How to Be YOU During Services This High Holy Days

Connection, music, stimulating our minds, reflection, comfort, and rejoicing are all amazing reasons to pray at services. Correspondingly, there are lots of reasons why it might be hard to be at services, regardless of age or experience: sitting still, needing to come late, not understanding the Hebrew, not knowing the songs, and more. 

At Beth Emet, we want you to BE YOU. You are welcome here, no matter who you are and what your body or mind needs to be here. Our sanctuary has accessibility features such as assistive listening devices, large-print prayer books, fidget tools, comforting blankets, sound piped into the adjoining room, and more. 

At the High Holidays, it feels like an especially good time to reiterate how you can be you, and how you can help others be them, when we’re together at Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, and beyond. These guidelines might help folks who aren’t sure about a child making noise. They might help folks who aren’t sure about an adult whose needs differ from their own. They might help folks understand how to best adapt practices to their own bodies and brains. 

Here are some tips for families or for anyone! 

• Move around when you need to. The back of the sanctuary, the sides, and the Beit Midrash are great places to use for standing, walking, jumping, and dancing. 

• Use a fidget tool. Fidgets help antsy bodies get the wiggles out to help focus the mind. A fidget tool might be a specialized object (and we have some we particularly like), or it might be as simple as a paperclip or worry stone. 

• Plan to take a break. If prolonged listening is hard, you might plan a break at the sermon. If louder sounds are hard, you might plan a break during a louder musical piece. If sitting for long periods is difficult, break up the service with a couple of stretch breaks.  

• Bring helpful items from home. Children hear the entire service, whether they’re reading a book or drawing or writing a poem alongside us. A book, paper and colored pencils, a small racecar, and other things from home might be just the helpful thing. 

• Know the more solemn parts of the service. There are a few parts of a service that tend to be quieter or more serious. If you or someone you love needs a break, these might be helpful times to keep in mind: Silent prayer, Mi Shebeirach, sermon, Mourner’s Kaddish. 

• Recognize our shared humanity. We are all Beth Emet. Recognizing that each of us is made in God’s image, b’tzelem Elohim, we can acknowledge our differences and, hopefully, have empathy for those differences. 

• Acknowledge our multigenerational congregation. Children and adults are both part of Beth Emet, and we wouldn’t be the incredible congregation we are without both. The bridge that we build from generation to generation connects us to our tradition from thousands of years ago to our future in the years ahead. 

Shanah tovah! Happy new year, and I look forward to praying and being with you! 

Lauren Reeves
Director of Lifelong Learning