From Aug. 29 to Oct. 10, Thursday mornings at Ohr Kodesh Congregation are dedicated to learning a main theme of the High Holidays. These learning sessions at the Chevy Chase synagogue are led by Rabbi Corey Helfand, who has been teaching Jewish tradition for more than 15 years.
The theme for this year’s High Holidays at Ohr Kodesh is hineni hayom, “here I am today,” reflected by the five interactive learning sessions.
“It’s a play on the idea of showing up: showing up in community, showing up for the world, showing up for Israel, showing up for each other through a lens of volunteering, learning, spiritual growth and activism,” Helfand said. “It’s designed around the idea that we’ve had a really hard year, and … we need to keep showing up for each other the way that we have been over the last year.”
He added that the framework for High Holidays learning is what it means to come back together. Rabbi Batya Glazer, the director of lifelong learning, and Cantor Hinda Eisen Labovitz are also teaching “to get us ready and in the mood for the High Holidays season.”
Sounds of the Shofar
The first session focuses on exploring the sounds of the shofar and the significance of Yom Teruah, the “Day of Trumpets.”
Helfand said the person blowing the shofar produces short, staccato sounds and longer, broken sounds.
“I’ll use it as an opportunity to teach both about the meaning and symbolism of sound itself and how it also invokes certain emotions, not just for the holidays, but for what we’ve all been experiencing over the last year: brokenness and tears and the search for wholeness,” Helfand said.
The ancient musical horn carries a rich Jewish history rife with symbolism.
“The shofar is seen as a spiritual wake-up call,” Helfand said. “It’s like an alarm clock to reorient ourselves to certain things that perhaps we’ve neglected, behaviors that we want to change or reflect on, relationships we want to reengage with that are broken.”
He said the symbolism comes from the binding of Isaac, one of the most well-known narratives in the Torah — Abraham is commanded by God to sacrifice his son, Isaac. Abraham binds Isaac to an altar, but changes his mind at the last minute, instead offering a ram caught in the thicket nearby.
“The ram becomes that symbol of incredible need for intention about who we sacrifice, how we sacrifice, what we sacrifice, the things that we’re placing on the altar that we shouldn’t,” Helfand said. “And [for] attentiveness to close calls — on the one hand, heeding God’s command, instruction on the other hand, and the tension that exists between those spaces.”
Helfand said blowing the shofar isn’t limited to clergy members. Most who blow the shofar are horn players or those who have a musical inclination. On the Day of Teruah, the shofar is blown 100 times: a whole sound, three broken sounds, nine short staccato sounds and another whole sound.
“They each mirror emotion — wholeness, brokenness — and they also mirror other feelings that we have,” Helfand said. “High Holidays are really a time of vulnerability and these emotions come out in the sound of the shofar. At the very end, there’s one final large blast, which brings us all together, reorients us.”
Rosh Hashanah Musaf
The middle three sessions will cover the Rosh Hashanah musaf service’s three components: examining God through sovereignty, memory and the sound of the shofar.
Musaf, meaning “additional,” describes the service that is recited on Shabbat, the High Holy Days and other Jewish festivals.
“We’re going to be looking at the images of God and those services as a way of entering theologically and spiritually, and what it means to show up both in relationship with God and with each other,” Helfand said.
‘This I Confess’
The final installment of High Holidays Learning comes right before Yom Kippur, which begins on the evening of Oct. 11 this year. As such, the theme is vidui, confessional prayers; Helfand explores what it means to confess one’s sins, how to confess, what we should be confessing and what it means for us when someone else confesses.
Helfand noted that these confessions also apply to the rest of the year.
“The really hard work that people think is often done only on Yom Kippur really can be done anytime during the year, and should be done in a timely manner when we screw up,” Helfand said.
He added that if something is weighing on a person, the best approach is to come to him or another clergy member for a one-on-one conversation about the issue.
Though Helfand believes most of this work is done outside of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the High Holidays period is a serious time of self-reflection.
“The High Holidays asks us to be completely open and vulnerable with ourselves, with God and with each other, about places where we have missed the mark, where we can do better and where we need to grow,” Helfand said. “That work is through repentance, through forgiveness, through acknowledgment of our own wrongdoings and faults. It requires a radical honesty of the fact that we’re imperfect and we can all grow.”
Many of his readings include flawed characters who are imperfect like us, Helfand said, adding that anyone is welcome to attend his learning sessions regardless of their knowledge of Jewish texts.
“For the High Holidays, we want everyone to feel like they have a place,” Helfand said.
