Valley rabbis share High Holiday messages of renewal, reflection and resilience
- danaevankaplan
- Sep 15, 2025
- 5 min read
Shannon Levitt | Staff Writer Sep 4, 2025
Pictured clockwise from top left are Rabbi Bonnie Koppell, Rabbi Alicia Magal, Rabbi Jeremy Schneider, Rabbi Andy Green and Rabbi Dana Evan Kaplan.
As Jewish communities across Greater Phoenix gather for the High Holidays, Valley rabbis are preparing to deliver messages that balance tradition with contemporary issues. From teshuvah and forgiveness, to body and soul care, to the joy of welcoming a new Torah scroll, these leaders are offering their communities ways to renew spirit, strengthen bonds and confront the challenges of the moment.
At Temple Beth Shalom of the West Valley, Rabbi Dana Evan Kaplan has chosen to focus his High Holiday sermons on teshuvah, a traditional theme.
“The challenge of delivering sermons on the High Holy Days is to deliver a message that applies authentic Jewish wisdom to the lives of temple members in a way that they can absorb it and integrate it,” Kaplan told Jewish News in an email.
For him, that means less politics or commentary on the news cycle, and more emphasis on helping congregants discover Judaism as a source of meaning and practical guidance.
Teshuvah, often translated as “repentance,” is about much more than regret, Kaplan said.
“It means ‘return,’” he said. “It is a return to our authentic selves, to our core values, to the path that God intends for us.”
Kaplan explained that Jewish mysticism envisions each person as born with a spark of the divine. Over time, people stray from their best selves, but teshuvah offers a courageous act of course correction, of reconnecting with the soul.
Still, Kaplan acknowledged, this process can feel abstract without tools to make it tangible. That’s where his congregation’s adult education programs come in. Drawing from positive psychology, they focus on character strengths such as gratitude, humility, perseverance, resilience and courage.
“These,” Kaplan said, “are the building blocks of a life of meaning.”
At the Jewish Community of Sedona and the Verde Valley, Rabbi Alicia Magal will reflect on forgiveness and communication.
“We each look at the world through a particular lens based on our experiences, study and personality,” Magal told Jewish News in an email. “It is hard to imagine that others see the very same event or problem in a totally different way.”
The High Holidays, she emphasized, are about stepping back from entrenched patterns, opening to compassion and learning to interact differently with those we love, even when we disagree.
In her sermons, she will grapple with how people can find a way to forgive those who have hurt them, “or ask for forgiveness in a way that another person can hear,” she said.
The liturgy of the season, with its confessions and rituals, gives worshippers a sacred framework for this emotional work.
“It is a perfect opportunity,” she said, “for expressing our regrets, asking to be forgiven by people and by the Holy One, as well as ways to open our hearts and find forgiveness for those who may have wronged us.”
Rabbi Bonnie Koppell of Temple Chai will invite the congregation to embark on a journey inward in her Kol Nidre sermon, she told Jewish News in an email.
She called the journey into oneself “a luxurious journey,” and described it as a “sacred moment to step out of the hustle and bustle, the challenges of the everyday.”
Jews are used to fasting and abstaining from physical comforts on Yom Kippur, but Koppell is urging her community to also reflect on how Judaism values care for the body itself. She plans to cite the Talmudic story of Rabbi Hillel, who considered bathing a mitzvah. She will explain his reasoning to congregants: “The body is the house of the soul, and we have an obligation to keep it in good repair.”
Her sermon will explore food, rest, exercise and perhaps most challenging of all, body acceptance in a culture that prizes perfection. To illustrate her point more fully, Koppell will quote poet Hollie Holden: “Could you just love me like this?”
“When someone feels ashamed of their body,” Koppell said, “they’re not just struggling with self-esteem, they’re struggling to believe that they are truly b’tzelem Elohim, a holy image of God.”
She will also acknowledge the reality of illness and loss of physical ability, urging worshippers to appreciate what is still possible and to lean on community and faith when bodies falter.
“Let us find that balance between caring for our bodies, being kind to our bodies, appreciating our bodies,” she said, “even as we strive to elevate our neshama, our holy soul.”
At Temple Kol Ami, Rabbi Jeremy Schneider will lead his congregation into the High Holidays with a significant milestone: the unveiling of a new Torah scroll.
“This year, our return to the High Holy Days is made even more powerful as we come together to unveil something extraordinary: our new Torah scroll,” Schneider told Jewish News in an email.
“After two years of dedication, learning, generosity and sacred effort, we will welcome this Torah into our hearts on Rosh Hashanah morning.”
The project was deeply participatory, with families writing letters and standing alongside the scribe as the scroll took shape.
“We wrote more than just parchment and ink,” Schneider said. “We wrote about our values, our history, our future. We wrote ourselves into the story of our people. And, as we read from it for the very first time, we won’t just hear ancient words, we will hear our own voices echoing through them.”
For Schneider, the scroll is a symbol of Judaism as a living tradition: “Not passive tradition, but participatory; doing Judaism. A Judaism that is lived, created and renewed by us — every generation, every member, every soul who calls Kol Ami home.”
This year, the High Holiday pulpit carries a responsibility to speak to rising antisemitism and its impact, Rabbi Andy Green of Congregation Or Tzion told Jewish News in a text.
“It’s my responsibility,” Green said, “to speak concerning the growing movement to demonize and delegitimize Jews and Israel, the related normalizing of anti-Jewish violence and the resulting fears and self-doubt within our community.”
His focus reflects the stark reality many Jews face today, as incidents of antisemitism rise. In this season of soul-searching, Green intends to help his congregation both acknowledge the pain and reclaim confidence in their Jewish identity.
By emphasizing different dimensions of the High Holidays — teshuvah and inner return, forgiveness and compassion, care of body and soul, joy in communal achievement and resilience in the face of hatred — Valley rabbis are offering their communities pathways to enter the new year. JN
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