From the Rabbi
Rabbi Robert L. Wolkoff
Previous Messages
“A Rabbinic Mission to the Holy Land in Troubled Times”
“The Misguided Premise of the Anti-Israel Message”
“Ten Days of Teshuvah – Return, Repentance and Renewal”
“For ten days, the gates are open, and the world is fluid. We are finally awake, if only in fits and starts, if only to toss and turn. For ten days, transformation is within our grasp. For ten days, we can imagine ourselves not as fixed and immutable beings, but rather as a limitless field upon which qualities and impulses rise up with particular intensity…”
— Rabbi Alan Lew
This Is Real and You Are Completely Unprepared:
The Days of Awe as a Journey of Transformation
What a joy it was to spend Rosh Hashanah with all of you in Greenport. Cantor Weinstein and I, along with our spouses, Jim and Cassie, felt so warmly welcomed, and look forward to being with you again on Yom Kippur.
Now we are in the midst of the Ten Days of Teshuvah – Return, Repentance and Renewal. These days are a liminal time — a period betwixt and between — offering us the opportunity to take a breath before the drama and demands of Yom Kippur. These days invite us to engage in hitbodedut — personal, quiet reflection — before gathering again with the larger community on Kol Nidrei night.
In the words of my beloved classmate and friend, Rabbi Alan Lew, z”l: “For ten days, transformation is within our grasp.” We often think of transformation as something enormous and overwhelming, like a 180-degree turn. But that’s not really how most change or growth happens. The idea of teshuvah is that having gone a bit off-course over the past year, we need to shift direction ever so slightly in order to return. Returning to our authentic selves, to our people, to God, and setting a course for the year to come.
As we look toward Yom Kippur, I want to remind you to bring nonperishable food to the synagogue on Erev Yom Kippur for CAST. [The big red barrel is on the entrance ramp. Please help us fill it.]
At the end of Yom Kippur, we conclude Ne’ilah, the final service of the day, with the sounding of the shofar. Do you own a shofar? Please bring it to the shul. Do you know how to blow shofar? I will have a basket of shofarot at the shul for you to borrow. Let’s end our long day of fasting and prayer with a teki’ah gedolah to shake the heavens!
Finally, what do we do at the end of Yom Kippur, after the Community break-the-fast? Our sages suggest that we immediately go outside to build the sukkah. I’ve long felt that perhaps the whole point of Yom Kippur is to be able to celebrate Sukkot with a full and joyful heart.
So I hope you’ll join me at CTI on Erev Sukkot (Oct. 6), when we’ll welcome friends from the Unitarian Universalist Church to join us for a short service and harvest celebration in the sukkah. The next morning, we’ll meet for services including Hallel (lots of singing), lulav and etrog shaking, and lunch in the sukkah. And stay tuned for a special Sukkot gathering on Wednesday, Oct. 8. Watch for more details about this, and plans for Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah.
In the meantime, wishing you and your families a G’mar Chatimah Tovah — May you be sealed for a good year.
—Rabbi Debra Cantor
High Holiday Message from Rabbi Cantor
Dear Tifereth Israel Friends,
Cantor Ze’ev Weinstein and I are excited to usher in the new year with you in less than a week! We are planning what we hope will be meaningful and participatory high holiday services, filled with singing and learning.
Tashlich sheets (as well as birdseed) will also be available at the synagogue on the first day of Rosh Hashanah. Birdseed!? It turns out that bread isn’t healthy for fish or birds, so nowadays we toss birdseed, pebbles, or twigs into the water. Tashlich is a beautiful custom, and especially so at the water’s edge in Greenport. I hope you’ll join us!
“Prayers for the New Year at Tifereth Israel,” will be available at the synagogue as well.
We’re trying a few new things this holiday season. This year, on the second day of Rosh Hashanah, following the Torah/Haftarah readings and shofar blowing, I’ll be leading a Community Text Study where we will explore some powerful new Israeli poetry related to the Akedah/The Binding of Isaac. Then we’ll blow shofar (again) and conclude the service. I’m looking forward to sharing these poems with you (in English translation along with the Hebrew); I’ve been studying Israeli poetry online since the start of the pandemic with Rachel Korazim, an amazing teacher who lives in Tel Aviv-Jaffa. Rachel just taught us these poems last week and I found them incredibly moving. I think you will as well.
Finally, we are working on some great programs and gatherings for Sukkot and Shemini Atzeret, including sharing Sukkot with guests from the community, lulav and etrog shaking and parading, eating and learning in the sukkah, and joyful singing and dancing with the Torah. Stay tuned for details.
I can’t wait to be with you in Greenport next week!
Wishing you a shanah tovah u’metukah – a good, sweet new year,
Rabbi Debra Cantor
“The Freedom to Act”
In the reflective spirit that follows our national celebration of independence on the Fourth of July, we are invited not just to look back — but to look deeper. The fireworks may have faded, but the question remains: What is freedom? And how do we live it?
Both the Bible and the American story are conversations about freedom. They are messy, complex, and hopeful — not just about liberty as an idea, but as a lived journey, a covenant, and a calling. At the heart of the biblical story is God’s gift of free will. To be created in God’s image means having the capacity to choose, to question, even to disobey. Freedom is not always used well, but it is the sacred foundation of any relationship.
The Torah is often seen as a book of rules. But in Hebrew, the word for “engraved” on the Tablets at Sinai is ḥarut. The rabbis of the Talmud play on this word, reading it as ḥerut, meaning freedom. The commandments are not chains, but are the engravings of a path toward meaningful, purpose-filled living.
This same paradox appears in American history. The Constitution, an engraved covenant, wasn’t perfect, but it aspired to enshrine liberty and justice. It offered not just freedom from tyranny, but freedom to build, serve, and include.
Parashat “Pinchas” we read last Shabbat comes at a potent time in the Jewish calendar: the 17th of Tammuz, which begins a three-week period of mourning leading to Tisha B’Av, the day commemorating the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. These weeks focus on loss, but also on hope and renewal. Pinchas acts in a moment of crisis. He steps forward when others hesitate. Tradition later identifies him with Elijah the Prophet, who also stood alone, questioning himself, yet he remained faithful to his calling. Like Moses, who said he was “heavy of speech” — not diplomatic — but still chosen. As the saying goes: God doesn’t call the qualified; He qualifies the called.
Freedom is not just individual; it is communal. It grows when we see the divine in others. As “Hatikvah,” Israel’s anthem, declares: The dream is “to be a free people in our land,” a freedom based on relationship, not isolation. Freedom calls us to show up — not only when it’s easy, but when it’s difficult, too. It’s not always clear when we are living through historic times. But that is when freedom matters most — when it’s on the line.
May this month of Av bring us to act together,
—Rabbi Gadi Capela
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