It was a pleasure celebrating Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur with so many of our community who were able to join us in person.
We missed those who could not yet come out to celebrate in person, and we thought of them and prayed together in spirit.
Now is the time for joyous celebration, singing, dancing, and being grateful for the blessings of life, health and being Jewish.
Join us for services and events in person, or just in spirit if you're not ready for in person yet.
Either way, we are always together, thinking of each other, and praying for each other.
Wishing you a very healthy, happy and joyous Sukkos holiday and eagerly looking forward to seeing you very soon in good health and happiness.
SHABBOS AND HOLIDAY TIMES
Friday, October 2 Evening service: 6:20pm Candle Lighting: 6:18pm
As in person Synagogue services continue safely and successfully, with more people beginning to join, we will continue to offer our online services for those who are still not able join in person.
Supporting our community
As we open Synagogue, we continue to provide online resources for you, and for those who are not ready to join Synagogue just yet.
Hey Jteens! Join for a party in the Sukkah with sushi, shake the lulav and esrog, games and community service! Hang out with your Jewish teen friends and meet new teens in our community! No charge, come and bring your friends!!
Join for a live puppet show, book reading and craft. Kids will learn about Sukkos in an exciting and interactive way. Spend quality time with your child, as they have fun experiencing the holiday, while meeting and interacting with other moms.
Join us in celebrating Simchas Torah!
Dancing with the Torahs on Fair Lawn Avenue followed by a hot dinner and Lchaims! Special children's Torah dance with goodie bags and flags!
All night open bar for adults.
Hebrew School registration is now open for the 2020-2021 year! Options are available for full in-person classes or virtual online classes which will have a dedicated fully present teacher fully engaging children just like in person classes.
Our Hebrew school offers engaging and interactive lessons, dedicated and energetic teachers, and individualized learning where children grow and flourish in Jewish life!
We are excited to announce some awesome new programs for kids and preteens!
Click below for more details.
A BISSELE HUMOR
Levi goes over to his friend Shimon's house and they shmooze for hours. Levi says, "It is getting very late. It must be way past midnight. What time is it?"
"Sorry, I don't have a clock," replies Shimon with a shrug.
"You don't have a clock?!"
"Why should I? I have a shofar."
"A shofar? How can you tell time with a shofar?"
"Just watch," says Shimon with a grin. He sticks his head out the window and blows a piercing long blast with his shofar.
All of a sudden windows in the street start opening. "What are you crazy? Blowing a shofar?? It's TWO O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING!"
"See," says the host. "It works. The shofar tells us what time it is."
WEEKLY eTORAH
A Sukkos Message
One Friday night my neighborhood experienced a blackout. As we made our way home from the synagogue, we speculated on how much of the neighborhood was affected, when the lights would come back on and how best to serve undercooked, lukewarm cholent. One in our group commented on the serenity of the moment, and said with a wistful sigh: "This is how it used to be, just the soft moonlight." This prompted my reply: "We didn't like it the way it used to be, that's why we invented lights!"
Judaism is forward thinking, eager to embrace innovation and fresh perspective. We are single minded in our focus to improve the world, shepherd it to its destination. We check the rear view mirror for guidance, but never dwell on "what used to be." Even our remembrances are designed to provide us with perspective on how to deal with the present and the future. So how does the concept of abandoning our homes and living in thatched huts, as we did 3,300 years ago, jive with this idea?
When the Torah commands us to live in sukkot (temporary huts) to commemorate our experience in the wilderness, it seems to suggest that we recreate that existence. Yet dwelling in those huts was not a destination, but merely a temporary situation, on our way to the Holy Land. So why reenact it?
But perhaps the holiday of Sukkot is not about returning to "simpler, more primitive times." Maybe Sukkot is in fact the ultimate progression, a leap forward to somewhere one otherwise would never have reached. When we stay right where we are, in the groove of a (healthy) routine we face the danger of stagnation.
The Sukkah compels us to move on, to get off the hammock and onto the journey of making this world a more G‑dly place. Bereft of the security of our homes we are faced with our responsibility to accomplish more. The temporal sukkah reminds us of the temporal nature of material things. The comfort our homes provide should never be confused with invincibility – and that is a good thing. For invincibility has a cousin named laziness, which spends his whole day thinking about what he won't be doing. The sukkah reminds us of our obligation to move on, to get out there and enrich the world around us.
Sitting in the vulnerability of the sukkah, we have the opportunity to experience the security only G‑d can offer, something that brick and mortar can't provide. This is progress, a leap we would never embark upon without compulsion—and could never attain without the message of the sukkah.
