Dear Friends,
The 5780 year is almost here! Join us for the upcoming events as we welcome the new year and celebrate Jewish life together!
See below to reserve for our upcoming events, including first day of Hebrew School, Jteen Opening Night, and Challah Bake!
High Holiday seat reservations are currently open to Partners in Pride.
Reservations will open to all on September 5.
Shabbos Times
Friday, August 30
Candle Lighting: 7:14pm
Evening Service Mincha: 7:15pm
Saturday, August 31
Morning Service 9:30am
Torah Reading and Sermon: 10:30am Kiddush Brunch: 12:00pm
Evening Service: 7:11pm Shabbos ends: 8:13pm
Schedule of Synagogue Services
September 1st- September 6th
Morning Service: Sunday-Friday: 8:15am followed by breakfast
Evening Service: Sunday- Thursday: 7:15pm
Cett Hebrew School
First Day: Sunday, September 15
Our popular Hebrew School offers Sunday morning classes to children in Pre-K thru 6th grade. Our interactive, hands-on, and relevant classes give children a positive, and warm taste of Jewish life, and covers Hebrew reading, prayers, Jewish holidays, Jewish history, Israel and Mitzvot.
Join us for a delightful evening with family, friends and community, making your own traditional round challahs in honor of Rosh Hashanah! Step by step instruction, holiday inspiration, wine, and light refreshments. By reservation only.
Saturdays 11am-12pm Give your child an opportunity to explore, learn and discover with songs, story time with Russian language, and kiddie play area! Bond with your little one while connecting with other moms in our area.
A Biselleh Humor....
In an effort to better understand his Jewish constituents, the Mayor reached out to a popular Rabbi. The Rabbi invited the Mayor to spend Shabbat at his home.
The Rabbi made Kiddush (blessing) Friday night on a full cup of wine.
After the fish, they made a l'chaim (a toast to life) on some fine Scotch. The main course came with Israeli wine. They said grace after meal with another cup of wine. The next day they made Kiddush on wine at the synagogue. After the service, they ate crackers with herring and made a few l'chaims on schnapps.
They went home and the Rabbi made Kiddush for his family on another cup of wine, some l'chaim after fish, a nice single malt with the cholent (stew) and some more wine for grace after the meal.
And then when it got dark, another cup of wine for Havdalah (end of Shabbat).
At the conclusion of Shabbat, the Mayor said to the Rabbi, "I had a wonderful time! Thank you for sharing Shabbat with me. I still don't get why you can't turn the lights off, but I do understand why you don't drive!"
Weekly E- Torah
Blessings and curses. Stirring stuff from the Bible this week as Moses again cautions his congregation. The great prophet reminds them that living a life of goodness will bring them blessings while ignoring the Divine call must inexorably lead to a cursed existence.
Moses prefaces his admonition with the Hebrew word Re'eh, "See." See, I present before you today a blessing and a curse. But why "see"? What is there to see? Did he show them anything at all? The Torah does not use flowery language just because it has a nice ring to it and sounds poetic. What was there to behold? Why Re'eh?
One answer is that how we look will, in itself, determine whether our lives will be blessed or cursed. How do we look at others, at ourselves? Our perspective, how we behold and see things, will result in our own lives being blessed or, G‑d forbid, the opposite.
The saintly Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev once chanced upon a strong, young man who was brazenly eating on Yom Kippur. The Rabbi suggested that perhaps he was feeling ill. The fellow insisted he was in the best of health. Perhaps he had forgotten that today was the holy day of fasting? "Who doesn't know that today is Yom Kippur?" responded the young man. Perhaps he was never taught that Jews do not eat on this day? "Every child knows that Yom Kippur is a fast day, Rabbi!" Whereupon Rabbi Levi Yitzchak raised his eyes heavenward and said, "Master of the Universe, see how wonderful Your people are! Here is a Jew who, despite everything, refuses to tell a lie!" The Berditchever was always able to look at others with a compassionate, understanding and benevolent eye.
How do we view the good fortune enjoyed by others? Are we happy for them, or do we look at them with begrudging envy? How do we look at ourselves and our own shortcomings? Are we objectively truthful or subjectively slanted? "He is a stingy, rotten good for nothing. Me? I am just careful about how I spend my money." "She is a bore of bores, anti-social. Me? I just happen to enjoy staying at home." "He is as stubborn as an ox! Me? I am a determined person."
Clearly, the manner in which we look at our world and those around us will have a major impact on the way life will treat us. Quite justifiably, Moses says, "See." For how we see things in life will undoubtedly affect life's outcomes.
The sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn (1880-1950), once told how when he was a young child he asked his father: "Why does a person have two eyes?" "The right eye," his father replied, "is to be used lovingly, when looking at a fellow Jew; the left eye is to be used discerningly, when looking at sweets or other objects that are not that important in the grand scheme of things."
The Parshah that is entitled Re'eh, "See," is a perennial reminder to all of us that even our vision can bring virtue or vice. Let us look at the world correctly and invite the blessings of G‑d into our lives.
adapted from www.chabad.org
