September 16, 2003

OU Website to Carry Rabbi’s Address and Lecture Series:
Orthodox Union Rosh Hashanah Message Emphasizes Faith and Hope in a Time of Tragic Events

With the approach of the Yamim Noraim, the Days of Awe or High Holy Days, the Orthodox Union is making available to Jews worldwide a message of faith and hope amidst the tragic events continuing to plague Israel. This message will be highlighted by an address – a Kinnus Teshuva -- from OU Executive Vice President Rabbi Tzvi Hersh Weinreb, Teshuva (Repentance) in a Time of Tragedy and Crisis. Rabbi Weinreb’s address will be broadcast live on the OU website, www.ou.org, at 5:00 p.m. on Tuesday, September 30, in the period between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, and will remain available online for the remainder of the High Holidays.

The OU website, www.ou.org, is also carrying a wide range of educational materials dealing with the season, most prominently a series of lectures – shiurim -- by distinguished rabbis on a variety of issues connected with the Jewish New Year and its themes of reflection, repentance and renewal. Each web shiur – three new ones are being added each week this month – lasts about 20-25 minutes.

Rosh Hashanah begins Friday, September 26 at sundown and extends over Shabbat, ending after nightfall on Sunday, September 28. Because the first day is on the Sabbath, certain aspects of the Rosh Hashanah service, such as the blowing of the shofar, are omitted on that day.

Yom Kippur concludes the Aseret Y’mai Teshuva, or Ten Days of Repentance. It begins with the Kol Nidre service, Sunday, October 5 at sundown, and concludes 25 hours later with the Neilah or closing prayers, on Monday, October 6.

In a preview of his September 30 message, Rabbi Weinreb took note of the “paradoxical theme” of Rosh Hashanah. “Rosh Hashanah is a day of judgment, involving a time of serious retrospection, self-examination and repentance,” he said. “On the other hand, it is a time of hope. It is a Yom Tov, a holiday; it is a time for wearing our best clothing, for eating festive meals. So there is an element of joy, hope and celebration as well.”

“This Rosh Hashanah,” he declared, “we are faced with this paradox more intensely than in a long while because we are suffering in so many ways. Some of our best people, our brothers and sisters, are dying senselessly. There isn’t anyone in Israel who doesn’t have a friend, a family member or an acquaintance who hasn’t been killed or terribly wounded.”

“As we approach Rosh Hashanah,” Rabbi Weinreb continued, “we do so with great pain, even agony, as well as compassion for all those who need consolation and restoration of health.”

“We still face danger. We are in the midst of a war,” Rabbi Weinreb declared. But there are even more ills besetting the Jewish people, he explained. “There are spiritual, economic, physical and social problems that weigh upon us. We must utilize Rosh Hashanah as a time to respond to all of these various ills. We do this through traditionally religious ways, through introspection, prayer and Torah study.”

However, that is not sufficient. Our response “must also include active financial support of the needy, active political support of Israel and of all important Jewish causes,” Rabbi Weinreb explained. “We need to ask ourselves if we are doing all we can. That’s one aspect of Rosh Hashanah. The other is the message of hope.”

“The shofar is a sound of alarm but it can also be a special herald of a better time,” Rabbi Weinreb declared. “Our prayers at Rosh Hashanah are imbued with Biblical verses which tell us of a time of peace, a time of joy. But here too, this is not something we can just passively dream about; there are things we can do to bring about these hopes.”

Rabbi Weinreb issued a call to action. “We must sit with our family, friends and community to conceive of ways to bring closer all that we pray and hope for. We pray fervently, but we also have to meet around conference tables and develop plans as to what we can do to realize these hopes. The spirit in which we enter this year is the spirit of sympathy for all those who are in pain; but it is also a spirit of resolve for all of us to help alleviate that pain – through a sense of hope and courage, through a sense of optimism and resolve to make our goal real.”

Rabbi Weinreb recorded the first of 11 shiurim for the website, Teshuva for the Community.

The others are being added each Monday, Wednesday and Friday of the month of Elul, which precedes Rosh Hashanah. They are as follows:

• Rabbi Yaakov Gibber, Attitudes and Commitments for Elul;

• Rabbi Moshe Rosenberg, The Sound of the Shofar;

• Rabbi Josh Blass, The Shofar and Teshuva;

• Rabbi Menachem Genack, When Rosh Hashanah Falls on Shabbat;

• Rabbi Moshe Elefant, Simanim (Symbols) of Rosh Hashanah;

• Rabbi Sholom Baum, Winning Prayers;

• Rabbi David Hirsch, Hakarat Hatov (Gratitude) and Teshuva

The final three shiurim will deal with the festival of Sukkot, which follows closely after Yom Kippur and begins this year on the night of Friday, October 10 continuing until Sunday, October 19:

• Rabbi Michael Rosenzweig, Special Relationship between Yom Kippur and Sukkot;

• Sukkot, The Climax of (the month of) Tishrei;

• Rabbi Hershel Schachter, V’Samachta B’Chagecha (And You Will Rejoice in Your Festival).

The OU website also includes an opportunity to order Spiritual Renewal and Prayer, two eight-tape series on teshuva (repentance) and tefilla (prayer).

Following Rosh Hashanah, the OU website will post the Halachot (or laws) of how to pick a lulav and esrog for the Festival of Sukkot.

The Orthodox Union, now in its second century of service to the Jewish community of North America and beyond, is a world leader in community and synagogue services, adult education, youth work through NCSY, political action through the IPA, and advocacy for persons with disabilities through Yachad and Our Way. Its kosher supervision label, the , is the world’s most recognized kosher symbol and can be found on over 275,000 products manufactured in 68 countries around the globe.

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