Literally meaning “Head of the Year,” Rosh Hashanah marks the beginning of the Jewish calendar. It begins a 10-day period of repentance and prayer which ends on Yom Kippur. We celebrate the holiday with services and apples dipped in honey to symbolize the hope for a sweet year to come.

Each of our services have robust music by Cantor Greenberg, and often with backup from our choir. In addition, Rabbi Katz will deliver a heartfelt, thoughtful, and timely sermon. All services are livestreamed. 

Erev Rosh Hashanah
The Ten Days of Awe begin with a service filled with prayer, song, and reflection, designed to ground us in the spirit of the season and introduce the major theme of the High Holy Days.

Rosh Hashanah Day 1
This service is a more robust avenue for prayer and reflection than the night before. In it, we hear shofar, read Torah, and are given space to assess our past year while planning for the year ahead.  Congregants also play a role in leading aspects of this service.

Tashlich Service, the Symbolic Casting Off of Sins
The prophet Micah famously wrote (7:19), “God will take us back in love; God will cover up our iniquities. You will cast all their sins into the depths of the sea.” On the first day of Rosh Hashanah, we proceed to Clark’s Pond and symbolically cast off our sins by throwing bread or emptying our pockets.  

Rosh Hashanah Day 2 Service
Though similar to the previous day,  this service is different, and less formal in tone. We invite many musical guests to join Cantor Greenberg in singing, engage in a thought provoking discussion (rather than a formal sermon), and join together for a festive meal afterward.

Our Yom Kippur services have robust music by Cantor Greenberg, and often with backup from our choir. In addition, Rabbi Katz will deliver a heartfelt, thoughtful, and timely sermon. All our services are livestreamed. 

Kol Nidre Service
We begin our services with prayer, song, and reflection. Taking its name from the central prayer of the evening, Kol Nidre, we proclaim that if we fell short in fulfiling our vows to others and ourselves, we may be forgiven and begin anew with a blank slate. This is the most magestic of all our High Holy Day services.

Yom Kippur Shacharit (Morning) Service
As with Rosh Hashanah, this service contains additional elements to the previous night’s service. In it, we read Torah and hear additional prayers that speak to our humanity and the need for change. Congregants will play a role in leading aspects of this service.

Yom Kippur Text Study
Join us each year, as a leader in our community guides us in a thought-provoking text study, meant to open our eyes to a previously unconsidered aspect of the holiday.

Yizkor Memorial Service
Take time to reflect and remember our loved ones who we have lost in recent days and years past. Loved one’s names are published in our Book of Remembrance.

Concluding Services: Minchah, Avodah, Neilah 
Our final services of Yom Kippur, where together, one last time, we pray and sing together during these Days of Awe.
Mincha: Our afternoon service where we hear Torah one last time and encounter the famous story of Jonah and the Whale.
Avodah: The service recalling what Yom Kippur looked like 2000 years ago when the great Temple in Jerusalem was standing. Each year we work to make this service feel different by involving congregants in the re-telling.
Neilah: Literally meaning “locking” this is the last service before the Gates of Heaven are closed. Although most people are tired and hungry by this time, the clergy have people dancing in the aisles as we prepare for Yom Kippur’s end.

Led by Rabbi Sharon Litwin and Clergy Associate Ronni Pressman, along with the B’yachad band, TNT families, and teen Torah readers, these services take place at 10:30am on Rosh Hashanah Day 1 and Yom Kippur morning. Our leaders engage our families in an uplifting and participatory family service for families with children in 2nd – 6th grade. (7th-12th graders are welcome at our teen service or in the main service in the Sanctuary). 

On Kol Nidre, families are invited into the sanctuary to hear Cantor Greenberg chant Kol Nidre and then join together in the chapel for an abbreviated and special family service in parallel with the main service. 

Led by Rabbinic Intern James Feder, Assistant Director of Youth and Family Education Wendy Starr, and a team of our most musical teens, these services are an interactive and engaging way for our older students to encounter the major prayers and ideas of the High Holy Days alongside their peers. These services take place at 10:30am on Rosh Hashanah Day 1 and Yom Kippur morning. Together, they pray and reflect, forging bonds that will carry through for the rest of the year.

Beginning five days after Yom Kippur, Sukkot is a harvest festival named after the temporary booths or huts (sukkot in Hebrew) decorated with fruit and vegetables in which Jews are supposed to dwell during this week-long celebration. These booths are set up to recall those in which the Jews lived during their journey from Egypt. The holiday is marked by processions with the lulav (palm branch with myrtle and willow) and etrog (citron).

At Temple Ner Tamid, families have the opportunity to have a meal together in our sukkah, located on our back lawn. Our Shoresh and Religious School classes gather to shake the lulav and etrog as well as a Tot Service, along with other engagement programs in this space.

The day after Sukkot is Shemini Atzeret, nominally a separate holiday; thus, there is no partaking of meals in the sukkah, nor use of the lulav and etrog. A special prayer for rain is recited during the service.

The following day, Simchat Torah marks the end of the annual Torah reading and the beginning of the cycle for the coming year. It is celebrated with singing, dancing, and merry processions of people carrying Torahs. At Temple Ner Tamid, we partner with other area congregations to celebrate together on Church Street in Montclair to pray, sing, and dance with the Torah.