Who Will Live and Who Will Die? Exploring High Holiday prayer.

For many of us, the theology of the High Holiday prayers can be problematic: a King who sits on high determining what someone merits in the year to come. This theology is most apparent, and thus perhaps most problematic, in the prayer, Unetaneh Tokef, in which God is portrayed as a shepherd watching all humans pass under his staff like sheep. However, the words of the prayer, “Who will live and who will die?” can also be understood as speaking to the human experience independent of the theology underlying the prayer. In this session with Rabbi Jordan Bendat-Appell of the Institute for Jewish Spirituality and the Center for Jewish Mindfulness, we will explore how this ancient and powerful prayer can be reclaimed as an expression of our human experience of fragility and how  - through mindfulness sensibility – the prayer can also offer a practice that can access, no matter what our personal theology.

Rabbi Jordan Bendat-Appell serves on the rabbinic faculty of the Institute for Jewish Spirituality (New York) and is the co-founder and director of the Center for Jewish Mindfulness in Chicago. Jordan was ordained by the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in 2008, after which he served as the rabbi at Aitz Hayim Center for Jewish Living in Glencoe, IL. Prior to pursuing his rabbinical studies, Jordan studied Conservation Biology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, spent several months at Zen centers in California and France, and studied Jewish text at the Conservative Yeshiva and Machon Pardes in Jerusalem. He and his family live in Highland Park.

Established in 1979, Congregation Beth Am is the largest Reform Jewish congregation in Buffalo Grove. Congregation Beth Am, House of the People, offers a strong and loving community dedicated to the enrichment and perpetuation of the Reform Jewish values and teachings. Located in Buffalo Grove, Illinois and serving the Northwest Chicago suburbs including, Vernon Hills, Arlington Heights, Long Grove, Lincolnshire, Libertyville, and Wheeling. 

Congregation Beth Am offers worship and activities for all ages, complete youth education programming from kindergarten through high school, Mens' Club, Sisterhood, and special guest speakers for adult learners. The Congregation is lead by Rabbi Lisa Sari Bellows . Cantor Cheryl Wunch  leads us in song and Rabbi Richard Prass - Director of Education.