Posted on September 4, 2026 by Rabbi Noah Diamondstein
Dear friends,
This Shabbat is our last before we welcome the New Year, with Rosh Hashanah beginning next Shabbat. Our parashah for this week is perfectly appropriate for this moment in our calendar, as we read Nitzavim, Moses’ final address to our People before we cross into Eretz Yisrael without him.
Moses tells us that until this moment, this precipice, we had not “a mind to understand or eyes to see or ears to hear” the extent of God’s works in our lives. Now, here, at the edge of the Promised Land, Moses lays down an enduring foundation for our religion: the Torah will be valid in all generations and freely accessible to every member of the people, rather than a possession of only the privileged few. “You stand this day, all of you, before Adonai your God… to enter into the covenant of the Eternal your GOD…” (Deut. 29:9,11). Each year, on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, we recommit ourselves to that covenant, and we try to open our minds, eyes, and ears to both the miracles and blessings in our lives and the responsibilities we carry as Jews.
We are also carrying into these Holy Days a real understanding of the ways we have failed in that responsibility over the last year, as Jews and as people covenanted to God. This Shabbat concludes with the observance of S’lichot, our first ritual confession of the High Holy Day season, and a chance not only to wrestle with the liturgy of the chagim for the first time this year, but also to hear the sound of the shofar. In this sense, S’lichot is a first, but in many ways it also marks an ending–the final act of preparatory teshuvah we can do as a community before the Holy Days are upon us.
Like last year, weather permitting, our S’lichot observance will be held outside on our patio under the summer stars. We will be joined as usual by members and clergy from Congregation Kehilat Shalom, Temple Shalom, and, newly this year, Temple Har Shalom. Beginning with Havdalah, the service will be musical, flowing, and feature teaching from each of our congregations’ rabbis. I highly encourage you to attend, and would also ask that, if you consider yourself a shofar blower, you please bring your shofar to the service! We want the shofar’s sound to really wake us up, and so we’re going to have a whole “shofar section,” if you will. (I’m looking at you, newly practiced Master Blasters!)
On the cusp of these Holy Days, on this final Shabbat, I make a final appeal: Be with us. Take the opportunity to lean into these intentional moments of conscience and consciousness. Live into music and mindfulness.
Shabbat shalom, and an early shanah tovah,
Rabbi Noah Diamondstein