Rabbi Jonathon Adler's Rosh Hashanah Message for 2026

Rabbi Jonathon Adler shares his thoughts and inspiration for this year's High Holidays.

I’ll always remember Rosh HaShanah as a child — grandparents visiting or being visited, familiar recipes and songs, the simple act of being together. Family and tradition were how we lived our Jewish identity.
Decades later, we live in a different world. Antisemitism and anti-Israel sentiment have reached disturbing levels. Many are afraid to share their Judaism publicly, and relationships with neighbors and coworkers have shifted in ways unimaginable even a few years ago.
This is precisely why we need the Yamim Nora’im, the Days of Awe, right now. Teshuvah means repentance, but it also means return, and one of the most powerful ways we return is by handing the traditions of our youth to the next generation.
I’m proud to belong to the Metro Atlanta’s Jewish community, where our Southern heritage is an important part of how we live our Judaism every day. Our history matters here — not just the history we share with Abraham and King David, but the history of a community that has flourished in Georgia for generations.
Telling the stories of how our families came out of Egypt, and then into Atlanta, Rome, Marietta, and so many more individual communities across Georgia is essential to passing on our traditions. Those stories live in our local museums, our synagogues, and in our own homes.
But a story only matters when it’s told. A book on a shelf gathering dust, an heirloom recipe unmade in a generation, a photo album unopened for decades — these preserve nothing on their own. By telling them, by returning to what we’ve inherited and bringing it back into the light, we can keep our heritage alive.
That act of sharing is paramount not only to our survival as a people, but to what we offer the world. The more fully we live and share our Jewish lives, the more Jewish light we shine on future generations; the more light we bring into a world that sorely needs it.
This High Holiday season, I pray that each of us finds a story worth telling — to a child, a grandchild, a neighbor. That, too, is teshuvah.
Shanah Tovah u’Metukah. Wishing everyone a joyous and sweet 5787.