November 2005 - תִּשְּׁרֵי .. חֶשְׁוָן תשס״ו Tishrei..Cheshvan 5766

Once again my family wants to thank our synagogue family for your love and support through my mother's recent illness. It is very comforting to have a warm and caring community to be at our sides in our time of need. Thank you.

The holy days of Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur have come and gone and another new year has begun. Sukkot, Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah helped us start 5766 with joy and meaning. Now it is time to commit ourselves to a meaningful new year. What are some of the ways that we can make our lives more meaningful?

On Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur we thought a great deal about what we wanted written in the Book of Life this year. Remembering that perhaps we are the ones who write in the Book that for which we want to be remembered, we recall the key words of those holy days, Teshuva, Tefila and Gemilut Hasadim, Repentance, Prayer and Acts of Loving Kindness.

Teshuva, Repentance is something that we do personally, on our own and we do not necessarily have to repent publicly or along with other people. Each individual has to correct misguided actions, make restitution, apologize and make sure that if the opportunity arises again that the same mistake is not repeated. When we make a sincere commitment to a godly life, we can try to reduce the number of misguided deeds and thereby need fewer opportunities for Teshuva.

In many ways Teshuva is the easiest of these three goals just because it is done alone. Tefila, Prayer and Gemilut Hasadim, Acts of Loving Kindness, are more difficult because they require actions in community. As we all know, to have meaningful prayer we need a minyan, a quorum of ten adults. We pray along side of others so that we can learn how to pray. Everyone knows how to talk at or even talk to God, but praying is an additional skill that requires communing with God and listening for God's response which sends us out into the community to live the prayers. On Yom Kippur I suggested that when we pray we should act as if we were auditioning for God. Too often the words of the prayers become an end in and of themselves, instead of a means to the goal of communicating with God. But if we recite, read or rehearse these prayers as if God were truly listening and evaluating our future roles in the theater of life we might put more effort into the experience.

True prayer will move us to Gemilut Hasadim, Acts of Loving Kindness. We have begun the year with our annual food drive for the Alameda County Food Bank, and with the Students Rising Above Tzedakah project. We have collected funds for the homeless Katrina and Rita victims and have begun a trial of providing a sanctuary for a homeless church from our own community. Grace Cathedral Community Church is a small but vibrant Afro-American non-denominational church that uses our facilities twice a week. It is my fervent hope that we can partner with Rev. Smith and his parishioners to make this year one of sincere and effective outreach to our community.

Our rabbis taught: Acts of Loving Kindness are superior even to Tzedakah. Tzedakah can be accomplished only with money; Gemilut Hasadim can be accomplished through personal involvement as well as money. Tzedakah can only be given to the poor; Gemilut Hasadim can be done for both the rich and the poor. Tzedakah applies only to the living; Gemilut Hasadim apply to both the living and the dead. (Talmud Sukkah 49b)

Kein yehi ratzon, may this be God's will Ð Rabbi Harry A. Manhoff, PhD

—Rabbi Harry A. Manhoff, Ph.D., D.D.

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