Commuters driving along Pacific Coast Highway on Sept. 21-22 and 29-30 will no doubt notice the exceptional number of cars parked along the highway in front of the Malibu Jewish Center & Synagogue, with its full parking lot and shuttle busses coming and going, bringing Malibu’s Jewish community together to celebrate their High Holy Days, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.
For many Jews, these are the most solemn and significant days on the Jewish calendar, the days when many more Jews gather for prayer than at any other time of the year.
While Rosh Hashanah marks the beginning of the Jewish New Year, it is not a time of raucous celebrations. Instead, Jews gather in prayer and contemplation, celebrating life and the possibility of new beginnings; affirming freedom and the responsibility to conduct one’s life with decency and morality.
Yom Kippur, a day of fasting and prayer, follows a week later and is the more solemn of the two holy days. During these services, the focus is on recognizing one’s mistakes, missteps and misbehavior of the previous year; repenting and seeking forgiveness, resolving to make amends for transgressions and committing to improved behavior.
Jews call this process t’shuva (returning to one’s true best self); t’shuva combined with tzedkah (generosity) and tefillah (prayer) are required of Jews in order to survive and thrive in the year to come.
In ancient times, a ram’s horn—or shofar—was sounded to call the Jewish community together to celebrate their holidays, a tradition that endures. Today, the blasts of the shofar, coming at the end of services, serve as an auditory prompt—a wakeup call—and as a reminder of the human potential for growth and one’s obligation to improve one’s behavior, relationships, community, environment and the world.
For information regarding High Holiday services at the Malibu Jewish Center & Synagogue, call 310.456.2178