With the High Holidays and even most of Sukkot behind us, we are left with two major tasks. The first one is to be happy. In some ways it is one of the stranger commandments that we come across. Why should we have to be commanded by the Torah to rejoice? In reality, the answer is that we find it all too easy to be caught up in the negative aspects of life. So pervasive is this tendency that even thousands of years ago the Torah had to demonstrate its wisdom by commanding us to rejoice in the harvest.

Ideas for High Holy Day sermons begin to circulate in my mind as soon as Yom Kippur ends. And yet I find it very difficult to get those ideas onto paper and into finished form until the High Holy Day season truly approaches. Even though I know rabbis who are able to write their sermons in June, it never feels right to me. I need the sense of an impending fall season. I need to be more aware of the symbols that connote the High Holy Days.

Some years ago, there was a British TV show my mother just adored. It aired in the U.S. under the title, Are You Being Served? It centered around the employees at an English department store. It had quite the cast of characters. If a customer came in, they would greet them with the title words of the show, Are you being served?

Tikkun Leil Shavuot - Studying for the Giving of the Torah

Why is the festival of Shavuot called "the time of the giving of our Torah" and not the time of the receiving of our Torah? Because the giving of the Torah happened at one specified time, but the receiving of the Torah happens at every time and in every generation.
—Rabbi Meir Alter of Ger

Each generation must make its own way back to Sinai, must stand under the mountain and re-appropriate and

Some years ago, there was a British comedy which aired in the U.S. called, "Are You Being Served?" It centered on the employees at an English department store. They were quite a cast of characters. Customers were greeted with the title words, ìAre you being served?î