Shana Tova, Gmar chatimah tovah. I’m Rachel Rudman, I’m the Executive Director of the Isaac Agree Downtown Synagogue. I’m honored to be in community with you all this Yom Kippur.

Good morning and gut yontif. My name is Sarah Allyn and it is my honor to serve on the Isaac Agree Downtown Synagogue’s Board of Directors. I want to begin by thanking the Bethel Community Transformation Center for generously and warmly welcoming us back to their beautiful space that holds such deep meaning for our community.

When you are a pale-skinned Detroiter studying in Jerusalem in July, it is important to have lots of pockets. You may need to carry a smartphone and sunglasses and water and money and keys. And although, as I reminded you on Rosh Hashanah, you can carry all of the Jewish texts that you’re studying in your smartphone, I still liked to have them in print form, and have a notepad, and a pen. So this summer the Shalom Hartman Institute, a center for advanced Jewish studies, gave my cohort of rabbinic fellows a backpack with lots of pockets.

This summer a faculty member of the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem spoke to my cohort of rabbis about Jews…and climate change. She stated very simply to me and to my colleagues that our role right now is to be hospice rabbis for our entire congregations. The destruction of our planet is inevitable and there will be unimaginable suffering, death, destruction, and loss. And rabbis are called to care for people when they are suffering. So we must now prepare for an extremely difficult future of shock and grief.

I am so excited to be back at the synagogue and that we have started the month of Elul.

As the month that precedes Rosh Hashanah and the Yamim Noraim, Elul is a time of deep reflection. We look back at the year that has passed and begin the difficult and redemptive work of tshuvah. We also look forward to the year ahead and feel gratitude for the many blessings that we hope to carry from 5782 into 5783.

As I head to Jerusalem this Sunday and begin two months of learning and sabbatical, I am inspired by the voices of my teachers, and particularly during this Pride Month, I invite you to listen to the voices of Rabbi Rachel Adler Ph.D., Rabbi Mike Moskowitz, and Rabbi Abby Stein.