As President of the synagogue, a large portion of my mental real estate is currently occupied by the High Holidays. The holidays are early this year, with the first day of Rosh Hashanah falling on Saturday, September 12. I, along with the Board of Directors and several committees, have been busy making ready the annual pilgrimage of our community to the shul for hours and days of meaningful services. We will gather, we will greet with L’Shana Tova, and we will wish each other good health, happiness and peace for another year.

Whoever you are and wherever you come from, you are welcome to make this little historic synagogue, a gem on the North Fork of Long Island, your spiritual home for the Yamim Noraim.

We are especially excited and proud to share that we have a new full-time rabbi to lead this year’s services. Rabbi Robert Wolkoff has been with us since July 1, and is now fully ensconced in his  home here, the shul’s newly renovated Rabbi’s Residence. Rabbi Wolkoff has also made himself a part of the greater North Fork community by attending local events, including a peaceful protest/vigil and a Blues Concert at the North Fork Arts Center. It is wonderful to see him meeting and connecting with people in our greater community. Joining Rabbi Wolkoff on the pulpit for High Holiday services is Cantor William Weinstein, who chanted beautiful services for us last year.

Our new leadership — Rabbi, Board of Directors, and committees — are moving us forward with a steady hand. We began this High Holiday process on Tisha B’Av with a moving evening service.  The team of Rabbi Wolkoff and shul member Chuck Simon were all in black to help us mourn the loss of the Temple in Jerusalem. The two men took turns reading from Ecclesiastes in Hebrew and English, creating an effective start to the process of Teshuvah we call the Days of Awe.

Rabbi Alan Lew z”l in his High Holiday’s classic, This is Real and You are Completely Unprepared, asks us to “keep your eye on the ball, on the starting point, on the things in life that are essential, and that sustain us.” For the Jew, this is a time of awakening, the time of year that calls us more than ever to ourselves, our families, and our community. We are fully into the month of Elul, the thirty days leading up to Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. The daily blast of the shofar at the end of the morning service with the blessing to “hear” the shofar is the wake-up call for this process.

Change is coming; we all know that. But what if we turn toward change? What if we actively choose it?  This High Holiday process from Tisha B’Av through Simchat Torah and everything in between turn the Days of Awe into a Journey of Transformation.

Will you join us for this profound time of turning? The shofar blast is calling.

—Suzan E. Lipson