Rabbi’s Blog

Hello Temple Sinai,

This week’s email has TWO main topics – the services this Shabbat and some music for the Installation Service on November 30.

SERVICES

‘’TOT” SHABBAT – This week, we will have our first “TOT SHABBAT”, which at Sinai will mean a service geared to children 10 and under and their families (not just ‘tots’). The service will begin at 5:30pm, include some simple songs, a few prayers, a children’s blessing, Israeli dancing and “S’Torah-telling” around the Torah. The service will end by 6:15pm. Please let your friends with younger children know!

KABBALAT SHABBAT – CLASSIC REFORM SERVICE Friday Nov 16, 6:30p
I know I have changed Sinai’s services a good deal, so this week, we will have an “old-school” Sinai service with cantor, keyboard/piano, and music you are used to. Our goal is to have these once a month if attendance is good. If you grew up in a classic Reform Temple, have been missing the keyboard/piano, or find guitar services a bit too informal, this service is for you.

SHABBAT MORNING SERVICE (Shacharit) 9:30-10:30 am
Join us for the growing morning Shabbat minyan, offering a lovely one-hour chanted (mostly in Hebrew) Shabbat morning service.

TORAH STUDY – 10:30am -12noon
This week we read VAYEITZEI , Genesis 28:10-32:3 , in which Jacob’s ladder to heaven appears in a dream, and then Jacob meets Rachel, works for Laban, gets tricked, marries Leah, then Rachel. Leah and Rachel give birth to their children that become the TWELVE TRIBES. Then the family flees back toward Canaan. We will consider both Jacob’s ladder, and then focus on the concept of economic fairness, and how Laban’s treatment of Jacob mirrors some of the ways employers today treat their workers. Bring friends – No prior knowledge is needed!

INSTALLATION MUSIC
My Installation will be on November 30, and I’m getting excited about all the plans and the service we are creating. The theme is “REKINDLE,” and will include images from the revitalization of the temple at the first Hanukkah. I wanted to go ahead and share some of the songs we will do, so if you get a chance and want to listen to them, you can.

• We will start with “Hinei Ma Tov” by Nefesh Mountain, led by our “Jewkuleles.”
• We will have an “unplugged” version of Neil Young’s “Light a Candle”
• We will also sing “Shir HaMa’alot (Psalm 126)”, a psalm that is often sung before the aftermeal blessing, the “birkat hamazon”.
• We will sing Debbie Friedman’s “Ahavat Olam”.

See you there!

Hello Temple Sinai,

’Tis a fearful thing to
love
what death can touch.
A fearful thing
to love, to hope, to
dream, to be –
to be,
And oh, to lose.
A thing for fools, this,
And a holy thing,
a holy thing
to love….

The massacre at Congregation Tree of Life in Pittsburgh has shown us how fearful it is to love, but also that our love for one another, our connections are holy thing. We are the holy fools who refuse to be defeated, refuse to turn our back on our people and our tradition even in the face of all we have endured. I am always proud to be a Jew, but never more than when we come together in the face of tragedy and anti- semitism to reaffirm who we are.

#ShowUpForShabbat Kabbalat Shabbat—Friday, 6:30pm

I had planned to be away this Friday night and Bruce Hicken and the Folk Shabbat musicians had kindly agreed to lead services. Then Pittsburgh happened, and it seems clear that we should be together this Shabbat. Now, the American Jewish Committee is calling for an international Shabbat of solidarity, #ShowUpForShabbat, asking Jews who don’t usually come, and non-Jews that want to show solidarity, to come to a Shabbat service. We are sending flyers to local churches, and please feel free to share the attached flyer with anyone you think might be interested. It will be a special service of comfort, resolve, and renewal. The sermon will be “Am Yisrael Chai” the “People Israel Lives.” One song we will be singing is a new song by Nefesh Mountain, written after the massacre in honor of those at Tree of Life in Pittsburgh.

SHABBAT MORNING SERVICE (Shacharit)—Saturday, 9:30-10:30 am

Join us for the growing morning Shabbat minyan, offering a lovely one-hour chanted (mostly in Hebrew) Shabbat morning service.

TORAH STUDY —Saturday, 10:30am -12noon Chayei Sarah

This week we read Chayei Sarah, Genesis 23:1-25:18, in which Sarah dies, Abraham
remarries, and Isaac marries Rebecca. The story of Abraham sending his servant to
find a wife for Isaac, and his success, reads like a beautiful novella, and Rebecca
stands out as a woman who is caring but also has a strong sense of agency. Bring
friends – No prior knowledge is needed!

PLEASE HELP ME!

CHOIR

For my installation on November 30, I want to revive our choir, and need your help. We will only need to work on a few songs, and some of those will be very familiar. We will be having rehearsals on the two Tuesdays before the Installation, Nov 20 and Nov 27. Let Mark know if you can make it. I plan to make this fun.

UKULELES

I will be sending an email to my ukulele list, but I am hoping we can play for the “warm up” number for my Installation. We will be playing “Hinei Mah Tov” by Nefesh Mountain. If you aren’t on the list and are interested, let me know! We’ll have a couple of times to practice closer to the date, and I’ll be sending chord sheets along in the next day or so.

CLOTHING DRIVE ENDS SHABBAT

We need underwear in children’s sizes, coats for children and adults, so if you haven’t already given, please do so this week!

LIKE US ON FACEBOOK

If you are on Facebook, please click below to “Like” Temple Sinai. For all the problems with Facebook, it is among the easiest ways to get information out fast to the community, and to share videos, events, and other materials. Judy, Michael, and David Punia have been doing a great job of maintaining our page, so it would be great to see 100 likes!

Hello Temple Sinai!

This week’s Torah portion, Vayera, is among the most famous, and most confounding, as it contains both the story of Sodom and Gomorrah and the Akedah, or the binding of Isaac that we read on Rosh Hashanah. Both stories abound with conflicting interpretations, and both challenge us to figure out what they mean and what they meant to ancient Israel. Torah study should be very interesting this week!

Organ donation: I also want to share a letter from Tim and Paula Cope, whose nephew Ryan died recently and unexpectedly from a head injury. Their letter shares the process of going through an organ donation and is important for all of us to reflect on.

Attacks on Transgender Americans: This past week, we learned of a proposal from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to define gender narrowly, as determined solely by sex organs at birth, an approach which is contrary to medical evidence and denies the life experiences of millions of Americans. The results of these proposed changes could be devastating: Transgender Americans, already facing discrimination, stand to lose federal civil rights protections based on their gender identity. This (PDF) document shares the resolutions of the Central Conference of American Rabbis , the CCAR (all Reform Rabbis), opposing this proposal and supporting the rights of transgender and gender-non-conforming people.

Last Week of Clothing Drive: for students of the Winooski school system who need winter-clothing drive, Karen Cote agreed to help organize this, and so we are asking those in the Temple Sinai community to considering donating by the deadline of Nov 3:

• Good warm coats for K-12, in good shape
• New Packages of new cotton underwear and athletic-style socks for boys and girls, sizes 3T-5T (toddler) as well as Youth Small, Medium, Large and Extra Large.

Please do your best to give! This is Tikkun Olam, making the world more fair and just, so let’s put our donations where our Reform Jewish values are!

I hope to see many of you at services.

L’shalom,

Hello Temple Sinai!

Thanks to all the people that turned out on Friday night for Kabbalat Shabbat services and oneg. We also had a full house at Torah Study on the story of Noah and the flood, and I look forward to studying the beginning of Abraham and Sara’s story this week.

Since there are no special services this Shabbat, I wanted to start by asking if some of you will consider stepping onto two committees crucial for Sinai’s growth: the Social Action committee and the Spiritual Committee. David Shiman and Karen Cote are helping me revitalize the Social Action Committee, and Mark Leopold and I are focused on the Spiritual Committee. Here is an announcement for each, so take a moment to see if one of them might be a good place for you to put your energy this year.

Social Action – Where does your commitment to social justice take you?

Over the years, Temple Sinai members have been engaged in a variety of efforts: food drives, clothing drives, refugee resettlement support, Christmas food delivery, to name a few. With the arrival of a new rabbi, we seek to rethink the nature of our social action efforts, reconstitute our Social Action Committee, and launch some new initiatives.

Are you interested? We will hold an initial meeting within the month to begin our conversation. Everything is open! Join us!

Email David Shiman, Rabbi Edleson or Admnistrator Michael Levine

Read more on the URJ Social Action blog

Spiritual – How can Temple Sinai better meet the spiritual needs of the
community?

What spiritual needs and forms of expression aren’t being met? How could our services better meet the needs of our community and be as inclusive as possible? Sinai already hosts a vibrant variety of services, and Rabbi Edleson has brought other new ideas, but we need people who can help us reflect the community more fully and creatively in our synagogue.

Help us do that!

Email Mark Leopold, Rabbi Edleson, or Michael Levine

Services for this Shabbat

KABBALAT SHABBAT SERVICE 6:30 pm, oneg to follow

Come welcome the sabbath with singing, poetry, and community. The sermon will consider Abraham’s journey, Lech Lecha, and what it is like to be on a spiritual life’s journey without knowing where we will end up. In honor of Abraham and Sarah’s journey, we will be singing this beautiful Debbie Friedman song, L’chi Lach

SHABBAT MORNING SERVICE (Shacharit) 9:30 – 10:30 am
If you want to build a regular spiritual practice on Shabbat, or want to become more comfortable with the Hebrew service of Saturday morning, please consider joining  us for our chanted one-hour Shabbat morning service. If you know this service, you would be familiar with a Shabbat morning service anywhere you might travel.

TORAH STUDY – 10:30am – noon – Noah
This week we read the beginning of Abraham and Sarah’s journey. Lech Lecha is full of interesting stories about our earliest ancestors, so come and consider what it is like to realize something that those around you can’t see, and what is means to be on a sojourn with no clear destination. Bring friends – No prior knowledge is  needed!

PLEASE CONSIDER

CLOTHING DRIVE

For students of the Winooski school system who need winter-clothing, including many children from refugee and immigrant families (30 languages are spoken by the students!). Karen Cote agreed to help organize this, and so we are asking those in the Temple Sinai community to consider donating by the deadline of Nov 3:

• Good warm coats for K-12, in good shape
• New packages of cotton underwear and athletic-style socks for boys and girls, sizes 3T-5T (toddler) as well as Youth Small, Medium, Large and Extra Large.

Karen Cote has kindly set up boxes in the social hall for you to bring your donations, so please do! Please do your best to give! This is Tikkun Olam, making the world more fair and just, so let’s put our donations where our Reform Jewish values are!

RABBI’s INSTALLATION – SAVE THE DATE

How many Jews does it take to install a rabbi? Please save the date of Friday, November 30, 2018 for the Installment Ceremony of Rabbi David Edleson at Temple Sinai. The celebration will continue on Saturday. Invitations with further details will be forthcoming.