Preparing for Sukkot
October 4, 2011
Take a look at these pics from this past summer’s “Shabbat on the Farm” and see how some of our youngest members helped prepare for the holiday!
Yom Kippur Afternoon Break: Food for Thought!
September 12, 2011
Please join Layton Borkan, Steve Rudman, Ben Walters, Rabbi Joey and other pushers, pokers and prodders for Havurah’s tikkun olam efforts at the break on Yom Kippur afternoon. Progressive Jews, not just on this big day, are hungry to imagine what it means to translate Jewish spiritual insights into action. One world opens to another, there’s no getting away from the place we call our own, our accountability to what happens all around us. We’re richer when we study these things – the world’s impoverished require us to stay with it!
Liberal-thinking Jews are apt to consider the fundamental principles of tzedakah (socially based acts of justice and sharing largesse) a set of optional and symbolic choices. But this flies in the face of what the rabbis taught us about a behavioral, obligatory,spiritual practice. Perhaps what contributes to the sense that our own relationship, as a community, to tikkun olam waxes and wanes, is the false idea that we should somehow decide for ourselves if we want to participate. We say “No thank you”, politely, when we should be expanding and inculcating the rhythm and beat of coming to grips with our tripartite efforts: we can get involved in direct action, in giving money, in advocacy for social change. Bottom line: we should be making it a point to check in reliably and repeatedly. We can be making tzedakah integral to who we are as human beings.
Right? Not sure? Well, rather than rush home or fall asleep on the holiest day of the year, join us in thinking about what we simply must be doing, as Jews connected to community and the larger place that cries out to us – in which we live. The world awaits us!
See what Maimonides has to say on the subject of choice and imbued habit, and come ready to discuss this powerful statement of Jewish practice:
“Desirable character traits are not achieved through the size of the deed, but rather according to the quantity of deeds. This means that the traits are reached through repeating good deeds many times. . . for example: if a person gives one thousand dinars once to a single worthy person, this person does not achieve the trait of generosity through this one large deed; this is in contrast to one who gives one dinar one thousand times, with each dinar given generously, as this multiplies this person’s acts of generosity one thousand times, and this person achieves the trait strongly. But in the case of this one-time act, this person’s soul is awakened in a major way to do a good deed, and afterwards this feeling departs. Similarly, the reward for one who redeems one captive for one hundred dinars, or who gives one hundred dinars of tzedakah to a poor person, thereby filling this person’s need, is not the same as one who redeems ten captives, or who fulfills the needs of ten poor peole, even with ten dinars each.”
(Maimonides, Commentary on Pirke Avot, as translated by Rabbi Jill Jacobs in her book Where Justice Dwells. . . Note: This is a book worth purchasing. We’ll be discussing it all year long.)
It’s time to register for Havurah Middle School and Havurah High!
August 17, 2011
Register for Havurah Middle School and Havurah High! Don’t miss out on an exciting year!
Registration for Middle School is due on September 7th. Click here for more information and for registration materials!
Havurah High Registration is due on August 30th. Click here for more information and registration materials.
Turning, Returning, Recapturing, Reframing: A Days of Awe Workshop Rosh Hodesh Elul: August 30th, 7:30 pm
August 9, 2011
Led by Rabbi Joey
Join us for Shabbat on the Farm!
August 9, 2011
