High Holidays Donations: Make your donation online!
September 28, 2011
Havurah now has a web page for donations for High Holidays. We welcome Havurah Shalom members, and those new or returning to Havurah who will be joining, or have already joined us, for High Holiday services.
Please help us continue our long tradition of offering these services to the community by using the webpage, or the envelope in the machzor, to give generously.
We offer free-to-all, High Holiday services–the foundation for everything Havurah Shalom stands for–warm, deeply spiritual, musical, inclusive Judaism. These services are our joy and reflect our loving commitment to Jewish traditions and to making those traditions new.
We depend on donations by members and our guests to make it possible to offer these High Holiday services. There are tremendous resources required to make all of this possible, not only in terms of time and energy, but also financial resources to rent the beautiful Tiffany Center, the sound system, fresh flowers and decorations, and the catering for the Yom Kippur break fast, and more.
Thank you for opening your heart to ours and giving to Havurah Shalom. Your generous donations enable us to continue offering free and open community services, and to thrive as Portland’s Reconstructionist Jewish Community.
“L’Shana Tovah!”
Sign up for Adult Education Classes! Lots of great classes to pick from!
September 28, 2011
There is still room!
Memoir Writing from a Jewish Perspective led by Rob Freedman which starts on Monday, October 3rd!
Register now!!!! Mondays, 7:00-8:30 pm. Limited to 13 participants. Non-members: $150.00.
MA’AGAL – Circling Around, Forming a Spiritual Circle led by Rabbi Joey
Register by October 3. Tuesdays, 7:00-8:30 pm. limited to 30 participants.
Cracking the Code: Learning to Chant Torah led by Erica Goldman
Register by November 1. Thursdays, 7:00-8:30 pm
Click here for class descriptions and more information.
Celebrate Sukkot with Havurah Shalom: Join us for the next Kabbalat Shabbat Dinner and Service on October 14.
September 13, 2011
Don’t miss out! Please RSVP by Thursday, October 6th!
If you cannot join us for dinner at 6:30, then please come at 7:30 for this very inspirational service followed by the oneg Shabbat and dessert. It’s a lovely way to transition to Shabbat following the long work and school week. Bring a friend to join you!
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.)
Selichot: Saturday, September 24 at 9:00 pm. Please join us.
September 7, 2011
at Havurah Shalom
Tradition tells us that the heavens are most open to prayer during the Days of Awe. Our Selichot Service will be held in our Bet HaKnesset. We will begin the process of T’shuvah, of resolving those issues that have been heavy on our hearts and minds, and of welcoming the New Year. Plan to arrive early, and bring a pillow to sit on and a candle in a container.
We plan to begin Havdalah promptly at 9:00pm. Please try and arrive by 8:45 pm.
Led by Miriam Budner and Leerom Medovoi, with music by Beth Hamon
