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Holidays

Bet Haverim observes Jewish holidays and celebrations throughout the year with love and ruach.  All are welcome - members and non-members, Jews and friends of the Jewish people, ritual mavens and ritual learners.

Please see the calendar  for start times, locations, and details about each celebration. If you have any questions, just give us a call at the office: (404) 313-6446.

high holy days

The High Holy Days at Congregation Bet Haverim express the majesty and awe of the season with the familiar warmth and welcoming that have become a foundation of our community. We open our doors for all to worship year round, but especially during the High Holy Day season.

CBH becomes a spiritual home to hundreds of community members each High Holy Days, with services that are ticket-free. Music, thought-provoking messages and meaningful sermons are woven throughout Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.
 

Led by our rabbi and lay leaders, we use "Kol Haneshamah" (Every Soul), the Reconstructionist machzor (prayer book). The egalitarian and gender-neutral prayers and liturgy honor an inclusive vision of Jewish participants throughout our history and heritage. All of our services include special lesbian and gay prayers as well.
 

Our High Holiday services range from the more traditional to meditation and contemporary Jewish chanting.
 

For children, our High Holiday offerings translate the power of these days in age-appropriate services to help them develop important connection to these observances. Alongside children's services, we offer activities that relate to the themes and values of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Our intergenerational Kol Nidre service is led by families, along with the rabbi, and has become a communal favorite.
 

CBH provides an important touchstone that helps many reconnect to their Jewish identity and their best selves. We strive to reaffirm the joy of Jewish living expressed through the days of awe and engage people in an accounting of their lives with integrity but without needless shame or admonition. Throughout Rosh Hashanah we greet the New Year with excitement and expectant promise, and on Yom Kippur we finish the work of teshuvah, the work of returning to our best possible understanding of who we are called to be.

 

Joining CBH for the High Holy Days is a powerful way to experience this profound season in our lives.

 

 

 

 

 

high holidays - all are welcome

Looking for a place to pray, be with community, share a nosh, be inspired by music, meditate, make some friends or sit in silence for the High Holy Days? You are welcome.

We warmly welcome you if you are queer, straight, bisexual, gay, questioning, lesbian, asexual, confused or prefer no label at all. We welcome all those who are single, happily married or maybe not so happily, divorced and separated. We welcome women, drag queens and kings, men, folks who are gender queer, transgender and people who are intersex.

We warmly welcome single parents, two-parent households, complex family constellations, people seeking families of choice, children of all ages and even those who cry during the service. If your family is multiethnic or multiracial, if you are a Jew of color or of white privilege, you are welcome. We warmly welcome you if you invited your family or if your family made you come, if you are seeking solitude or the company of others. We extend a special welcome to those who are over 60 but not grown up yet, and to teenagers who are growing up too fast.

We offer a sincere welcome to you who are Jewish, are Jew-ish, love a Jew or like a Jew, to the respectfully curious, to seekers of all faiths, to those of Sephardi, Mizrachi, Ashkenazi or unknown descent. We welcome you if you embrace mysticism, if you question or reject God, if you employ contemplative practice; if you are Reconstructionist, Conservative, Orthodox, Renewal or Reform; if you are a Humanist, Culinary or a Post-Denominational Jew.

We welcome those who are dirt poor or filthy rich or anywhere in between, come in a suit or heels—or both, dress in jeans, color coordinate or mismatch, wear a yarmulke or don’t; have tattoos, piercings, bifocals—or all three; have blue hair, no hair, a mohawk or a perfect coif. You are welcomed equally whether you are more Jewish than Moses, have only a Jewish father, have two Jewish mothers, are a Jew by choice, or a Jew without one. If you only come twice a year, don’t call your mother enough, or still live with her, you are welcome.

You are welcome if you speak fluent Hebrew, stumble on transliteration, speak Hebrew with a drawl, never uttered a word in your life, curse in Yiddish, or sing in Ladino. If you’re Israeli, if you’ve been to Israel on Birthright, never been, an activist against the occupation, are passionately in love with Israel and/or are deeply conflicted, you are welcome.

A special welcome to you if you don’t have a perfect body, or work out too much; if you have wrinkles on wrinkles, or have botoxed them away; if you rode your bike here, or your SUV, or came on your wheelchair; if you are a soccer mom, a football widow or a hockey dad, or if you detest sports altogether. We welcome artists, writers, students, singers and those who crunch numbers, retirees, practice law, unemployed, under-employed, teach, build, plant or serve.

We welcome you if you are down on your luck, or happier than honey on apples, tired of religious dogma, are skeptical and suspicious, doubtful, hopeful, hopeless, selfless or self-satisfied. We welcome you if you’ve been having problems or are good with answers, or if you don’t like “organized religion” —we’ve been there too. We extend a warm welcome to activists, the apolitical, accidental advocates and silent resisters, those who embrace the status quo and those who buck convention.

If you don’t fast on Yom Kippur or refrain from wearing leather, make home-made round challahs or have never blown a shofar, you are welcome. We welcome you if you are a board member, a member of CBH, a guest or someone who stumbled in accidentally. You are welcome!

At Congregation Bet Haverim, these High Holy Days are for all of us, which is why since 2001 we have not had tickets and proudly proclaim: All are welcome.

Tue, March 19 2024 9 Adar II 5784