Rosh Hashannah and Yom Kippur will be celebrated in Cornwall this year as follows.

Erev Rosh Hashanah (Sunday, 29 September), 29 Elul 6:30 p.m.

Service will start promptly at 6:30 p.m. and will be followed by a catered evening meal provided  by Kehillat Kernow to bring in the New Year.

Rosh Hashanah (Monday, 30 September, 1st day), 1 Tishri, 5780 at 10:30 a.m.

Service will be followed by a catered luncheon sponsored by Jo Richler and Paul Kleiman.

Kol Nidre, Erev Yom Kippur (Tuesday, 8 October), 9 Tishri 7:00 p.m.

Yom Kippur (Wednesday, 19 September), 10 Tishri 10:30 am

Yischor Service is scheduled for about 4:30 – 5:00 p.m.. A catered dinner to  break the fast will follow the last service which should end about 6:30 p.m.

Visitors who will be here during this period are welcome to attend our celebrations and services. Donations to help cover costs will be appreciated.  At the same time, we participate in the MRJ High Holy Days Ticket Scheme for anyone aged between 18 and 27, but without the tickets!  In other words, if you are Jewish and aged between 18 and 27 just come along without worrying about making a donation.

A highlight for this year is that we will again be blessed with the services of Student Rabbi, this time, Eleanor Davis, who is escaping from London to conduct Kol Nidre and Yom Kippur, so another reason to add to those you already have to come along and join in our most sacred days. Eleanor began as a peripatetic music teacher in Gloucestershire before moving to work in arts administration, spending many years in London’s West End. She has been especially involved in adult education at Edgware & Hendon Reform Synagogue and for Reform Judaism. “Why should children have all the fun studying Torah?” asks Eleanor. Covering maternity absence led her to four years of creating a weekly e-newsletter (Eits Chinuch) for Jewish educators, which wove Torah together with many and varied topics. That in turn led her to Leo Baeck College to further her search for ways both to bring our whole selves into the synagogue and inspire us to take our Jewishness with us as we go back out into the world.

Can you have too much of a good thing? Certainly, the Israelites had. After complaining about their limited diet. God sends them quails, so many that the people gather staggering quantities of birds and then eat until they are utterly nauseated. Poor Moses! He’s had enough of ‘a good thing’ too, weary of the kvetching and backsliding of the people he leads and teaches. To make matters worse, Aaron and Miriam complain about their brother’s choice of a foreign wife and the fact that God talks to him more than to them.  Moses, who has recovered some of his equanimity after the episode with the quail, immediately asks God to forgive Miriam, for Moses is a patient teacher and a forgiving brother.

Then we are into Sh’lach L’cha and the episode of the spies. This time it seems to be God who has had enough, and Moses who begs Him to forgive the people. God does, but He condemns them to forty years of wandering through the wilderness and the death in the wilderness of all those who were adults when they left Egypt. There is more evil to come, but that is in the next parsha. For now, we will stick with Sh’lach L’cha.

Adam Feldman will be leading the service this Saturday, starting at 10:30. Now, there’s someone who is a patient and humble teacher, too, so come along and listen, learn and practise.