Dear Lab/Shul,
This Rosh Hashanah, we invite you to join Lab/Shul at the river and at the UN to release the past and renew our commitment to a better future. Scroll down for all the details on our Tashlich ritual and the March to End Fossil Fuels.
When I joined the staff two years ago, one of my very first Lab/Shul events was Tashlich in Rockefeller Park. I’ve always loved the sensuous quality of this ritual: tearing a piece of bread, watching it drop toward the river while I imagine my past year going with it, hearing the plop and ripple it makes when it hits. As a staff member of only a week, my first Lab/Shul Tashlich was full of soulful kavanah/intention that helped me think freshly about an old ritual, warmth and community facilitated by our incredible volunteer team and staff, and a raucous participatory music jam. I thought: Wow! I can’t believe having and facilitating sacred experiences as part of this community gets to be my job now.
As we lead up to the High Holy Days of Awe, I want to let you know about two additional Rosh Hashanah happenings in person in NYC: Tashlich, on Saturday, September 16 at Rockefeller Park, immediately after our Rosh Hashanah morning ritual; and the March to End Fossil Fuels, gathering in midtown Manhattan at 12:25pm on Sunday, September 17.
Lab/Shul’s Tashlich features singing, words of wisdom, time for contemplation, and a community music jam and picnic afterward. (Do you play shofar? Kazoo? Are you a musician or sound maker of any stripe? If you’d like to be part of the jam, reach out to naomi@labshul.org to let us know what instruments you’ll bring with you!) All community members are invited to join us, whether or not you’re able to join us for the morning ritual. We’ll gather at Rockefeller Park at about 1:30 pm on September 16. Small nosh bags will be available at the park; we invite you to bring your own picnic lunch and a blanket if you’d like.
On Sunday, September 17th, we invite you to join us in the March to End Fossil Fuels, a demonstration preceding the UN Climate Ambition Summit to demand President Biden take bold action to end fossil fuels. For our team, taking on concerted action on behalf of our planet and humanity as a whole feels like the perfect way to observe the second day of Rosh Hashanah. We acknowledge that for some of our community members taking the day for more traditional contemplation and prayer will be the right approach. If you’d like to join us, we’ll gather in midtown Manhattan at 12:25pm and the Lab/Shul ritual team will be present to facilitate a short ritual connecting this action to the sacred time and space of the High Holy Days. Click here for more info.
Which reminds me…have you registered for the High Holy Days of Awe yet? There’s still space to join us in person at Tribeca Performing Arts Center and online. Click here to reserve your spot. Please also join us for Sit and Sorry, a Jewish & Zen Buddhist night of forgiveness, this coming Saturday night, September 9, in person at the New York Zen Center and online. Learn more here.
May you feel the river of life flowing strongly in you on these holy days.
Shana Tova,
Ben Freeman
Associate Clergy
