Shabbat Shuva Message, Sept. 25, 2020

Dear Or Zarua members and friends,

Shabbat Shuvah Shalom! This special Sabbath between Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur is for meaningful reconciliations, prayerfulness and repentance.

It is also very much about the delight of setting a course of keeping Shabbat in the new year ahead. The joy and unique cultural expression of making Shabbat with meals, prayers and study, and doing havdallah on Saturday nights, nourish us every week throughout the year.

On Shabbat Shuvah we not only come with contrition and readiness to ask for forgiveness, but our delight in the Sabbath is tshuvah itself. This way, we are able to approach God on Yom Kippur and say, “We kept Shabbat, and we pledge to make Shabbat all year long in 5781.”

The Torah instructs us, “Keep the Sabbath and call it a delight.” I can tell you from experience that if you get into the Shabbat groove and learn how to keep it traditionally, you will indeed call it a delight!

From our family to yours, Shabbat Shalom and G’mar Hatimah Tovah,

Rabbi Bolton

Click HERE for my Shabbat Shuva Drash: Learning From Our Mistakes highlighting the message of the special Haftarah for between Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur.

Click HERE for my Shabbat Shuva sermon: To The Power of Ten: What’s the Significance of Calling These Days “The Ten Days of Repentance?” Isn’t there 7 days between Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur? Why is this period defined by being 10 days of possibility?