n>We enter this Rosh Hashanah 5781 with heavy hearts in Israel, in the midst of a second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic plague. In our tradition, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are called Days of Awe (Yamim Noraim), and our New Year Days specifically as Days of Judgment (Yemei Hadin); indeed, I vividly remember and can still hear my grandmother’s beseeching sobs from the women’s gallery in the shul I attended as a child every holiday with my grandparents, a landsmanshaft synagogue founded by emigrés from Lubien, Poland, to Bedford Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. The specific prayer that drew forth more tears than any other was the “Unetaneh Tokef” prayer ascribed to Rav Kalonymus ben Meshulam of Mayence (circa 1100 CE). Read Full Article »