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New Article by the Jewish Review:
The Jewish Garden of Ad Olam's Rabbi Hanan Sills

Nature fulfills herself, brings ripeness from the seed, and completes what she begins. So it is in the cycle of the year that the cycle of our lives is revealed. Life comes around full circle. In the end is the beginning.

Alongside the lingering warmth of late summer and the cool nights' hint of fall is an awareness of passing beauty. In the memory of spring and summer days past, we are reminded that the morning of life is over and the evening has begun.

Autumn ripening helps us to face the truth that everything is passing, as the last bloom in the fading winter garden.

As the sun begins its decent, we are called upon to spend more time contacting our inner selves. And for those of us who are elders & approaching the winter of our lives, this is the time to break the addiction to rushing and conquering & "commodity time" rather than where the promptings of our inner life are leading us.

So our tradition's "Earth Wisdom" rituals beginning 7 weeks before the Days of Awe with Tisha B' Av, with "the mournful collapse of a house"... continuing through Elul and it daily Shofar's call to introspection & consciousness... then on into the 7th. month through the 10 days of awe & "turning"--- concluding with the harvest of Sukkot & the "joyful collapse of a house."

Rabbi Hanan Sills

Board officers: Andrea Coles-Bjerre, Dr. Jordan Michels
Others: Chico Schwall, John Meiser, Barbara Master, Chuck Roehrich, Ken Rothman, Janice Medvin, and Rabbi Hanan Sills