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It’s a long-standing custom for Jews to wish one another a “sweet new year” on Rosh Hashanah; to hope that this coming year will be one filled with joy, fulfillment, and an abundance of blessings. However, Judaism isn’t a path focused simply on wishing for good things; if our goal is to make each year “sweeter” than the last, we must work to make it happen.

I pray that our observance of Yom Kippur will be probing and transformative, helping us become the best people and the most inspiring Movement that we are meant to be.

The High Holiday season is an important time of personal and communal reflection, including your congregation’s leadership. This can also be a time of reflection for your congregation’s leadership.

Every year I look forward to this time as a reset button, and a chance to truly evaluate who I am and who I am becoming. I also know, from my time as a congregational rabbi, that for those of us working in the Jewish world, Elul takes on its own strange character.

We ask you for added compassion right now, for each other and for ourselves. Here are the principles of compassion and caring we should all be keeping in mind.

We recently introduced the URJ Reflection Project, a tool for the High Holidays that can be found at reflect.reformjudaism.org. Here, we share suggestions of how to use its many ideas with your congregation. 

This summer was unlike any in our lifetime. While we’re incredibly thankful that Jewish youth were able to experience camp from home, we're thrilled to announce plans for in-person programming in summer 2021.

The URJ endorses With Malice Toward None, an initiative inspired by President Lincoln’s exhortation, at a time when the nation was enduring its most significant divisions, that Americans act “with malice toward none, with charity for all…”