Rabbi Stephanie Aaron

The Mishebeirach prayer for healing moves us into the profound depths of what healing means in Jewish belief. When we recite this prayer, we begin by remembering: “mishebeirach avoteinu Avraham, Yitschak, v’Ya’akov, v’imoteinu Sarah, Rivkah, Rachel, v’Leah, may the One who blessed our

fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and

our mothers Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel, and Leah …” First, we acknowledge G-d as the One who blessed our foremothers and forefathers, then we ask that the individual who is ill be blessed and healed; the prayer follows an order of remembering, then healing.

We pray for many things for the one who is ill: support and strength, orech ruach, a lengthening of his or her spirit that we translate as patience; omets lev, a heart of courage; refuat hanefesh, a healing of spirit; refuat haguf, a healing of body; and refuah sh’leimah, a complete healing. But first we remember who we are and from where we have come.

Martin Buber taught, “We are held and upheld by common remembrance.” The journey of our ancients, their brit, their covenant, with HaKadosh Baruch Hu, the Holy Blessed One, the ways in which they each were blessed by G-d and in turn, the ways in which they became a blessing in the world, this is our remembrance as we approach healing.

Where does that place us as we prepare for Jan. 8, 2012? We must begin with our shared memory from before Jan. 8, 2011: What are our memories of our town, our Tucson, our country, our Congress, our lives before our fellow citizens attending Congress on the Corner with Rep. Gabrielle Giffords were shot down and six of them were killed?

Do we have a shared memory of what life was like before? I would like to think that we do, that our best possible remembrances of our town go beyond the magnificence of our sunsets and the brilliance of our sunshine to the hearts of our citizens; that the people who live here are concerned that everyone has food and shelter and plenty of books to read; that anyone who is ill receives the necessary health care to return to wellness; that on a visit to our town Mariachi music commingles with Beethoven and Bach and cowboy poetry shares a shelf with Whitman and Dickinson; that the wild west means we protect what is wild and shared: the land, the air, the saguaro cacti, the birds and animals and wildflowers; and that every voice is heard from our babies to our elders. How do you remember Tucson? What does Tucson mean to you?

On Jan. 8, bring your memories of Tucson “before” and your vision of your best possible Tucson as we gather to remember and to heal our town. Write them down if you care to; let’s share them with each other. Come to Blue Sky Shabbat in Sabino Canyon on Saturday, Jan. 7 to celebrate with prayers of healing for our world and our town. Attend the “Beyond” events organized by the family of Gabe Zimmerman, of blessed memory. On Sunday, Jan. 8, bring your visions, hopes and prayers to the interfaith service at St. Augustine’s Cathedral at 1:30 p.m. At 3 p.m., attend the memorial lectures at Centennial Hall in remembrance of the six citizens of our city who were killed. We will conclude our day of remembering and healing with a candlelight vigil on the University of Arizona mall. Come hold up a candle of vision, promise and remembrance.­

Rabbi Samuel M. Cohon

Every now and then there are some times when being a congregational rabbi is just, well, hard. Some of this is seasonal: of course there are the High Holy Days, with the increased expectations and attendance, plethora of services to officiate and sermons to deliver, complex and demanding music and myriad details to manage. There is Passover, with its many ritual and congregational duties plus the personal demands that any Jew experiences who is hosting a Seder and preparing for the festival itself (not to mention the pain of eating matzah). And there are other festival times when the rituals and personal obligations pile up and can seem overwhelming.

And then there are those other, unexpected times, when things just come down all at once, without warning or preparation.

Usually this time of the Jewish year is a fairly relaxed one: all the holidays, including Sukkot and Simchat Torah are over, there has been time enough to clear up some of the leftover projects that we couldn’t get to over that long festival season, and it’s still a while before Chanukah. Typically early November in the synagogue calendar, and in a congregational rabbi’s life, is a pretty nice time. Even the weather cooperates.

But sometimes things conspire to prove that old Yiddish proverb mensch tracht und Gott lacht. We make plans, and God laughs.

It all started during Sukkot, actually, before the holidays even ended. Between the Shabbat of Sukkot and the Sunday after Simchat Torah I conducted five funerals or memorial services. My wife, Wendy, and I hosted a big post-Sukkot party for the High Holy Day Choir that night, and then the next day our outstanding young assistant rabbi, Jason Holtz, went into the hospital for a dangerous ailment. That week we had Rabbi Holtz and four other Temple members hospitalized with serious conditions, and suddenly I was also covering all the various responsibilities that Rabbi Holtz normally handles. It was a shocking turn of events for him and his wife, and for our entire temple.

We have been assured that Rabbi Holtz will make a full recovery, and we pray for a Refuah Shleimah for him speedily and soon.

The following week in my congregation there were three more funerals or memorials, including the sudden death of an apparently healthy young woman — and then three women were diagnosed with breast cancer. All this over the course of about three weeks. It was stunning.

This tzoris (woe) was leavened in that period of time by the joy of celebrating three B’nai Mitzvah, a baby-naming and a bris, conversion ceremonies for eight (!) new Jews, and the pleasure of singing and preparing two wonderful concerts of great Jewish music, one with the Tucson Chamber Artists, the second Bloch’s Sacred Service coming up with the Tucson Master Chorale.

But on a higher plain, all of this could get you thinking about the general fragility of life, and the simple fact that we know a whole lot less about the future, or sometimes even about the present, than we think we do.

It is a cliché, of course, but no matter how elaborately we plan, how carefully we prepare, or how certain we are that we know what we are doing and where we are going, ultimately it really is all in God’s hands, not ours.

Which inevitably teaches us a greater lesson still: to be grateful for what we do have. In this season of Thanksgiving, a holiday based on our own Sukkot festival, we need to remember that life is a gift, that good health is a blessing, that people we love and nurture and care about are here now. And that, while God’s ways are sometimes inscrutable, the Holy One has blessed us with much that is good and precious.

We have today. Only today is ours. Only this moment, the present, belongs to us. May we learn to be grateful for it and to give thanks. For if we can do that, then the challenges we experience in life can be overcome. Baruch Ata Adonai — blessed are You, God, who gives us the ability to appreciate what we have now

Rabbi Samuel M. Cohon is senior rabbi of Temple Emanu-El and host of “The Too Jewish Radio Show with Rabbi Sam Cohon and Friends.”

Rabbi Israel Becker

“Shema Yisroel, Listen Israel!” are the first words uttered by the Kohane, or Jewish priest, in his inspirational speech to the soldiers of Israel before going into battle (Deuteronomy 20:2-3). The purpose of these words was to capture each soldier’s attention.

The great medieval French Torah commentator, Rashi (Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki, 1040-1105), explains that with these opening words, the Kohane was generating a message, “Don’t be afraid, G-d will be with you. Even if the only mitzvah that you observe is saying the Shema, you are worthy of G-d’s protection.” One might ask, if the Kohane’s role is to reduce the insecurity of the soldier, how is this accomplished? After all, there are 613 commandments the Jew is obligated to perform. This soldier examines his merit list and realizes he is messing up 612 of the 613. The Kohane says to him, “It is OK, don’t worry. You’re doing great; one out of 613 is just fine.” Why doesn’t the soldier look at the Kohane with disbelief? How can he proceed into battle with confidence when his mitzvah observance score is .16 percent (1/613)?

The answer to this question touches the very core of Judaism. In Deuteronomy 20:19, it is taught that we are forbidden to cut down a fruit tree. “For from it you will eat and do not cut it down, for man is the tree of the field.” What does this verse mean? The Maharal of Prague (Rabbi Yehuda Loewe, 1526-1609) explains that there is a magnificent connection between man and a tree. He writes that man is indeed like a tree. His body is like the tree trunk and his limbs are like the branches. But, he is an “upside down tree.” The tree has its roots in the ground while man has his roots in heaven. The tree’s nourishment comes from the earth; man’s nourishment comes from his neshama, his G-d given soul. Just as the “earth tree” produces fruit, so too does the “man tree” produce fruit: the mitzvot. Each mitzvah is considered another fruit on the “man tree.” The Talmud uses this metaphor in reference to mitzvot, saying, “These are the precepts whose fruits a person enjoys in this world.” Sometimes one can look at a fruit tree and see no sign of productivity and wonder if this tree is really alive. But then, if one looks at it again and finds even one lone fruit, he would know that this tree is vibrant, and that there is indeed hope for more fruit to come. That’s why the Kohane can rightfully inspire even the soldier who is in the .16 percentile. He is telling him, “You’re OK with G-d because you have shown G-d that you can grow.”

The Maharal teaches that just as fruit is the sign of productivity for the “earth tree” so are mitzvot the sign of productivity for the “man tree.” G-d looks at the “man tree” lovingly and when he sees one fruit he knows that there is more to come. Let us enjoy a fruitful High Holiday season as we add more mitzvah fruit to our own tree, one by one.

Rabbi Yehuda Ceitlin, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Rabbi Levi Matusof, Dec. 12, 2004 (Yasin Aras)

The month of Elul, however, is more difficult to define. Although its 29 days are seen as a warm-up exercise for the month following it, Tishrei — containing the High Holidays — Elul is shrouded in mystery.

Back in the shtetl, Elul used to begin on a clear and sunny day, but the air felt different. You could feel the first stirring of a teshuvah (repentance) breeze, according to one recollection of the Elul mood. Everyone was beginning to grow a little more deliberate, a little more thoughtful, allowing spiritual affairs to occupy his or her thoughts instead of the everyday matters.

Perhaps the best explanation for the meaning of this month was given by the great Chassidic master Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi with the metaphor of “The King in the Field” as published by the Meaningful Life Center.

Anyone wishing to approach a king must go through the appropriate channels in the palace bureaucracy. He then needs to journey to the capital and pass through gates and corridors that lead to the throne room. Once inside, his presentation must be meticulously prepared, and he must adhere to an exacting code of dress, speech and manner upon entering into the royal presence.

However, there are times when the king comes out to the fields outside the city when anyone can approach him; the king receives them all with a smiling face and a radiant countenance. The peasant behind his plow has access to the king in an unassuming manner unavailable to the highest ranking minister in the royal court.

The month of Elul, says Rabbi Schneur Zalman, is when the king is in the field.

I had an insight into that sort of accessibility back in 2004 when I met with the prime minister of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, to discuss religious tolerance. These were the days before his outbursts on Israel and he was in Brussels, where I lived at the time, to lobby for his country’s inclusion in the European Union.

He received our small delegation in his suite in the luxurious Conrad Hotel in Belgium’s capital for an off-protocol meeting arranged by my friend, Rabbi Levi Matusof, who has close contacts with Turkish government officials. Erdogan was very warm and welcoming as we spoke about peace, tolerance, brotherhood and co­existence, which are crucial for the stability of the region.

That candid conversation — out of the conference room and without microphones — taught me the impact of setting and mood. And if that is the case with a head of state, imagine what we can accomplish when the King of Kings, G-d Almighty Himself, is on the campaign trail in the corn fields of Iowa, downtown Tucson and everywhere else during the month of Divine favor and grace.

He’s just waiting for you and me.

Rabbi Yehuda Ceitlin is the development director of Chabad of Tucson and associate rabbi at Congregation Young Israel of Tucson. He co-founded the European Jewish Press (EJP).

Rabbi Stephanie Aaron

We were a gathering of 60 adults, drenched, freezing, each of us holding the image of roll-call, rows and rows of Jews standing in the pelting rain, weak from starvation, wearing cotton shifts, frozen human beings. We held onto our umbrellas with clenched fists and clenched hearts; walking, living Jews, remembering. One of the women’s barracks was unlocked; was it shelter we sought there? We crowded inside, staring at the empty rows of beds. Again, our minds gasp at what happened here: women forced to sleep with straw for mattresses, nearly on top of one another, no sheets or pillows, barely a blanket to cover them. We were all quiet, hardly breathing.

Into that silence, Leah, one of our survivors, began to speak. Leah was accompanied on this journey by her granddaughter, Kim. She is a Hungarian Jew whose entire family was murdered in Auschwitz-Birkenau. Leah has never told her story to any member of her family; she has never spoken her story out loud to anyone. She cannot tell her story directly to Kim, so she whispers in Hebrew, her language, to Tali, our guide. Tali, whose father was saved by Oscar Schindler, is part of the second generation; she speaks Leah’s story in English to Kim, the third generation, as we listen, carefully inscribing her memories on our hearts.

This is how we will do the sacred work of memory. We will listen to the survivors and their children and their grandchildren. We will study the history of the Shoah. We will give every murdered Jew a name and his or her story. We will come to these death camps and we will tell their stories; we will never stop speaking and doing and remembering the Shoah.

Leah was saved by her fellow Jews, one whispering to her, “Tell them you are 16,” others keeping her warm with their bodies — keeping her in life on the death march. We will tell her story; we will never forget. And we will continue the life of the Jewish people. We will celebrate our holy days,

do mitzvot, study and live Torah. And HaShem, we will be an ohr goyim, a light to the nations, just as we promised we would.

Rabbi Stephanie Aaron took part in the 2011 March of the Living, the sixth time she has participated.

Rabbi Yossie Shemtov

On Wednesday, March 30, we went to the 2nd Annual Cindy Wool Memorial Seminar on Humanism in Medicine, held in memory of our dear friend, at the Marriott University Park in Tucson.

The speaker, Rachel Naomi Remen, bestselling author of “Kitchen Table Wisdom,” recalled her grandfather telling her that when the world was created, there was this holy darkness which fell apart into little pieces for us to be able to repair it.

Let me tell you the truth: I was rubbing my eyes to make sure my ears didn’t fool me. I needed to make sure it was not one of my childhood teachers in Brooklyn or Jerusalem at the podium. The voice sure didn’t sound like them, but I clearly remember them teaching this concept.

In yeshiva, they used words like tohu (chaos), shviras hakeilim (the breaking of vessels) and nitzotzot (sparks/shrapnel) to explain to us the chainlike stages whereby the Divine light descends from level to level until ultimately this corporeal world is created, according to Kabbalah.

What we were told by our rabbis was that any given situation or location one finds oneself in is for a specific purpose in Divine Providence. If we end up in Albuquerque or Hong Kong, it means that we have some mission to fill there. There are some broken pieces we can fix with a good deed or thought that will help repair this world — the very concept of tikkun olam.

Yet, what impressed me most about Dr. Remen’s knowledge of this was the fact that her grandfather made it a point to relate this empowering mission to his young granddaughter.

At the Passover Seder we will be reading in the Haggadah a Q&A with “the four sons.” Instead of referring to them by numerical value – the first son, the second son – the Torah reads “One wise, one wicked, one simple and one who does not know how to ask a question.”

When educating our children, each one is unique. They all sit at the Seder or in a classroom, but we remember that each one is a person and a soul of its own, created by G-d, and has a great mission in this world.

Each son asks a question, and the Haggadah answers each one on his own level. We don’t alter the message, G-d forbid. We just explain it to their understanding, like Dr. Remen’s wise grandfather.

One of the main mitzvot of Passover is to tell our children the story of the Exodus from Egypt.

I’m sure the splitting of the Red Sea can be found on Youtube and Wikipedia. But what is your story? How do you define your Judaism, faith and heritage? What story are we going to tell our children and grandchildren on Passover or any other day? And most important, perhaps, what example are our actions telling our children?

Rabbi Yossie Shemtov is the spiritual leader of Congregation Young Israel of Tucson and the executive director of Chabad of Tucson. To get his weekly inspirational email, write to yshemtov@aol.com.

Rabbi Helen T. Cohn

Impenetrable, irrelevant, boring. These are some of the descriptions I’ve heard about the Book of Leviticus, which we begin reading this week during the annual Torah cycle. Even the great Israeli teacher Nehama Leibowitz called the laws of Leviticus a “closed book to us” — which did not prevent her from writing an entire volume of interpretation!

Yet, as the Rabbis of old used to say, “this too is Torah and I must learn it.” So what can we learn from the Book of Leviticus? Much of the book is concerned with details of the animal offerings that were the primary form of Israelite worship until the destruction of the Second Temple. Lest we think we are the first generation to reject the notion of slaughtering animals as a prayerful experience, we should consider Maimonides’ opinion toward the end of the 12th century. He explained that the practice of animal sacrifices was transitional; its purpose was to wean the ancient Israelites from the idolatry of Egypt and help them come to know and serve the one true deity, YHVH. Having accomplished this, the sacrifices can be a thing of the past.

So what replaces animal sacrifices as Jewish worship? Maimonides and the rabbinic tradition in general say it is prayer. Certainly this is true. Prayer is the foundation on which our siddur and synagogue are based.

I suggest the Book of Leviticus itself provides another answer. For those of us who look for a guide to elevate our lives in service of the Source of Life, we need look no further than the Holiness Code in the middle of Leviticus. Rather than talk about animal sacrifices, the Holiness Code directs our behavior, teaching us moral and ethical conduct with the intention that “you shall be holy, for I, YHVH your God, am holy.”

What, precisely, are we exhorted to do in the name of holiness? Here are some examples:

• Share your wealth with those less fortunate: “You shall not pick your vineyard bare or gather the fallen fruit of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the poor and the stranger.”

• Don’t deceive or be underhanded with another: “You shall not deal deceitfully or falsely with one another … You shall not defraud your fellow.”

• Don’t take advantage of another’s disability or lack of knowledge: “You shall not insult the deaf or place a stumbling block before the blind.”

Here is a small detail, but a telling one: God introduces the Holiness Code by saying to Moses, “Speak to the whole Israelite community and say to them, ‘You shall be holy, for I, YHVH your God, am holy.’” Note that this is addressed to the whole community. Not the elite few, but all of us.

Leviticus is not just about arcane instructions regarding animal sacrifices. It contains timeless ideas about things that we — just as our ancient ancestors — can do everywhere, every day to fulfill the entire spirit of the Book of Leviticus, which is to bring holiness into our lives through our everyday acts of ethical and moral integrity.

Rabbi Helen T. Cohn is the spiritual leader of Congregation M’kor Hayim in Tucson.

As we mark the weeks since the terrible shooting, certain truths begin to accumulate about the attack and its aftermath. Foremost among them is that the attention of the world on this awful event has already faded, and any lessons from this tragedy must be learned and institutionalized quickly or they will be lost.

One lesson comes from the ways we have responded already. There are beautiful, strange shrines to the victims of the attack in various places around Tucson now, mostly messages to Gabby to heal, but also memorials to those who died: at the University Medical Center where she was in intensive care, at her congressional office, at the Safeway where the shootings occurred, at the school of the 9-year-old girl who died, Christina Taylor Green, and elsewhere. These are touching collections of candles, pictures, flowers, handmade posters, notes, gifts, prayers and wishes. My wife, Wendy, and I visited the one outside UMC, which is quite large and impressive. We were told that there are always people walking through it, 24 hours a day, stopping to pray and meditate and visit. It was an immensely touching experience.

We Jews are not much given to shrines, what with the prohibitions we observe on idols and other images of adulation. But this one is special.

Most moving is the unique spirit among the people at the shrine, a spirit that has been reflected throughout our community in the past few weeks. People at the UMC shrine were amazingly kind to one another. There was an aura of compassion that permeated the place, a kind of sad peace that made everyone gentler.

I have noticed that in the aftermath of this tragedy, even with heated rhetoric coming from other quarters, people are acting with unusual decency and kindness. There is a new air in Tucson, an approach to civic interaction that is also civil and reflects a kind of decency that has always been present but was more likely to be latent than active. It gives me hope that out of this awful experience good may yet be created.

Without cynicism, there is a certain cycle to this kind of horrifying experience. After the initial shock and anger, and the immediate recovery, people are often kinder to one another. Sometimes, if people work together to continue that tendency, this becomes a permanent part of the community’s identity.

I remember New York City before 9/11, and the remarkable experience of visiting it again after 9/11. It was extraordinarily different — and it still is. People will actually ask if you need help or directions. Toll collectors will patiently wait while you fish out your bills. Transit workers have held gates open for me and my kids. I’ve even had ticket-takers advise me on how to save money on my purchase — in New York! I do not believe that in the 350 years of the city’s existence prior to 9/11 any of this ever occurred.

There is new hope for Tucson to become a gentler, kinder, more compassionate place. And there is also the potential that our entire country, which has been so infatuated with inflammatory, violent rhetoric filled with gun references, will re-learn the central virtue of common decency and civility.

We used to have, at times, a recognition of the value of civility in America. I believe that we are realizing now that we need to recover that and reinforce it greatly, in speech and action. I saw a friend of mine in a hospital recently, a Catholic monsignor. He said, “Where evil exists, grace abounds.” I’m not sure of that, but I am quite sure that a greater level of grace and respect for one another, an understanding of derech erets, human decency, will make it much harder for evil to flourish, or even exist.

We are coming to understand that differing ideas need to be expressed respectfully, that we are a family, not a collection of enemies, and that the temperature of the discourse in our society needs to be dramatically lowered.

We can and should disagree in a democracy. But we must do so within the construct of a respectful society. I pray that we continue to learn this from our recent trauma. And that we continue to be kind and considerate.

We can disagree with our government representatives without accusing them of treason or treachery or malfeasance or criminal activity. We can disagree with each other without resorting to personal attacks, either verbal or physical.

We can have a society that is free and open and also civil and respectful. And now, after the Tucson attacks, we must. With God’s help, and through our own actions and attitudes, we will.

Rabbi Samuel M. Cohon is senior rabbi of Temple Emanu-El and host of “Too Jewish Radio Show with Rabbi Sam Cohon and Friends” on KVOI 1030 AM, toojewishradio.com.

Rabbi Shafir Lobb

It started when a friend sent me an article about people leaving structured religion faster than new people are joining, especially 30- to 40-year- olds. The last line in the alter net.org article, “Are We Becoming an Atheist Nation? Three Reasons Young People Are Abandoning Religion,” expressed concern about the churches that young adults are leaving behind. My friend apologized, hoping I was not offended.

With a smile, I answered that I was not; I just wasn’t sure how to respond. The article said that churches are no longer challenging young people, who are better educated and feel they know more than the people on the pulpit. Rabbis take five years of post-graduate study and usually come out of seminary with at least a master’s degree. Some, like me, come to the rabbinate as a second or third career. I had been a mechanical engineer for 17 years. So I recognized that the real issue was relevancy.

Making congregations relevant to young adults is certainly a timely issue. Our new Congregation Kol Simchah focuses on who we are through our approach to young adults, as reflected in our “extended living room” style of service.

My friend asked what I thought about atheists, especially Jewish atheists.

I chuckled and said that there were atheists in our congregation, probably in every congregation. You can be Jewish and an atheist.

“So what do you say to an atheist?” he asked.

I answered with two things: 1) If you gave me a definition of G-d that you cannot accept, I would probably not believe in it either. 2) There is something IS-WAS-WILL-BE-ish about the force from which life emanates or draws its power. Let’s start out by defining G-d —YHVH — the IS-WAS-WILL-BE, as the source of that power/or life force. It’s something inherent in the way the Universe (and perhaps beyond) operates. Beyond these two points, everything else is a function of one’s definition and experience.

There was a pause as he mulled this over. I asked him what his definition of

G-d was; how did he describe what he could not accept?

What he described, I agreed, was hard to accept, perhaps impossible. Language struggles to approximate the infinite, the unknowable; it fails, sometimes miserably. G-d is about experience and feeling, not rational proofs or disproofs.

Maimonides said that we cannot describe or know G-d. All we can do is seek. When Torah describes someone as G-d-fearing, the word, yireh, can also mean seeking. Jacob sought G-d and so did Joseph. When we rejoice in the seeking, we can find joy in our everyday lives.

All of us are on a journey. What we see in the woods of life is a function of where we have searched. What we see only fits our perception and we find what we are seeking, always and in all ways.

Tikkun olam (repairing the world), helping and reaching out to people, are part of the holiness that comes from the seeking. Art and singing and dancing can also be part of the seeking. Being Jewish is about forming community to help each other on our own individual journeys. May you find joy in your seeking, may you live life fully this year.

Rabbi Yossie Shemtov

An 82-year-old Jewish man was recently marveling to me about the wonders of the Global Positioning System, otherwise known as the GPS satellite-based global navigation system. An observation of his got me thinking.

“You see,” he said, “a person can go anywhere but if he doesn’t have a destination he remains stuck in the same spot.”

In the spiritual realm, matters are no different. A human being is meant to constantly thrive and move forward. Without a plan and a goal we are likely to remain isolated in the present which is soon to become the past, and watch life and the world move before our eyes.

But I learned from my travels that even when one does have a direction and knows his destination —with the help of the authoritative voice of the GPS — one can still go astray with missing a turn or an exit on the highway.

We began the year of 5770 with resolutions and firm determination to fulfill them. And yet, at some point along the way we might have drifted off or perhaps got sidetracked and diverted from our objective.

The Hebrew months of Elul and Tishrei are when the GPS informs us, “Recalculating your route.” During this period of repentance and reflection we have an opportunity to reevaluate our decisions and plan our road for the coming year.

Tishrei is referred to in the Torah as the seventh month in the Hebrew calendar (which starts on 1 Nissan). Sheva is Hebrew for the number seven, whose linguistic roots are shared with Shova — satiation or fullness.

This month is indeed filled with holidays that represent the full range of emotions starting with the High Holidays, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, which are days of awe and judgment, while Sukkot and Simchat Torah are observed with unity and joy.

All that’s left for us to do is punch in the destination and drive safely on the 5771 highway.

Chanie and I wish you all a happy and a sweet new year.

Rabbi Yossie Shemtov is the director of Chabad of Tucson and spiritual leader of Congregation Young Israel of Tucson. For recommended destinations, you can e-mail him at yshemtov@aol.com.