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This week, I tell a friend I’d love to chat but actually I have to run Yom Kippur services are starting soon and I’ve got to repent for my sins before the gates are closed. She laughs. “Well, you’re gay, so you’ve definitely got a lot of repenting to do.”

As we consider our preparations for the Days of Awe, let us be thankful that science has permitted us to understand how plagues are spread and seek out knowledgeable guidance from those who can protect us in 2020.

I’m praying that these weeks of consolation before the High Holidays will give us the time to confront our sins and respond in ways that will help us to heal from our brokenness and find the courage and resolve to build a better year for all.

Elul is a time of self-reflection, forgiveness, and exploration. These three new tools can help you make the most of this month before the High Holidays.

Long before I became a rabbi, I was a DJ and a hip-hop-head. Music always scored my life, and for years I've wondered, "How can that music be harnessed for religious practice?"

With deep gratitude to the Righteous Persons Foundation, we invite you to visit reflect.reformjudaism.org and to share this opportunity far and wide with your community.

If the High Holidays were to be pared down to their very essence, what are some words and phrases that might come to mind?

Belonging. Connection. Memory. An accounting of the soul.

For the first time this year, High Holidays will be conducted remotely for our community – but it will show us that we can, as Rabbi John Rosove taught, truly “overcome the past for the sake of a better future.”