a link between the PA, the Israeli army and Road to Recovery.

Gardin follows Albeida’s instructions and finds her Palestinian patient at the border. She greets Rami, 32, a cancer patient who has finished his treatment but is going to Israel for some tests. He is accompanied by his wife and mother. Neely and Rani start chatting in Hebrew and he tells her about his young daughters, showing her some photos.

“The thing that struck me most was how normal, how everyday, it all felt,” Gardin tells Haaretz afterward. “It’s very important to see that the person who stands on the other side [of the border] is a human being. We know that theoretically, but until we are with someone real, that remains only an idea. We forget everything that we have in common, because we are all so focused on the conflict, each side wrapped up in their own justifications.”

Albeida has only been a Road to Recovery staffer for a few months. But he’s been helping out as a volunteer since 2010, when he stumbled upon the organization while looking for ways to help a neighbor find an affordable way to get to an Israeli hospital.

When he first heard about it, he admits not believing that such help could really exist. He called Roth, who told him, “Sure, no problem.”

“And I said, ‘No problem? What do you mean no problem?” recounts Albeida – who even traveled with his neighbor to see with his own eyes that it was all real.

“I met the volunteer at the crossing and I thought to myself, ‘She’s like an angel, not a person,’” recalls Albeida, who lives in Kafr Jayus, near the city of Qalqilyah. Every day after that, he started communicating with Roth, helping to coordinate the rides.

It was not easy: He was working in construction, often receiving urgent phone calls while he was atop a ladder or up scaffolding. He says he lost two jobs because of those phone calls. “It interfered with my focus on the job, but what could I do? There were medical emergencies going on,” Albeida explains.

He credits his fluent Hebrew not only to 25 years working on construction sites in Israel but also to a woman named Dalia, whom his mother befriended when he was a young boy. His mother worked as a cleaner in an Israeli hospital, where Dalia was a nurse.

“I learned early on that not all Israelis are soldiers who come into our homes and arrest us. They are also people living their normal lives,” says Albeida. “I know the occupation is what ruined lives on both sides.”

Albeida adds that he noticed the Israeli volunteers’ desire to connect more deeply with Palestinians, so now he hosts lunches at his home once a month for people on both sides of the border to get together. “After the meal we sit and talk, and discuss our shared future,” he says.

After about an hour’s drive, Shalem pulls up at the Sheba Medical Center. Kais is whimpering in the backseat. Seeking to distract him, his mother, Hanna, tickles him and covers his burned face with kisses.

Shalem watches as the family walks toward the hospital entrance. “Goodbye, and good luck,” she calls out.

https://bit.ly/2MqgqxS

I Stand with Planned Parenthood

12 Wednesday Sep 2018

Posted by rabbijohnrosove in American Politics and Life, Ethics, Social Justice, Women's Rights

≈ 1 Comment

This comes to me from my daughter in-law, Marina Rosove Javor, a major gifts officer of PPLA.

Dr. Leana Wen is the first physician to lead Planned Parenthood in 50 years and an immigrant who came to the US as a political refugee. She is the current Commissioner of Health for the City of Baltimore and this past year she helped lead lawsuits against Trump Administration for unlawfully sabotaging the Affordable Care Act and for cutting teen pregnancy prevention funds.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8bCLk-eueo&feature=youtu.be

youtube.com
A Message from Dr. Leana Wen, Incoming President of Planned Parenthood | Planned Parenthood Video
For the first time in nearly 50 years, a doctor will lead Planned Parenthood. Meet our new president, Dr.…

Teshuvah – Hope over despair

12 Wednesday Sep 2018

Posted by rabbijohnrosove in American Jewish Life, Divrei Torah, Ethics, Holidays, Inuyim - Prayer reflections and ruminations, Musings about God/Faith/Religious life

≈ 1 Comment

The central theme of the High Holiday season is t’shuvah (return, turn, response), a process that brings us back to our truest ourselves, our families, friends, community, the Jewish people, Torah, and God. T’shuvah is ultimately an expression of hope that the way we are today need not be who we remain tomorrow.

T’shuvah is a step-by-step process of re-engaging with our highest selves, of turning away from negative and destructive tendencies (i.e. yetzer hara – the evil inclination) and embracing that which is good in our nature (yetzer hatov – the good inclination), such as living according to the virtues of humility, gratitude, generosity, compassion, and loving-kindness.

The t’shuvah process often begins with a sense of despair, hopelessness, and sadness, the feeling that we’re forever stuck where we are and are unable to change the nature, character, or direction of our lives. Judaism, however, rejects stagnation, pessimism, and cynicism, and urges us to transcend those impediments that prevent our personal transformation and the creation of a more hopeful future.

In the story of the prophet Jonah that’s read on the afternoon of Yom Kippur, the prophet descends into hopelessness and despair and then when all seems its most bleak, he turns his life around. Jonah is an unrealized prophet who runs from himself, from civilization, from moral responsibility, and from God. Every verb associated with his bleak journey into the netherworld uses the language of descent (Hebrew words with a root that includes these three letters: yod-resh-daled). He flees from God’s command to preach to the Ninevites down to the seashore. He boards a ship and goes down into its interior. He lies down and falls into a deep sleep. He’s thrown overboard down into the waters by his terrified ship-mates. He’s swallowed into the belly of a great fish, and there he remains for three days and nights until out of darkness and from desperation Jonah realizes that he wants to live and not die. At last he cries out to God to save him.

God responds by making the fish vomit Jonah out onto dry land and into the light of day. Jonah agrees this time to do God’s bidding and preach to the Ninevites to turn away from their evil ways. While the town’s people don sackcloth and ashes (a sign of their humility and willingness to change), God provides Jonah with shade and protection from the sun’s intolerable heat. Jonah, however, is mortified because he doesn’t believe in change and is convinced that the Ninevites are destined to fail in their penetance. In Jonah’s mind, the Ninevites’ success makes him appear the fool, more evidence that Jonah didn’t understand the first principle of t’shuvah, that change is possible if there is acknowledgment of wrong-doing and a will to fashion a new way of being in one’s life.

T’shuvah is never easy. It’s for those who are strong of mind, heart, and soul, who are willing to suffer failure, but also to get up, own what we’ve done, acknowledge our wrong-doing, apologize unconditionally to those we’ve hurt, and recommit to our struggle for greater enlightenment, step-by-step, patiently, one day at a time, one hour at a time, and even one moment at a time.

When successful, t’shuvah is restorative and utopian, for it enables us to return to our truest selves and overcome the past for the sake of a better future.

Barack Obama speaks out at last!

07 Friday Sep 2018

Posted by rabbijohnrosove in American Politics and Life, Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

From Politico

Barack Obama launched his midterm campaigning Friday at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, arguing that President Donald Trump poses such a threat to America that it forced him to speak out in an unprecedented way for a former president.

“I’m here today because this is one of those pivotal moments when every one of us as citizens of the United States need to determine just who we are, what it is that we stand for,” Obama said. “As a fellow citizen, not as an ex-president, I’m here to deliver a simple message, which is that you need to vote, because our democracy depends on it.”

Read more: https://www.politico.com/story/2018/09/07/obama-says-trump-has-pushed-america-to-a-pivotal-moment-810650

A Prayer for Peace in the New Year

06 Thursday Sep 2018

Posted by rabbijohnrosove in American Jewish Life, Ethics, Holidays, Inuyim - Prayer reflections and ruminations, Israel/Zionism, Jewish Identity, Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

May we hold lovingly in our thoughts / those who suffer from tyranny, subjection, cruelty, and injustice / and work every day towards the alleviation of their suffering.

May we recognize our solidarity / with the stranger, outcast, downtrodden, abused, and deprived / that no human being be treated as “other” / that our common humanity weaves us together / in one fabric of mutuality / one garment of destiny.

May we pursue the Biblical prophet’s vision of peace / that we might live harmoniously with each other / and side by side / respecting differences / cherishing diversity / with no one exploiting the weak / each living without fear of the other / each revering Divinity in every human soul.

May we struggle against institutional injustice and governmental corruption / free those from oppression and contempt / act with purity of heart and mind / despising none / defrauding none / hating none / cherishing all / honoring every child of God and every creature of the earth.

May the Jewish people, the State of Israel, and all peoples / know peace in this New Year / and may we nurture kindness and love everywhere.

L’shanah tovah tikateivu

Rabbi John L. Rosove – Temple Israel of Hollywood, Los Angeles

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