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Rabbi Akiva Herzfeld serves as the spiritual leader of Shaarey Tphiloh in Portland.

On Sunday night, Sept. 21, the Jewish people celebrate Yom Kippur. As the Hebrew New Year begins, we realize that “the times, they are a-changin’.”

This year, we celebrate 5,787 years since the mythical creation of the world. There is drastic change taking place across the globe and there’s no way to tell what will happen in the future. On a micro level, there is also a unique change taking place in the make-up of our synagogue in Portland that reflects a wider change taking place among the Jewish people.  

My synagogue was founded on Newbury Street in 1904. About 100 years later, in 2007, I happily arrived in Portland as a young rabbi. When I first met one very ancient member of the congregation, he gave me a cynical look. He was unconvinced about my abilities to be his rabbi.

“Young fella,” he told me, “I got socks in my drawah older than you.” I shook his hand and told him that he can trust in my knowledge of all the ancient laws. Indeed, over the years I have encouraged our congregation to follow the ancient laws and also the local traditions. 

But this year, “the times they are a-changin’.” 

Long ago, Shaarey Tphiloh was built by Jewish Ashkenazi immigrants. They came mostly from modern-day Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Ukraine. For decades, we listened to their melodies of prayer. There were Yiddish sounds with tunes from European classical music. There were wordless Hasidic melodies. Some songs were sublime and powerful, while others were tearful and heart-wrenching. 

I remember how one distinguished elderly lady would cry at the same passage in the prayers every year. I can visualize her sitting in the pews with her head high and with a white doily pinned in her hair. She would wipe the tears from her cheeks with her hankie, as we sang the prayers on Rosh Hashanah.    

However, the tunes and the harmony are different this year. Leading our services will be three visiting cantors: one has family roots from Yemen and Morocco, one has family with roots from Persia and one has roots in the country of Georgia. The melodies of Persia and Yemen, and the rhythmic beat of the Caucasus, and the poetic words of sages from North Africa will shake the windows and rattle our walls this Hebrew New Year.

The reason why the tunes are a-changin’ is because of a demographic change in the Jewish population.  The country of Israel has welcomed Jews from around the world and especially immigrants from North Africa and the larger Middle East. As synagogues in America look for religious leadership, synagogues like ours in Maine can draw from the deep well of a more diverse religious population in Israel.   

In 1956, our congregation moved from the historic India Street neighborhood to Noyes Street.  We were on Noyes Street for about 60 years. Ten years ago, we sold the building to the nonprofit organization Portland Community Squash.

I have mixed emotions when I see children playing squash in our former sanctuary. I focus on the positive. Those children are probably much happier smacking balls around with their squash rackets than anyone ever was who listened to one of my sermons.  Still, it is very sad to think about all the devout people who devoted their lives to building a beautiful house for God.  

Yet, our congregation knows that our spiritual home is not limited to the cornerstone in the ground on Noyes Street. Wherever we roam, we draw on the same divine spirit.   

So what’s new? We are more diverse than ever before. Our synagogue’s prayers reflect changing demographics in Portland and also the diversity of the Jewish people. We stay true to our traditions as much as we can.  

And what about the meaning of the prayers? There are great lessons for all of us. On Yom Kippur we praise God Who remembers everything. We realize that we have wronged others, and others have wronged us in ways that we cannot forget. But we must contain the pain of past wrongs. Leave it to God to remember all the misdeeds, while we look for a bright way forward.  The future will look different from what we knew in the past. As Bob Dylan once sang, “the order is rapidly fadin’ … for the times they are a changin’.” 

This Hebrew New Year let’s look for a road to peaceful coexistence. Blast the horn of the shofar!  Let a new song be sung throughout the land. The present now will soon be the past.