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If like so many of us, you’re ready to say goodbye to this year, here’s some good news. It is almost time to celebrate the Jewish High Holidays, which mark the start of a new year.
But like pretty much everything else in 2020, they will be different with many worship houses still closed or attendance strictly limited.
Congregation Beth Sholom in San Francisco is putting together a series of virtual offerings for the celebrations, but Rabbi Dan Ain is used to going outside of his comfort zone.
Last year along with traditional prayers, they had a beer garden, meditation groups and soul music.
"It’s a little bit harder to do that this year," he said. "How do you recreate that feeling of being together and also providing many avenues into the high holiday service? For the past 20 years I have been trying to get as many people together and pack them all into tight spaces so that they can experience a communal expression of the divine of worship."
No packing them in this year, but the temple is still hoping to offer a communal experience, and not just with traditional services.
"I think it’s been an interesting experience trying to take something this community has been doing for 100 years and present it in a way that this generation and this year they can receive it and it can matter to them."
He has brought in a professional production team to record soul music and offering a family service for the kids.
They are also going live right before sundown on Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah, with prayers for a better year ahead.
"Oh please, God. That’s what we’re praying for," the Rabbi said. "This community has been here through a depression, through a world war, through an AIDS crisis, through earthquakes, through the turn of a century. And now we’re here through this, and through all of it the psalms - the psalms in our tradition the psalms in our heart - have remained the same."
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