By Rabbi Deborah K. Bravo

Throughout the month of Elul, I have shared daily reflections to help each of us prepare for the High Holy Day Season.  I hope these thoughts have inspired each of us to make time, find the energy and initiate some passion as we reflect and examine this past year, in preparation for the year to come.

For my final message of the year 5774, I wanted to share some personal thoughts as I enter into this New Year.  I have heard from many of you how much you have enjoyed receiving these blogs this month.  I want to thank a few key friends and colleagues who encouraged me to write and to share my voice. 

Many of you have asked how I could find so many different things to share.  I would challenge each of you, in this New Year, to find a way to use your own voice, as I have rediscovered mine.  If you are interested in blogging, let me know.  We are happy to have guest bloggers at any time, and our audience would appreciate hearing from different voices on differing topics.

I would also love to hear from you reflections or thoughts on individual posts or topics from the month of Elul.  In my mind, blogging is meant not simply to be a one-way conversation, but an opportunity to begin a dialogue.  As we begin the journey of 5775 together, let it be a year filled with heart-to-heart connecting and sharing.

Many of you know that for me, this year will be one of self-reflection and evaluation.  As I determine the next phase of my journey in life, I hope to do so while living every day to its fullest, surrounded by great family and wonderful friends, colleagues and community members.  I look forward to sharing with you in this New Year.

As impersonal and indirect as it may be, I wish to say to all friends, family, colleagues, co-workers and readers, that for anything I may have done to hurt you in this past year, either directly or indirectly, intentionally or unintentionally, I am truly sorry.  I am certain I will still make mistakes as we enter into this New Year, for I am only human, but I will strive not to make the same mistakes I made in this past year.

Finally, I wish to give a special thanks to my husband David, our 10-year-old son Sam and 8-year-old daughter Sophie, who have been incredibly patient (most of the time) during this month of Elul, as I have blogged each day, in addition to the sermons, services and other work I needed to accomplish during this time.  They traveled this journey with me, and the month of Elul has included unpacking from camp, a trip to South Africa, the beginning of 5th and 3rd grades, Hebrew school, a new art class, a new soccer team, swim tryouts, a new skating class, and so much more.  Despite the chaos, each of those events and the responses and feelings of my family, as well as others, have influenced the words that poured out of me throughout this month.  So I simply say... thank you.

L’shanah Tovah.  May you have a sweet, happy and healthy New Year!
Rabbi Debbie Bravo

So for one final time this year,
let the sound of the shofar be heard;
And let our souls be awakened!

By Rabbi Deborah K. Bravo

Throughout the month of Elul, the month preceding Rosh Hashanah, I will be sharing daily reflections to help each of us prepare for the upcoming High Holy Day Season.  I hope these thoughts inspire each of us to make time, find the energy and initiate some passion as we reflect and examine this past year, in preparation for the year to come.

In Hebrew, there is a system of letters counting as numbers, called Gematria.  An aleph stands for 1, a bet for two, and so forth.  Tonight begins the 28th day of the month of Elul, otherwise known as kaf, chet (20+8).  The Hebrew word kaf-chet is koach, or strength.  (This is a typical way of coordinating certain numbers with words.)

How fitting that two days before Rosh Hashanah we are focusing on strength.  It is not easy to enter into a New Year as our text teaches, with focus, consideration and observation.  Neither is it easy to do teshuvah, repentance, or slichah, forgiveness. 

And yet, we are commanded to do both, and so we ask for strength, today and in this New Year.  It takes koach, strength, to reach deep down into our souls, to share intimate thoughts and concerns, to apologize and to accept apology.  Sometimes, asking for strength allows us to realize the strength that exists within us, that we never knew we had.

I remember being a child, perhaps a teenager, when there was a huge storm that flooded the local damns and rivers.  Our neighborhood growing up was a few blocks from a small lake, and though we experienced a mere four feet of water in our basement, for many it was much worse.  A close family friend, who lived on the cul-de-sac backing up to the lake, had water heading up to her second level of the house.  One could only get to her home and the homes around her by boat, for the streets were that badly flooded.  She was divorced, living in the home with her two girls, and was about five feet tall.

I am not sure how, but she hoisted her living room couch, which had value to her, and carried it upstairs to her bedroom.  I am certain she did not have any idea the kind of strength that was within her, nor has she necessarily seen that strength again, but in the moment when she needed it most, she exerted great strength. 

We all have a strength within us far beyond what we realize.  The strength to do right; the strength to see beyond ourselves; the physical strength to help and do what is necessary in crucial and pivotal times. 

During these upcoming Days of Awe,
May we have the strength to look inward.
May we have the strength to listen, and to be heard.
May we have the strength to do teshuvah, to repent.
May we have the strength to ask for forgiveness,
And forgive others.

L'shanah Tovah,
Rabbi Debbie Bravo


Now let the sound of the shofar be heard;
And let our souls be awakened!

By Rabbi Deborah K. Bravo

Throughout the month of Elul, the month preceding Rosh Hashanah, I will be sharing daily reflections to help each of us prepare for the upcoming High Holy Day Season.  I hope these thoughts inspire each of us to make time, find the energy and initiate some passion as we reflect and examine this past year, in preparation for the year to come.

Tonight begins the 27th day of Elul, only three days until Erev Rosh Hashanah. So it is time for us to allow the many themes of this month to lead us on a path of teshuvah, of repentance, and through repentance, perhaps we will find a sense of renewal and revival. 

I remember, a few years ago, that I had been out of touch with two dear friends.  During the month of Elul, perhaps because it was the month of Elul, I reached out to each one of them.  Though my emails were not filled with the classic terminology around teshuvah, that of asking forgiveness and repent, I did apologize for the lack of connection and communication that had occurred for many months. 

One friend saw this as an opportunity to rekindle our friendship, and it started a regular flow of emails and phone calls, as if no time had passed.  Now, even though we may not speak for months, we do not ever hesitate any more to be in touch with one another, because we acknowledged verbally the awkward pain of no communication for too long.

The other of these friends returned my email with a heart felt email of pain and challenge that she had been experiencing in life.  She was sorry as well, in her own way, that we had not been in touch.  I will forever treasure that correspondence for it was our last meaningful one.  Just a few months later, she died very quickly and far too young, and I knew that God’s light had encouraged me to reach out during that particular month of Elul, to mend a bridge that needed repair.

Sometimes all we need to do to make teshuvah is to simply reach out; to show we care.  Other times, we need to work a bit harder to ask forgiveness, and to repent.  We are taught that there are two kinds of repentance: repentance between human beings, and repentance between ourselves and our God. 

As the New Year is almost upon us, let us begin to truly make teshuvah.  The first time you either ask for or receive teshuvah, it may feel awkward or strange.  But there is something so powerful about the process of teshuvah, both for one who is seeking the teshuvah, and the one who might be receiving it as well.

As we hear the hundred blasts of the shofar on Rosh Hashanah, let our souls be awakened, and let it be a call for us to truly begin, if we have not already done so, the real process of teshuvah.

Shanah Tovah,
Rabbi Debbie Bravo

Now let the sound of the shofar be heard!

By Rabbi Deborah K. Bravo

Throughout the month of Elul, the month preceding Rosh Hashanah, I will be sharing daily reflections to help each of us prepare for the upcoming High Holy Day Season.  I hope these thoughts inspire each of us to make time, find the energy and initiate some passion as we reflect and examine this past year, in preparation for the year to come.

Shavua Tov!  As we join together for Selichot this evening, we strongly and intentionally turn our thoughts and contemplations to that of forgiveness.  Selichot is a service held the Saturday night prior to Rosh Hashanah (or the week prior if that provides less than four days of reflection until the New Year).  During this service, we begin to hear the melodies of the High Holy Days, share in some of the traditional High Holy Day liturgy, and change our Torah covers to white, for the pureness and holiness of the Holy Days. 

Most importantly, we begin reciting prayers of selichah, or forgiveness.  As we end the final Shabbat of 5774, we reflect on this past year, and begin to concretely determine how we must ask for forgiveness as we enter the New Year.  We offer the words of the traditional confessional:

            Our God and God of our ancestors,
            May our prayers come before You
            And may You not ignore our pleas.
            We are neither so arrogant nor so stubborn
            As to declare that we are righteous and have not sinned:
            For indeed, we have sinned.

Forgiveness cannot take place without an inward realization of the wrong that has been done, an ownership of these actions or words or thoughts, and an attempt to make this right during this next year.  Sometimes we need to ask forgiveness of ourselves, for what we did not accomplish or complete in this past year.  Sometimes we ask forgiveness from our closest loved ones and friends, for small and large things we may have done or said.  Sometimes we ask forgiveness from those we don’t know well, but whom we hurt and need to ask forgiveness in order to move forward into this New Year with a whole heart.  Sometimes there are those whom we have hurt and we are oblivious to this, and therefore need to ask a general forgiveness from those we may have hurt, even if we are unaware.

The heart of the prayers we offer known as selichot is based on two verses from the Torah, known as the Thirteen Attributes of God: Adonai, Adonai, God of compassion, gracious, endlessly patient, loving and true, showing mercy to the thousandth generation, forgiving evil, defiance and wrongdoing, granting pardon (Exodus 34:6-7).   We understand that every time we as a people have missed the mark, we have erred, we should reflect on this passage, and know that God will forgive us.  If our God can forgive us, then we, too, should forgive ourselves and others.

May this be a year of forgiveness.
May we know how to ask, and may we learn how to receive.
And may it be soon.

L'shanah Tovah,
Rabbi Debbie Bravo

Now let the sound of the shofar be heard;
And let our souls be awakened!

Throughout the month of Elul, the month preceding Rosh Hashanah, I will be sharing daily reflections to help each of us prepare for the upcoming High Holy Day Season.  I hope these thoughts inspire each of us to make time, find the energy and initiate some passion as we reflect and examine this past year, in preparation for the year to come.

I know for many of us, we do not love the word renewal.  Perhaps it feels too 1960’s, too loose and open, without enough concrete guidance and direction.  I also think that the idea of renewal as we contemplate a personal renewal takes work.  There is no guidebook or simple one-page summary of how to go about personal renewal.

Yet there is perhaps nothing more valuable and worthy than allowing ourselves to experience renewal as we look at our lives, our relationships, our families, our work, our Judaism, and so much more.  To regenerate ourselves, is, by definition, spiritual renewal, and it encompasses all aspects of our lives. 

There is a Jewish Renewal Movement, and when investigating their mission, I learned that Jewish Renewal, as a movement, is grounded in Judaism’s prophetic traditions, similar to Reform Judaism, and our mystical traditions, the more Kabbalistic aspects of our tradition.  Jewish Renewal carries, as defined on the Movement’s website, “carried forward Judaism’s perpetual process of renewal.  Jewish Renewal seeks to bring creativity, relevance, joy and an all-embracing awareness to spiritual practice, as a path to healing our hearts and finding balance and wholeness....”

I would like to think that many of us strive for this kind of renewal if and when we put our hearts and minds to the task of renewal.  What a wonderful opportunity during the month of Elul, as Rosh Hashanah awaits us but one week away, to allow for reinvigoration and revival, in our lives, our relationships, with Judaism and with God. 

Perhaps as we go through the regular steps of our daily lives, we can pause during the rest of Elul and during the Days of Repentance between the High Holy Days to reflect on the decisions we have made to give direction to our lives.  So often we live life according to what is comfortable, or even necessary.  If we could allow ourselves the freedom to design life with a bit more intention, where might we land? 

Recognizing that we have bills to pay, children and parents to care for, work and home obligations, might we find some aspect in our lives that is open and ready for reviving, and focus on it for this upcoming year.  For some, it might be a renewal of our spirits.  For others, a renewal and attention to our bodies.  For still others, renewal of relationships with friends and family.  Let us start with just one aspect of renewing our lives, and let us do some serious reflection and inner searching to understand how we might accomplish renewal in this New Year.

Now let the sound of the shofar be heard;
And let our souls be awakened!



Shalom,
Rabbi Debbie Bravo

Introduction to Building Bridges, Making Connections, Finding Sunshine:

For many years, I have been contemplating how best to share my voice, to express my opinions, primarily as a rabbi, but certainly as a mother, wife, feminist and Jew as well.  Since I was ordained a rabbi from Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati, OH in 1998, I have primarily used sermons and newsletters as a vehicle to share my thoughts.  However, in today’s society, it is all to clear to me just how limited those audiences might be, and how important it is for me to share thoughts on a variety of topics.  I hope after reading my blog posts, you will sometimes say to yourselves: Bravo, Rabbi Bravo!  And even when you are not impressed, or even in agreement, I hope you will comment and share your own perspectives, and wait for my response.

I intend to share with you topics closest to my heart:  Israel, Feminism, Jewish leadership, Community building in the 21st century, parenting, education and much more.  I’m certain that as I open the gates to write, there will be much to say.

This blog is symbolic of much of the work of my rabbinate, as I have embraced building bridges within each of my communities and beyond; making connections with individuals, families and communities, and finding sunshine even during the most challenging of times.  My voice has evolved as I have evolved as a person, a woman, a rabbi, a wife, a mother and a Jew. 

If you like my thoughts, or share my challenges and questions, I encourage you to re-post, fb, tweet or simply share with your friends and family as well.

We Jews are a people of the book, but today’s books are simply words we find and share with others, words I hope worthy of a rabbi who cares of Jews, children, Torah and learning.  May we travel this journey of opinion, action and response together! May we build more bridges, make new connections, and always find the sunshine that exists behind every cloud!

Shalom,
Rabbi Debbie Bravo