Search results for Simhat Torah

On the High Holidays, we must face God and each other. We stand together and sing out loud that we are a single, united community. At the same time, we turn to God and say directly, face to Face, “we are Yours.”

How can we hold both of these commitments and achieve atonement, together and before God? With essays from Hadar faculty and activities for children and families, this reader will help you explore our relationships with each other and with God as we make our way through the Days of Awe.

On Yom Kippur, the Kohen Gadol enters the Kodesh ha-Kodashim, "the Holy of Holies," a space which is poetically named lifnai ve-lifnim, "inward and inside."

There is a beautiful double meaning in this wordplay: panim means “face,” the most external level of true encounter between two people, while lifnim means “within,” the direction of ever-deeper relationship. Whether we’re studying a text, facing a friend, looking in a mirror, or standing before God, we must turn inwardly as far as we can go, into the innermost sanctums of our hearts and souls.

May this year's reader will help us face ourselves, each other, and God.