Royal Oak Chabad Jewish Center offering services for Rosh Hashanah

ROYAL OAK — As the Jewish New Year approaches, the Royal Oak Chabad Jewish Center will be offering several free activities around the holiday.

The new year, known as Rosh Hashanah, will take place Sept. 25-27. During the celebration, the center will be offering, according to a press release, “an engaging, inclusive, interactive, Rosh Hashanah experience for the whole family with Prayer, interactive stories, Food art, Group games, and themed Sensory activities.”

Rabbi Moishie Glitsenstein said the services are free so that anyone who wants to celebrate the Jewish New Year has a chance to do so.

“We kind of want to give any person the opportunity, the ability to connect with the Jewish community and to celebrate this holiday and the holiday we’ve celebrated for thousands of years,” he said.

Sammy Sulzer, of West Bloomfield, has been an attendee of the center’s services and participates in its Rosh Hashanah event every year.

“They put on, like, a very age-appropriate, super fun celebration,” she said. “But Mushky and Moishie (Glitsenstein) that run that center are just so creative and talented. They really know how to bring the community together.”

Reflecting on what the Jewish New Year means to her, Sulzer said it’s a time to reset and reflect on the previous year.

“A week after the Jewish New Year, we have another holiday (Yom Kippur) where you repent and your fate is essentially sealed. So I like to think of Rosh Hashanah as really like a celebration. You think about the past year and it’s a time to ask for forgiveness. But it really is just a fun time to be with family and gather.”

The center also will be holding a Community Shofar in the Park at 3:30 p.m. Monday, Sept. 26, at Centennial Commons Park in Royal Oak.

There will be a 30-minute ceremony and, in addition to the observance, there will be a 20-foot candy bar, a scavenger hunt and the singing of traditional Rosh Hashanah songs.

Glitsenstein said this new year is a special one, as the coming year is called a Hakhel year, which he referred to as “a year to dedicate for unity and gathering since the time of the temple.”

“We try to be more connected with our community. And in the time of the temple, Jewish people used to come together and to hear the king. So since then — it’s once every seven years — we have this special year so we feel even more passionate about trying to unite the community, especially in this year and especially in the beginning of the year of the Jewish New Year,” he said.

For more information about the center’s services and its Rosh Hashanah celebrations, visit www.jewishroyaloak.com/high-holidays or call (248) 890-6480.