The Charlotte Jewish News- September 2026- Page 24
From the Bimah
Journey Back
by Rabbi Asher Knight
There are moments when we realize that we have been moving too quickly to understand our own lives. Sometimes the realization comes through loss. Sometimes through conflict, exhaustion, or a decision we can no longer postpone. Sometimes nothing dramatic has happened at all. We simply become aware that our days are full, our attention is scattered, and we are no longer certain that the life we are living reflects the person we hope to be. The world rarely stops to give us time to think. The messages, responsibilities, and demands continue.
However, the High Holy Days offer something rare: an invitation to step out of that motion for long enough to pay attention. Some will enter these days with faith and familiarity. Others will come searching, uncertain about the prayers, about God, or even about walking through a synagogue door.
The opportunity does not depend upon certainty.
Through prayer, music, silence, or the sound of the shofar, we are invited to be drawn beyond ourselves, reminded that our lives are connected to something larger than our own ambitions, anxieties, and needs. That is one way to understand spirituality: not as an escape from life, but as an experience that widens life.
We need such moments because the quality of our lives depends, in part, upon the quality of our attention. And attention has become difficult. We are surrounded by information, noise, urgency, and the constant demand to respond. We can be connected to everyone and present to almost no one, including ourselves.
The High Holy Days give us a place to notice. They offer sanctuary from the pulls and tugs of the world. They give us silence in which to reflect, reconsider, and reframe. They ask us to look honestly at the year that has passed. Where did we act with courage? Whom did we fail to see? What have we left undone? Yet stepping away is only half the journey.
In the Torah, Moses ascends the mountain and encounters the Divine, but then he is commanded to return to where the people are. The sanctuary is not a hiding place from the world’ s complications. It is where we gather the clarity and strength to reenter the world. Spiritual retreat is necessary, yet it is not sufficient.
The danger is that we mistake feeling moved for being transformed. We may experience peace or insight and then return unchanged to the same resentments, evasions, and suffering we have trained ourselves not to see.
The High Holy Days are not meant to be a one-way journey out of the world. Their purpose is to send us back into it.
The Hebrew word teshuvah means return to God, to Jewish life, to the person we are capable of becoming and to the places where our values must take form. We return to the apology we
When Our Voices Become Prayer
By Cantor Danielle Rodnizki
Each year, as the Hebrew month of Elul arrives, I find myself listening. Listening for the quiet stirrings of my heart. For the tremble of awakening in my own soul. For the sacred invitation the High Holy Days extend to each of us to pause, to reflect, to begin again.
We are, after all, imperfect.
We stumble. We miss the mark. And yet, we return. This season reminds us of who we are: b’ nei Yisrael – the children of the one who wrestled with God. We are seekers and strugglers, question-askers and meaning-makers. Our wrestling is not a flaw. It is our inheritance.
On Erev Rosh Hashanah, we will hear the Hin’ ni prayer. This owe, the relationship that needs repair, the workplace where integrity may cost us something, and the community where people remain lonely, hungry, grieving, or unseen.
The world’ s brokenness is real. From antisemitism and violence to loneliness and the pain people carry quietly. The spiritual work of the High Holy Days is not to persuade us that these things are illusions. It is to widen the circle of people whose lives matter to us and to ask what responsibility their lives place upon ours.
We cannot repair every broken place, but we can take responsibility for what lies within our reach.
That may mean speaking differently and with more curiosity to someone with whom we disagree. It may mean giving more generously, apologizing more honestly, noticing someone we have overlooked, or refusing to remain silent when another person is diminished. The work is often less dramatic than we imagine. But it is no less sacred.
Cantor Danielle Rodnizki prayer is a vulnerable plea – the cantor stands before the congregation, not as a soloist, but as a human being, asking for strength and humility to be a voice for the community’ s prayers on these sacred days of awe. The prayer ends with a simple, yet powerful affirmation: Ki Atah shomei’ a t’ filat amcha Yisrael b’ rachamim –“ For You hear the prayer of Your people Yisrael with compassion.”
I learned from my teacher, Cantor Ellen Dreskin, that when vocalized differently, Midrash suggests that we might read Yisrael as Yashir Eil – God will sing. If read this way, then not only are we the people who wrestle with God, we are also the people through whom God sings.
This alternate reading transforms Hin’ ni into something even more profound. God doesn’ t just hear our prayers; God hears the music within them. God is the music within them. Our collective voice – our ancient melodies, our aching cries, our sacred silence – becomes a vessel for the Divine. We are not praying to God. We are praying with God.
There are moments during the High Holy Days when I stop singing and simply listen. To the power of the entire congregation singing Sh’ ma. To a fragile whisper of Avinu Malkeinu. To the meaningful silence after the final note. These are holy sounds. Not because they are perfect, but because they are shared. They remind me that this prayer is not mine alone. Every voice in the room – each person with their own joys, regrets, doubts, and hopes – helps spark something transcendent, something beyond what any one of us could create alone.
Hin’ ni concludes with the words: Baruch Atah, Adonai, shomei’ a t’ filah –“ Blessed are You, Adonai, who hears prayer.” Not who“ answers” prayer. Not who“ fixes” our prayer. Simply: hears. And perhaps sings.
This High Holy Day season, may we join in community not as perfect voices, but as open ones.
The High Holy Days offer us the possibility of stepping apart, seeing more clearly, and returning with greater purpose, not because we have solved every problem or found every answer, but because we have remembered that our choices matter. So, wherever you find yourself this year: certain or searching, connected or distant, at home in Jewish life or wondering whether there is a place for you within it, consider this an invitation. Journey back. Come hear the shofar. Come sit with the questions. Step away from the noise long enough to notice what is calling you. Then return to your relationships, your responsibilities, and a world that needs your attention, courage, and care.
May we cry out, sing out, reach out, and trust that we are heard. Let us trust that through our imperfect prayers, God’ s voice might be heard again. Because we are Yisrael. And through us, Yashir Eil – God will sing.
L’ shanah tovah – May your new year be filled with compassion, connection and song.