Rosh Hodesh Elul - A Message from Rabbi Kleinbaum - 1 Elul 5769 - August 21, 2009

Today is the first day of the month of Elul. This month leads us to Rosh Hashanah and the Days of Awe. For some, a shofar is sounded every day of the month, psalm 27 recited every day.

Dear CBST Members:

Today is the first day of the month of Elul. This month leads us to Rosh Hashanah and the Days of Awe. For some, a shofar is sounded every day of the month, psalm 27 recited every day. It is a month of preparations. At CBST we are organizing logistics, finalizing services outlines, schedules and leadership, making sure lists and lists and lists of things to get done are done, mailings, movers, etc etc etc. But it is not ONLY a month of physical preparations - as important as they are. Each of us is called upon to do spiritual preparation so that when we sit in the chairs, participate in the services - we are doing it with as full intention and soul as possible.

Now is the time to start asking the questions we will explore in great detail on the Days of Awe themselves. What has our year been like? What have we accomplished with our time? Our attention? Our energy? Our money? What are we proud of? What relationships have been nourishing and meaningful? What losses have we endured? What have we done that we feel ashamed? Who have we hurt? Intentionally or not. What relationships have we ignored, neglected, abused. What can we do to reach out, to make restitution, to repair. How have we treated our bodies? Our souls? Our planet? Our loved ones?

There are no easy answers. But now is the time to make time to think of the questions and to let them rise to the top of the pile. Make your own questions. Dedicate 5 minutes a day for this month to the questions. Give tsedakah .

If there is anything I have done during this year (or previous ones) that has hurt you in any way, PLEASE let me know. I am eager to hear from you.

I want to take the occasion of this annual Elul letter to tell you of some things at CBST we can anticipate with pleasure and pride this year:

We are happy to welcome our new cantorial intern Jason Kaufman - a wonderful singer with a great soul, a gay man and a 5th year cantorial student at HUC-JIR. Jason will begin on September 1st and will be with us for the year.
Our new siddur has been reviewed in the Jerusalem Post Jerusalem Post and the Jewish Forward.
Thanks to many, many people we have a new website! Check it out at www.cbst.org . You can sign up for our email list, order a siddur, sign up for a class, know who is leading what service, read about the vigil we had to support the glbt community in Israel after the murder of two young people this summer and get general news.
We starting a new cohort for the adult b'nai mitzvah class, childrens' programming - check out the website for more information.
Myrna Reich left a bequest in her will to provide for a new Sefer Torah for CBST. We are thrilled that we will be commissioning a new torah this year. There will be many educational programs throughout the year to involve the whole congregation.
Our partnership with the Jerusalem Open House continues. This September a group from Israel will join us for Yom Kippur and programs in the days afterwards. The group will include a delegation of glbt teens.
We received a grant from the Arcus Foundation to support our social justice work. Our Koleynu Team (the social justice effort of the shul) is up and running - We will focus on glbt rights and health care/elder care this year. Check out the website for more info.
The superb Sunday brunch series continues - the first of the season will be on November 1st. Watch the website for more information.
For those who have been laid off or negatively affected by this terrible economy we have a monthly "recession breakfast" at the shul with the rabbis and sometimes special speakers. It is the third Tuesday of every month at Bethune Street at 9:30 am.
Look for a new CBST "look"!
We are partnering with StoryCorps to record the stories of our members.