Looking Ahead - Yom Kippur and the Festivals That Follow - 9/25/25

Next week we gather for Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the year. It comes at the culmination of the Ten Days of Repentance, a stretch of deep reflection and the hard work of behavioral change that follows the start of this new year, 5786. Yom Kippur calls us to look honestly at ourselves, to repair what we can, and to begin again with renewed purpose.

But our holiday season does not end there. On October 5, our dedicated building committee will set up the congregational sukkah so we can enter the joy of Sukkot, the Festival of Booths. This holiday recalls the 40-year journey after the Exodus, when our ancestors lived in temporary dwellings on their way to the Promised Land. It is also one of Judaism’s great harvest festivals: Chag Ha’Asif, the Festival of Ingathering. In biblical times, this meant gathering the year’s produce at the end of the agricultural cycle — grain from the fields, grapes pressed into wine, olives crushed for oil, and the late summer fruits like figs and pomegranates.

Sukkot begins on October 6 and lasts for seven days. We will gather in our sukkah for a short service and a festive dinner prepared by our events committee. The holiday then concludes with a double celebration: Shemini Atzeret, which literally means “the assembly of the eighth day” — a pause that invites us to linger just a little longer in the joy of the season — and Simchat Torah, when we rejoice in completing the annual Torah reading cycle. On Simchat Torah we will dance with the scrolls and unroll the Torah around the room, taking in all of its stories and the beautiful scribal details at once. If you would like to take part in the Yizkor memorial service — observed only on Yom Kippur, Shemini Atzeret, Passover, and Shavuot — please arrive at 5:45pm. After services, we’ll enjoy a celebratory pizza dinner together.

We will celebrate with the Weis family as they welcome their new baby at our Friday night service on October 10. On October 17, our religious school will once again lead us in worship, bringing their voices and energy into our Shabbat.

Looking beyond the holidays, our annual calendar of learning and events is now complete. Highlights include Kugel Cookoff on October 19 — followed by a Young Adult kugel after-party — Learn and Burn Torah Study Through Movement beginning October 26, Shabbat Around the Table, a big shabbat dinner and New Member Shabbat on November 7, and our Jewish history survey course, From Matzah to Modernity, starting November 8.

This season is full of opportunities for joy, learning, connection, and tradition. I hope you’ll find ways to make Beth Hillel Temple part of your calendar this year — and to let our holidays and community life deepen your own sense of renewal in 5786.

-Rabbi Hannah Wallick