Synagogue Updates

Shabbat Shalom,

This email will be both a Friday check-in email (instead of the usual Sunday) and the Weekend schedule. This will allow me to be more present on Sunday for Mother’s Day. As we are strategizing over our communications, one of the potential plans is to combine these two emails to enable us to send something that might enhance your Shabbat experience, however you celebrate. So that will be the focus of this email. The full weekend schedule will be at the bottom of this email.

Before anything else – a mazel tov to Barb and Jeff Bookman on the wedding of their daughter Dana this weekend.

Tomorrow is a Shabbat School. Even though the synagogue has moved to mask optional. We still require masks when around our classes or students. If you are walking near a class or the school wing, we ask that you please wear your mask.

And don’t forget to sign up for Trikeathon and Lag B’Omer. We are also collecting electronics to recycle for Par-Recycle Works. This week also starts Saul Wach's class on Tuesdays and marks the return to In Person Minyan on Thursday evenings at 7:45pm with Pirke Avot led by Mindy Oppenheimer to follow. Thankfully, there is a lot going on. 

This week’s Torah Portion is Kedoshim and it lays out the rules for how to be holy (it includes a section called the Holiness Code). This is a big one. So many of our commandments come from this Torah portion, including how we treat one another, kashrut, Shabbat, etc. There is much to be proud of and aspire to in this portion, and some that make me as an individual want to shout - this portion contains the line that has been used by many societies to discriminate against same sex couples ( Leviticus 20:13). There are far greater scholars than I that have wrestled with this line, and this email is not the place for me to put my own interpretation on it (feel free to ask me separately if interested). A team of us at the synagogue have been working with Keshet to create opportunities for our community to wrestle with text and to make our community as welcoming and inclusive as possible.  

It is with the focus on being welcoming and inclusive that I am excited to share that tomorrow will be our first Gil HaMitzvot ceremony (age of the commandments). Gil HaMitzvot is the name that our synagogue, through Rabbi Cooper’s leadership, has designated to use for our students that don’t connect with the term Bar or Bat Mitzvah. You might have seen other synagogues use the terms B Mitzvah, Bnai Mitzvah, etc. We recognize that this concept may be new for some. Our goal as a community is to ensure that our youth recognize that they all have a home in our sanctuary as they make their transition to adulthood.  If you have questions about this, I would be happy to speak with you about them.

As always, covid is still in our midst. If we can deliver you challah, food, or a kid’s activity pack, please let Hallie or me know. Wishing you a great week, a happy Mother's Day to those that are celebrating and warm memories for those whose mothers are not with us. 

Ken
513 503 9559

Weekend Schedule:
 

Friday | May 6

6:00 PM (hybrid) | Kabbalat Shabbat Services with our Vav/6th Grade families | Chapel and Chapel Patio | click here to join on zoom | Meeting ID: 981 2156 8250 | Passcode: Shabbat
7:43 PM | Light Shabbat Candles 

Saturday | May 7
Torah Reading: Kedoshim

9:00 AM (live) | Shabbat School 
9:30 AM (live) | Lay-Led Havurah Services | Chapel 
9:30 AM (hybrid) | Shabbat Services celebrating the Gil HaMitzvot of Jess Schlossberg | click here for Zoom service | Passcode: Yad | Sanctuary
9:30 AM (live) | The Youth Lounge will be open for youth not in Shabbat School and for an informal Oreo Minyan or Tot Shabbat
12:00 PM (live) |  Congregational Kiddush Lunch sponsored by Sarah and Lewis Schlossberg in honor of Jess becoming a Gil HaMitzvot. 
8:47 PM | Havdallah

Sunday | May 8 | Happy Mother's Day! 
9:00 AM (zoom) | Shacharit (Morning Services) |  click here to join  | Meeting ID: 840 2551 5571 | Passcode: Amida  
7:45 PM (zoom) |  Ma'ariv (Evening) Service online | Zoom | click here to join  | Meeting ID: 840 2551 5571 | Passcode: Amida