Hayom Harat Olam (“Today the world stands as at birth”)

This year, within the coronavirus pandemic, we are called upon to care for the world more than any other year, through observation of it and of ourselves. Observation is an important tool, especially in the dark where Rosh Hashanah begins. It is only in this way, the Sfat Emet (“Language of Truth”) teaches, that it is really possible to see our true situation. The light and the darkness, the mistakes in that lie between them, and the line of hope that connects the chaos to repentance. We will look at the world at this moment in history, at an ancient Jewish tradition of Adam and Eve when they left the Garden of Eden and the possibility that always awaits us to return, to repair, to heal, to be revealed. 

Rabbi Tamar Elad-Appelbaum is the founder and rabbi of Kehilat Zion in Jerusalem, and co-founder and head of the Beit Midrash for Israeli Rabbis of the Hartman Institute, and HaMidrasha at Oranim. In 2010, she was chosen by “The Forward” as one of the five influential women religious leaders in Israel, for her work promoting Jewish pluralism and freedom.