Rosh Hashanah at The Kabbalah Centre

Last week was Rosh Hashanah, and I celebrated it at The Kabbalah Centre in New York. It was my first experience of a Kabbalistic Rosh Hashanah, and I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it. Well, standing for the long periods of time that the service required every five minutes or so was difficult, but I found these moments to be spiritually cleansing considering the focus was on certain prayers and I got very wrapped up in them.

I am Jewish and although I missed out on a religious upbringing, my grandma managed to take me to Hebrew School when I was a child. It meant the world to her that I was her only Jewish grandchild and she wanted me to feel as passionate about our heritage as she did. I remember little of those lessons since my mother took me out of classes soon after I began because she wasn’t interested in raising me in a religious household. Years later when I moved to LA I was searching for some cultural roots and I happened to be dating a Jewish man who introduced me to a wonderful Rabbi. He told me what my Hebrew name (that my grandma gave me at birth) meant in English and I signed up for two of his classes. One of them being a Hebrew class. Unfortunately today after two attempts to learn Hebrew, I don’t remember how to read it. But last week during the Rosh Hashanah ceremonies, I was overcome with emotion when the congregation read the beautiful prayers from the Holy Books. My Grandma Sophie’s spirit was right there with me and boy was she beaming from ear to ear.

Family, roots, tradition and heritage are all important aspects for most people. It was such a joy to find such a wonderful community of people with vastly different backgrounds from all over the globe, come together to celebrate the Jewish New Year together. Kabbalah isn’t a religion (see my first post on Kabbalah) it’s a spiritual tradition, and it’s all-inclusive and absolutely wonderful.