Personal
On this page you will find articles that focus on those chance or passing moments in our personal lives that appear to be outwardly small but are significant nonetheless for their influence upon our mood, our feelings of connection with others, and our spiritual lives.
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Examining Ourselves as Leaders
You are a leader. In your home, your family, in your community, in a business. You have
responsibilities for others. You are the one who is responsible to evaluate if those you
lead are proceeding as they should, according to plan, according to the moral compass that
guides them. But on the morning of Yom Kippur, you have the opportunity to
"self-correct," to examine yourself and how, in the past year, you might have
exercised your leadership differently.
Meditation:
Before Aaron, the High Priest, can ask for forgiveness for the whole congregation of
Israel, he is told to scrutinize himself first. He is to bathe. He is to put on sacred
garments. Standing in the ohel moed, the Tent of meeting, he is to ask for
forgiveness for himself. Only then can the circle widen – only then is he prepared to
"make expiation for the whole congregation of Israel."
(Leviticus 16)
Ritual:
All those who have a leadership responsibilities are asked to come up to the Torah for
the third aliyah on Yom Kippur. As you hear the words chanted, like Aaron, you
too have this opportunity to ask for forgiveness for yourself before you ask for
forgiveness for your community. It is a time for introspection: where have you, as a
leader, "missed the mark?" What choices could you have made as a leader, but did
not? Focus: given all that you know now, given all of your dreams of a more perfect world,
how might you exercise your leadership in a different way?
If group aliyot are not the custom in your community, listen to the words of
Leviticus 16 as they are chanted, and focus on these same concerns of leaders.
Blessing:
(before reading the Torah)
Barukh et Hashem ha’m’vorach
Barukh atah Hashem, Eloheinu melekh ha’olam, asher bachar banu mi’kol
ha’amim v’natan lanu et torato. Barukh atah Hashem, no’ten ha’Torah.
Blessed are you, Source of blessing.
Blessed are You, Lord our God, master of the universe who has chosen us from among all
peoples by giving us Your Torah. Praised are You, Lord, who gives the Torah.
(after the reading of the Torah)
Barukh atah Hashem, Eloheinu melekh ha’olam, asher natan lanu Torat emet
v’chayei olam natah b’tocheinu.
Barukh atah Hashem no’ten Ha’torah..
Blessed are You, Lord our God, master of the universe who has given us the Torah of truth,
planting within us life eternal. Blessed are You, Lord who gives the Torah.
Teaching:
And Aharon is to bring-near the bull for the sin offering that is his, so that he may
effect-atonement on behalf of himself….Then he is to slay the hairy-goat of the sin
offering that is the people’s…
(Leviticus 16:6,15)
S’lach lanu, m’chal lanu, kaper lanu…
Forgive us, pardon us, grant us atonement.
(CLAL Faculty)
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