rosh hashanah

continued from page 78

JEWISH CULTURAL SOCIETY

Julie Gales

JEWISH CULTURAL SOCIETY

Jewish Community Center of
Greater Ann Arbor
2935 Birch Hollow Drive,
Suite 1
Ann Arbor, MI 48108
Office: (734) 975-9872
JewishCulturalSociety.org.

Julie Gales is the madrika (leader) at the
Jewish Cultural Society (JCS), Ann Arbor’s
Secular Humanistic congregation. She will
lead observances during the High Holiday
season.
Humanistic Judaism is human-centered
and fundamentally stresses the ability of
people to shape their own lives indepen-
dent of a supernatural being.
“We believe that a Jew is one who,
regardless of birth, identifies with the
history, culture and future of the Jewish
people,” Gales said.
Humanistic Jews want to understand
the beliefs and behavior of their ancestors
without feeling compelled to agree with the
beliefs of the past.
Traditional Jewish new year observances
were reframed by JCS because, Gales said,
“Secular Humanistic Jews believe in modify-
ing traditions to make them more meaning-
ful” to modern-day Jews.

BIRMINGHAM TEMPLE

The Society for Humanistic Judaism is the
Farmington Hills-based congregational arm of the
movement founded in 1969 by Birmingham Temple’s
late Rabbi Sherwin T. Wine.
As its website states: “Humanistic Judaism embrac-
es a human-centered philosophy that celebrates
Jewish culture without supernatural underpinnings.
Rabbi Jeffrey
Humanistic Jews value their Jewish identity and the
Falick
aspects of Jewish culture that offer a genuine expres-
sion of their contemporary way of life. We believe in
the human capacity to create a better world.”
“Secular Jews tend to be largely non-religious in
their daily lives,” said Rabbi Jeffrey Falick, current
leader of Birmingham Temple. “Some of them possess
a God-concept, while others do not.”
Wine created the first models for Jewish celebra-
tions patterned on religious customs that were
devoid of theistic content, Falick explained.
These services are “consistent with our nontheistic,
Humanistic philosophy,” he said. Instead of worship
and praise, “they emphasize the responsibilities that
we human beings bear, individually and collectively,
as the sole caretakers of the Earth and each other.”
As at other synagogues, Birmingham Temple will
“sound the shofar and sing familiar tunes. We reflect
on the year that has passed and consider our goals
for the New Year,” said Falick, who will deliver a pre-
sentation.
The longest service will run less than two hours
and “have no repetitive standing and sitting. We only
stand in memory of the dead,” he said.
According to the rabbi, today’s American Jews
continue to go to synagogues in large
numbers at the High Holidays because
BIRMINGHAM TEMPLE they “view it as an opportunity to very
28611 W. 12 Mile Road publicly connect with their Jewish iden-
Farmington Hills, MI 48334 tity and heritage.
Phone: (248) 477-1410
“It’s a wonderful time to join together
birminghamtemple.com in community and to affirm their sense
of belonging,” he said. •

Birmingham Temple will offer evening, morning, family and memo-
rial services throughout the 10-day High Holiday period. Tickets are
not required.

80

September 14 • 2017

jn

Jewish New Year festivals provide a way
for JCS “to come together as a community
and to reflect on our actions or acts of
omission and to support each other,” she
said.
Rosh Hashanah, the first day of the
Jewish year, “offers a time for Secular
Humanistic Jews to pause in their daily
lives and reflect on their behavior and
renew their commitment to their best
selves and highest values,” Gales said. “It
provides a time for renewal, reflection and
new beginnings.”
The blast of the shofar ushers in this
time of reflection, bringing in music, read-
ings and creative observance.
JCS’s most unique reinterpretation is
tashlich, the High Holidays ritual in which
religious Jews cast off their sins by throw-
ing bread crumbs into a flowing body of
water.
JCS members honor the tashlich tradi-
tion by gathering to throw flower petals
into the Huron River.

“As we do so, community members have
a chance to reflect on their individual and
communal actions and deeds over the
year, to cast off behaviors that they are not
proud of and to vow to be better people in
the year to come,” Gales said.
“Watching the kaleidoscope of color flow
down the river is a peaceful and soothing
way to transition into the new year,” she
said. “It provides a beautiful, yet concrete
expression of our hope for the future.” •

JCS events for the High Holidays are open to all.
Rosh Hashanah, 7 p.m. Sept. 21; tashlich with pot-
luck, 10 a.m. Sept. 22; Kol Nidre, 7 p.m. Sept. 29,
and Yom Kippur, 2 p.m. Sept. 30, followed at 6 pm.
by a potluck break-fast meal at 6. Tashlich only will
take place on Island Park (accessible from Island
Drive in Ann Arbor). For non-members, the suggested
donation for Rosh Hashanah, Kol Nidre and Yom
Kippur is $100/family, $50/individual, $25/student.
For individual observances: $50/family, $25/individual,
$10/student.

WORKMEN’S CIRCLE/
ARBETER RING (WC/AR)

Jewish progressive values are reflected
in Workmen’s Circle/Arbeter Ring (WC/
AR), a national membership organiza-
tion headquartered in New York City.
“Secular Jews are a part of the fabric
of Jewish life — its history and its con-
tinuity,” said Arlene Frank, local board
chair. She and retired WC/AR Michigan
Region director Ellen Bates-Brackett
created the continuously revised
holiday service guide that will be used
again this year at the Mondry Building
on the Taubman Jewish Community
Campus in Oak Park.
Before it was closed, the Jimmy
Prentis Morris branch of the Jewish
Community Center is where WC/AR
held its High Holiday gatherings for 10
years and maintained an office.
“Jewish heritage is made up of both
religious and non-religious components
and, as secular Jews, we continue to
draw inspiration from the past, includ-
ing oral and written traditions, Yiddish,
Hebrew and Ladino languages, litera-
ture, culture, politics, history, philoso-
phy, morals and ethics,” Frank said.
“We modify traditions today, as Jews
have always done, to reflect our current
needs and understanding.”
Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur
represent “a period of introspection,”
Frank said. “They are an opportunity to
gather in community to reflect on the
year past, and to give meaning and sus-
tenance to the concept of the beginning
of a new year.”
The organization’s observance of
Rosh Hashanah began in 1990, with
Yom Kippur added a year later. The
services, especially appealing to baby
boomers, include a strong call for
social and economic justice. Passages
are assigned to readers and commu-

Valerie Overholt blows shofar at Workmen’s
Circle/Arbeter Ring.

nal singing is in Yiddish and English.
Stephen Kukurugya provides piano
accompaniment. Vocalist Daniella
HarPaz Mechnikov performs several
solos, including her signature Kol Nidre.
While she is not herself secular,
Mechnikov said, “It’s a very welcoming
and non-exclusionary service. It doesn’t
say ‘you must believe or deny’ anything.
Some secular services are more like
that — stating a theological position. I
find the WC/AR service so easy because
it celebrates Jewish history and tradi-
tion, even traditions that were rooted
in faith at the time. It is a respectful
service.” •

Workmen’s Circle/Arbeter Ring will offer two
High Holiday services at the David and Miriam
Mondry Building, 15000 W. 10 Mile, Oak Park, on
the Taubman Jewish Community Campus. Both
with 10 a.m. starting times, the Rosh Hashanah
service will be held on Sept. 21 and Yom Kippur
on Sept. 30. Admission is by donation. Canned
goods for a Yad Ezra food drive will be collected
on Yom Kippur.

WORKMEN’S CIRCLE/ARBETER RING

micircle1@gmail.com, circlemichigan.org