{"id":47475,"date":"2025-08-29T01:41:32","date_gmt":"2025-08-29T08:41:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=47475"},"modified":"2025-08-27T14:12:24","modified_gmt":"2025-08-27T21:12:24","slug":"preparing-for-high-holidays","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2025\/08\/29\/preparing-for-high-holidays\/","title":{"rendered":"Preparing for High Holidays"},"content":{"rendered":"

We have a new rabbi at Shaarey Zedek, our Winnipeg congregation. This is exciting as well as reassuring for many people. Why? Well, Rabbi Carnie Rose is the son of a rabbi and professor who lived in Winnipeg for many years, Dr. Neal Rose. His brother, Kliel, is a rabbi at Congregation Etz Chayim, another nearby congregation in Winnipeg. So, while Rabbi Carnie is new as a rabbi in Winnipeg, he is also a deeply familiar entity. He became a bar mitzvah at Shaarey Zedek. He went to kindergarten with the synagogue\u2019s current executive director.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This addition to our congregation is welcome, as Rabbi Anibal Mass and our chazzan, Leslie Emery, carry a heavy workload. They are still working hard, don\u2019t get me wrong, but sometimes a new hire can offer support and everybody gets more breaks. I\u2019m only observing this as a congregant and as the child of a Jewish professional. Sure, I serve on a committee, I show up to services, but I can tell there\u2019s been a lot of work lately.<\/p>\n

On a practical level, moving from the United States to Winnipeg is a big change. My family wanted to be supportive \u2013 after all, we too moved from the United States, in 2009 \u2013 so we\u2019ve been helping Rabbi Carnie get his library in order. He\u2019s got, as you might imagine, lots of books. These all got miserably jumbled in the move. While this has got to be stressful, he\u2019s handling it all with good humour. We\u2019ve taken pleasure at getting to look at and learn about all sorts of resources in Hebrew and English that we hadn\u2019t seen before. Some books are like old friends, as I studied them as an undergraduate or in graduate school, but, to be honest, my books aren\u2019t in nearly such good condition.<\/p>\n

This experience mirrors many Jewish volunteer activities I did as a kid. As the child of a Jewish education director, who then went on to be the administrator (executive director) of my childhood congregation, Temple Rodef Shalom in Falls Church, Va., I spent many afterschool hours folding the weekly paper bulletin handed out on Shabbat, moving books or setting up chairs. While attending services or religious school were important activities, for me, the relationships I made with the rabbi and the staff and other congregants as we did these small jobs were the most meaningful ones. Along the way, I met many important guests, though it\u2019s all a bit blurry now. For instance, I sat next to Elie Wiesel once after he spoke at our congregation. What I remember particularly is how formal and dressed up we were. Also, the dessert was good! I was allowed to stay up way past my bedtime.<\/p>\n

Now, I\u2019m proud that my kids are finding their way towards making their own community connections. One of my twins has gone to morning minyan many times this summer. He\u2019s the only teen there and gets a lot of positive attention this way, including exchanging ideas with a retired provincial court judge. This judge also happens to be the father of my son\u2019s elementary school principal, so we\u2019re always on good behaviour with him!<\/p>\n

My other twin isn\u2019t getting to morning minyan much, but instead he volunteered for full weeks at a summer camp and daycare, helping little kids. He also helps on the synagogue tech team, doing accessible subtitles for prayers that are projected on screens as part of our service. This job is an important one, as it enables people to keep up with the service even if they are having a hard time hearing what\u2019s going on or cannot read Hebrew. He\u2019s been asked to help during the High Holidays. It\u2019s a big honour and responsibility for a 14-year-old.<\/p>\n

These commitments are important because they embody both the Canadian emphasis on volunteering and the Jewish one. When I was a teen, I lived for a year on a kibbutz. Volunteering was considered deeply valuable and important. Being the first to volunteer was a moral virtue. Yet, when I hear Winnipeg kids discuss accruing volunteer hours for school credits, it\u2019s seen as an onerous requirement. Perhaps, for some, this requirement doesn\u2019t have great value. On the contrary, in our household, we see these experiences as offering so many learning and growth opportunities.<\/p>\n

While we moved books, searched for lost volumes and organized sets of Talmud and commentaries, we also saw the bustle behind the scenes as the congregation gets ready for Rosh Hashanah. There\u2019s so much pageantry to the High Holidays. It\u2019s a big deal. Some members jockey for important honours or specific seats and we listened with interest. We just wanted seats near the back, near where our kid would be in the tech booth. When I mentioned this to the new rabbi, I suggested that maybe different things matter to us. After all, I joked, I didn\u2019t need to show off a new hat. (My mom always said this was an important part of High Holiday services when she was a kid in the 1950s!)<\/p>\n

As for honours, we love a quiet summer Shabbat, when sometimes our kids get asked to read or are called up for an aliyah because no one reserved them in advance. These spur-of-the-moment experiences, where we might help out and take part in services, feel like the right spot for us. It may take months of practice to chant one part of the Torah portion, but we try to aim for a week when not much is happening.<\/p>\n

A strong community is one where we can all contribute and help. Yes, big donors and fancy new hats are often part of the High Holidays. Big monetary donations keep the heat on, and status matters to many. However, a synagogue, and the Jewish community, must function throughout the year.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a lot to think about when it comes to evaluating how we\u2019ve behaved in the past year, and how we\u2019ll make amends. To me, the most important reflections aren\u2019t about where we are or how we behave specifically on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. In every regular weekday morning minyan, we also say \u201cashamu\u201d \u2013 we are guilty. We work on ourselves all the time. Perhaps, while it\u2019s important to have good intentions when it comes to the High Holidays, it\u2019s also key to think about each day beforehand, and afterwards, too. Elul\u2019s a whole month of reflection. Valuing one another and our community means making every day count.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Joanne Seiff <\/b>has written regularly for the <\/i>Winnipeg Free Press and various Jewish publications. She is the author of three books, including <\/i>From the Outside In: Jewish Post Columns 2015-2016, a collection of essays available for digital download or as a paperback from Amazon. Check her out on Instagram @yrnspinner<\/a> or at joanneseiff.blogspot.com<\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We have a new rabbi at Shaarey Zedek, our Winnipeg congregation. This is exciting as well as reassuring for many people. Why? Well, Rabbi Carnie Rose is the son of a rabbi and professor who lived in Winnipeg for many years, Dr. Neal Rose. His brother, Kliel, is a rabbi at Congregation Etz Chayim, another […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[24288,1800,1802,218,8302,8036,4048],"class_list":["post-47475","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-op-ed","tag-clergy","tag-elul","tag-high-holidays","tag-judaism","tag-lifestyle","tag-shaarey-zedek","tag-winnipeg"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47475","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47475"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47475\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}