OTHER HOLIDAYS
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The Saturday evening preceding Rosh Hashanah is referred to as Selichot – penitences. On this evening we set the mood and tone for the coming Days of Awe. We begin with the beautiful, spiritual and musical ceremony of Havdalah – the ritual that marks the end of Shabbat and the beginning of the work week. We take time for a short nosh and then our program continues with the Selichot service, which introduces us to the melodies and prayers of the season and we change the mantles of our torah scrolls from blues and crimson to symbolic white mantles of the season. We conclude with the sounding of the shofar.
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We hold a traditional service on the Friday evening of Shabbat Shuvah, the Sabbath of Repentance, that falls between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. On Shabbat morning, we chant from the Torah and hear the special Haftarah for this special Sabbath. Services are followed by a study session led by the Rabbi on a text appropriate for the season of repentance and renewal.
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All are welcome to participate in building and decorating our Sukkah, a joyous annual event. Taking a meal each day in a Sukkah is one of the most significant observances of the seven-day festival of Sukkot. Throughout the holiday members of the community are invited to bring a bag breakfast, lunch, or dinner and eat in our Sukkah in the back yard.
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We celebrate the Consecration of our newest Religious School at this service, geared especially for younger children and their families. Kindergartners and all our other new students in grades 1 through 3 will receive their own paper Torah scroll, a certificate marking the beginning of their religious education, and special blessings from the clergy and their parents.
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We close down Remsen Street, chant Torah from our front porch, and dance to our live Klezmer band in celebration of Simchat Torah. Many of our congregants, and especially many of our recent b’nai mitzvah, chant from Deuteronomy and Genesis. Everyone receives an Aliyah.
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The 15th of the month of Shevat is the New Year of the Trees, which celebrates the impending arrival of Spring in Israel and the early blooming of almond and other trees.
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On this day of remembrance, we join with the other synagogues in Brownstone Brooklyn to jointly honor the memory of the six million who perished in the Holocaust. Members of Brooklyn Heights Synagogue, Congregation Beth Elohim, Kane Street Synagogue, Kolot Chayeinu, Park Slope Jewish Center, and Union Temple participate in the commemoration, which rotates its location among the synagogues each year.
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Israel’s Independence Day is acknowledged and celebrated at the Friday evening Shabbat service immediately prior to its weekday observance.
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The Festival of Revelation, Shavuot (literally: the Feast of Weeks), falls fifty days after Pesach. The members of our 10th Grade Confirmation Class, with the assistance of our clergy, lead our Shavuot evening worship services including the chanting of the Ten Commandments, Haftarah, and the Scroll of Ruth. The Confirmands offer their own personal reflections upon this occasion.
We gather the following morning for Festival morning services and Yizkor prayers.
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We gather just before sunset in our sanctuary on the eve of Tisha B’Av, the ninth day of the month of Av, as we commemorate the destruction of the Temples and other ancient tragedies that befell our people. We read the Scroll of Lamentations, partly chanted in Hebrew, and in English.
Every few years, instead of observing the ritual here at BHS, Rabbi Lippe asks those interested in observing this service to join him at Congregation Shearith Israel of Manhattan, the Spanish-Portuguese Synagogue of New York (Orthodox) which observes its own unique ‘Inquisitional’ style for the service and chanting of Lamentations.
