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1. Mussaf Service, Rosh Hashanah

Today is the birthday of the World. Today all creatures

of the world stand in judgementwhether as children of

God or as servants. If as children, be merciful with us as

the mercy of a father. If as servants, our eyes looktoward You and depend on You, until You are gracious

to us, and release our verdict, clear and pure as light

2. Mussaf Service, Rosh Hashanah & Yom Kippur

Let us now relate the power of this days holiness, for it

is awesome and frightening. On it Your Kingship will be

exalted; Your throne will be firmed with kindness and

You will sit upon it in truth. It is true that you alone are

the One Who Judges, proves, knows, and bears witness;

Who writes and seals, (counts and calculates); Who

remembers all that was forgottenAngels will hasten, atrembling and terror will seize them, and they will say:

behold! It is the day of Judgement!

3. Neilah Service for Yom Kippur

Our Father, our King, be gracious with us and answer us,

though we have no worthy deeds; treat us with charity

and kindness and save us

Hear, O Israel: Hashem is our God, Hashem the one and

only

Blessed be the Name of his glorious kingdom for all

eternity

Hashem is the only God!

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From Rosh Hashana to Simchat Torah: What a Long, Strange Trip Its Been

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You are warmth/

and You are light/

but You are not me and this is unbearable/

I do not understand how we make a twosome/

I wish to become you/

but remain myself [alone]

-J. P. Sartre, le Diable et le Bon D ieu [The Devil and the Good Lord] (Paris, 1951)

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4.R. Joseph B. Soloveitchik, The Lonely Man of Faith(Tradition, 1964 pp. 1,7)

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5. TB, Sukkah 27bAnd the Sages say: Even though a person does not

fulfill his obligation on the first yom tov with his

friend's lulav; yet he fulfills his obligation in his

friend's sukka, as it says: "Every resident in Israel shall

sit in sukkot" - it teaches that all Israel is fit to sit in

one Sukkah.

6. R. Natan b. Naftali Steinhartz of Nemirov (1780-1844),

Li kkutei Halakhot, Netilat Yadayim 6:99This is the essence of Sukkotan aspectof Sukkat Shalom,

a manifestation of the Clouds of Glory under which all

600,000 root souls of the Jewish people coalesce. As is well

known, these Clouds were there in the merit of Aaron the

Kohein,who: loved peace, and pursued peace, loved

humanity andbrought them close to Torah (Avot

1:12)This is one deeper meaning behind the verse which

states: allof Israel shall dwell in Sukkot, hinting to all

Jewish souls throughout history meeting within the peace ofthe Sukkah

In brief, this is what our Sages meant when they taught: All

of Israel may fulfill their obligation with a single Sukkah:

an essential aspect of the ingathering and the unity of all of

Israel is represented by the Sukkah, as we have explained.

8. Sefer haHinnukh (anon., 13t century), Mitzvah #324

As such, the Mitzvah of Lulav and its three

accompanying species is based on the same priciple, which

is that the days of this Holiday [of Sukkot] are truly days of

great joy for our nationon it, one exudes a special degree

of happiness and joy, hence this Holiday is also known as

Chag heAssif(The Festival of Ingathering), and God

commanded us to celebrate it at this time of the year in

order to benefit us, as we focus our joy toward the spiritual.

However, the risk of losing this focus due to the largely

physical manifestations of that joy is why we have also beencommanded to take the Lulav, as this serves as an

educational tool to remind us, as Jews, that all of our hearts

contentment and joy must be channeled toward God and His

gloryfurthermore, there is no time on the Jewish calendar

as joyous as the Chag heAssif[Sukkot].

7. Mussaf Service for Three Festivals, Sukkot

And you, Lord our God, have given us in love festivals for

rejoicing, holy days, and seasons for joy, this day of the

festival of Sukkot/the festival of eighth day, Shemini

Atzeret, our time of re oicin

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9. R. Aryeh Leib b. Asher Gunzberg (1695-1785), Resp.

Shaagat Aryeh #65(trans. Yehudah Mirsky)

This Mitzvah is not well-defined, but it is an expansive joy.

One is commanded to rejoice on festivals with every manner

of joy one can. It is not like the other Mitzvot, which set an

equal standard for rich and poor alike, but rather in this joy,

each and every one is commanded to rejoice to their utmostand according to their means, men & women as befits them..

11. R. Shimon Gershon Rosenberg (ShaGaR; 1949-2007), bTsel

haEmunah(I n the Shadow of F aith) pp.22-24The depth of the matter is such that the differences between these

holidays is instructive: As we have mentioned, the central Mitzvot of

Rosh haShanah and Yom haKippurim are dedicated to the coronation

of God, and the declaration of His unity, as opposed to the joyous

focus Sukkot takes on the unity of Israel. The four species, and the

Sukkah are geared towards thisAchdut

At first glance, it would seem that cleaving to God and declaring His

unity would be a private act of personal faith - the lonely man of

faith. However, the progression of the Tishri holidays educates us

that the truth of the matter is that the individuals connection with

God is utterly dependent on their connection with the Jewish people,

and the Achdut of the nation as a whole.

The deep solidarity of the faith community flows from the

recognition of the partnership in faith of the believers and

profoundly affects the faith of the individual. The unification of God

is indeed a byproduct of ones own personal conviction in his faith,

but it is only the individuals belief in the faith of others, which leads

to national unity and can succeed in extracting true spiritual faith

from the subjective realm of the individual to more expansive vistas,

and ultimately redeems the believer from his lonely, depressed

quietude to joy and happiness.

12. TB, Taanit 31a

R. Elazar said: in the future, Hashem will make a circle [dance]

for the righteous, and will be situated at the center. Everyone

will motion and point with their finger, as it is written (Isaiah

25): and you will say on that day, this is our God whom we

have waited for, and he is redeeming us; this is the God we have

waited for, let us re oice in his redem tion.

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1.Slavoj Zizek, The Subject Supposed To Be [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv, 2004)

As we struggle to preserve our most intimate and private sense of individuality and authenticityIt is this very

individualism that is so beset by the ever-changing cultural context which is never objective, only subjective. The

phenomenon of the modern retreat into privacy and individualism, contains a thrust towards the adoption of notions

inthe only wayThe waysurrounding popular cultural milieau.of personal authenticity, usually informed by the

satisfactory level of intimacy, is not to merely gaze directly intowhich one might achieve a level of true intimacy, a

the eyes of the beloved and forget the rest of the world, but rather to join hands and together gaze outward to a

third point, the goal toward which the joined couple struggle.

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Additional Material and Sources:

1. See Kurt VonnegutinPalm Sunday(its on WikiQuote) about what he expects for young people to do with their

lives nowadays: What should young people do with their lives today? Many things, obviously. But the most daring

thing is to create stable communities in which the terrible disease of loneliness can be cured.

"Thoughts of a Free Thinker", commencement address, Hobart and William Smith Colleges (26 May 1974)

2.