The best I can do at encapsulating the Jewish concept of repentance is “I’m sorry and feel badly for what I did wrong, and I’m trying hard not to do it again.” As I compose this quarterly rabbinic message, we are rapidly approaching the High Holidays, and I am focused on repentance. With each passing year, I delve deeper into the meaning and beauty of the extended Jewish calendar season that starts around mid-summer and extends through Sukkot in the fall. I’ve been reading the powerful book by Rabbi Alan Lew entitled, “This is Real and You Are Completely Unprepared: The Days of Awe as a Journey of Transformation,” and will use this theme for several upcoming talks and sermons.
Over the last three months I was privileged to officiate at several life cycle events. A teenage friend, navigating difficult family relationship issues, sought solace in a name-change ceremony. For my remarks, I referenced the text from Tractate Rosh HaShanah. In the Talmud, change of name is mentioned along with repentance, prayer, and charity in the list of actions to avert the severe decree. A more joyous leadership opportunity was my inaugural same-gender marriage ceremony. I felt honored to join two people together whose love and commitment toward each other was so evident; this first-time (but hopefully not last) ceremony afforded me the chance to recite the Shehechiyanu.
I had most fulfilling worship experiences leading services in Los Alamos, Santa Fe, and Las Vegas, New Mexico over the past quarter. My Shabbaton in Las Vegas was held in the acoustically exquisite and historic former Montefiore Synagogue. Following Saturday services I spoke about the role of books in the Jewish text tradition. In Santa Fe, several die-hards listened to my 1 AM lecture on Rabbinic roots of conversion during late night Shavuot study. Other teaching moments were both formal (my monthly classes with the adult B’nai Mitzvah students of HaMakom) and informal (at the end of the service on my Dad’s Yahrzeit where I was joined by Dov and my Mom). 
My daughter, Orli, graduated high school in June, and I shared a Hasidic teaching at the service honoring the graduates. At a reconciliation ceremony on Hiroshima Day marking the opening of a special peace art exhibit I offered a blessing for peace as well as words and song from Jewish tradition. And on a 10-day visit to Vienna in June I enjoyed sharing a few comments on the parasha after our Saturday lunches at Or Chadasch and taught a new tune to the congregation. Teaching goes hand in hand with learning, and I mastered the traditional trope for the Book of Lamentations this year just in time for Tisha B’Av. Over thirty years ago I began serious adult Jewish study with Rabbi Leonard Helman, whose recent death was such a loss to Jews and non-Jews alike in Northern New Mexico. May his memory serve as a blessing.
Beverly, my ezer k’negdo (“sustainer beside me”) spent five weeks in Brooklyn dealing with family issues, leaving me with a feeling of emptiness but also much free time for reading and purchasing books. On the scholarly side, I read Jewish Questions: Responsa on Sephardic Life in the Early Modern Period by Goldish and The Light of the Eyes by de’ Rossi. Lighter non-fiction included a biography titled Moses Mendelssohn: Sage of Modernity by Feiner and The Gods are Broken: The Hidden Legacy of Abraham by Salkin. I can heartily recommend the recent English translation of a Yiddish classic, The Zelmenyaners by Kulbak and two of Wiesel’s more recent works, A Mad Desire to Dance and The Sonderberg Case. Squeezing their way onto the shelves were several biblical commentaries by the 16th century Rabbi Moshe Alshich, plus These are the Words: A Vocabulary of Jewish Spiritual Life by Green, and My Father’s Paradise: A Son’s Search for his Jewish Past in Kurdish Iraq by Sabar among (probably too many) others. I am blessed that Beverly is so supportive of the library, lest I be forced to say “I’m sorry and feel badly for what I bought, and I’m trying hard not to do it again.”
Have a wonderful High Holiday season, and may you and all your loved ones be written into the Book of Life for a healthy and happy new year.
B’shalom, Rabbi Jack