Rabbi Peter Berg’s Community Message for Rosh Hashanah 2026

The Sacred Work of Returning
The High Holy Days arrive this year when many of us feel worn thin. We carry grief for lives shattered in Israel and Gaza, anguish for hostages and their families, fear born of rising antisemitism, and concern for a society that too often mistakes cruelty for strength. Some enter the sanctuary certain of what they believe. Others arrive with questions, anger, or even doubt. Judaism makes room for all of us.
The Days of Awe do not ask us to pretend that the world is whole. The Unetaneh Tokef prayer gives language to our vulnerability: “Who shall live and who shall die?” Those words can feel almost unbearable in a year shadowed by violence and uncertainty. Yet this prayer does not leave us powerless. It teaches that teshuvah, tefillah and tzedakah — return, prayer and righteous giving—can transform the harshness of what lies before us.
Teshuvah is often translated as repentance, but its deepest meaning is return. We return to our best selves, to one another, and to the covenant that has sustained our people across centuries. “Hashiveinu Adonai eilecha v’nashuvah — Return us to You, and we shall return.” The path home is not solitary. We confess in the plural: Ashamnu, bagadnu — We have strayed; we have betrayed. Our tradition insists that responsibility is shared, and so is repair.
At a moment when some Jews feel pressure to hide a necklace, remove a mezuzah, or soften their connection to Israel and the Jewish people, Jewish identity must become neither a fortress nor an apology. It must be a wellspring. To live proudly as Jews is to study, to pray, to gather, to argue with love, to defend human dignity, and to refuse indifference. It means standing against antisemitism while also recognizing the image of G-d in every human being.
The shofar’s cry is ancient, but its demand is immediate: Wake up! Remember who you are! Hear the pain of your neighbor! Choose life!
May 5787 be a year in which our Jewish identity draws us closer rather than closing us off; a year when courage overcomes fear, compassion tempers judgment, and hope becomes a discipline. May we be inscribed not only in the Book of Life, but in the lives of one another, through the deeds we choose today.

Rabbi Peter Berg is the Senior Rabbi, The Temple, Atlanta