|
|
| |
| |
| |
|
Friday, April 7, 2017 / 11 Nisan, 5777
Dear Friends,
How do you prepare for Passover? This is a question that can be answered in many different ways. For some, the preparation centers on the Passover Seder. Days of cooking, setting the table, digging out the haggadot, and welcoming family and friends into one's home. For some, preparation involves removing hametz (all leavened products) from one's home-cleaning out food panties, doing a bit of general spring cleaning. For those who lead a Seder, preparation involves reviewing notes from previous years, and adding new material focused on particular issues of freedom, breaking chains of oppression, welcoming the stranger, and in the words of the Haggadah, "letting all who are hungry come and eat" that are relevant at this time of year.
How many of us prepare for Passover by removing the spiritual hametz from our lives? By reflecting on what we need to do in our own lives to feel more freedom? To break chains that restrain us from reaching our potential? Because we focus so much on the material elements of the festival that demand a lot of activity and attention, we neglect to take time to reflect on our own spiritual lives at this time of year.
Passover is a good time to do a six month checkup since the High Holy Days. During the Days of Awe, we perform a heshbon ha'nefesh-an accounting of the soul in which we look back on the year that has passed and evaluate what we could've done better. Do we ever take the time at Passover to reflect on how the year is going so far and if we are meeting the commitments and promises that we made to ourselves back then?
A central act of preparing for Passover involves removing the material hametz from our homes. We should also take the time as we prepare for Passover to remove spiritual hametz from our lives and to recalibrate ourselves to reach our full potential. Spiritual hametz can be things that make us puffed up with arrogance, things that make us stubborn, or short tempered. Anything that restricts us, that keeps us in bondage.
Over the next couple of days as you continue to prepare your homes for Passover, remember to take the time to prepare your hearts and souls for this festival of freedom and work to break the chains of bitterness, enmity, apathy, and fear and instead find ways to experience acceptance, love, determination, hope and above all freedom that is abundant in our midst.
Wishing you a Hag Sameach v'Kasher, a joyous and Kosher Passover,
Rabbi Charles Briskin
|
|
Refuah Sh'leimah
For those recovering from an illness:
Barbara Mozlin
Vivian Rigler
Jack Lebental
Irene Tyson
Elaine Grove
Beth Wahba
David Shneer
Andy Kauffman
Howard Uller
To add a name to this list, please
contact the TBE Office. We will not add names until we are notified by the family. Thank you.
|
 Can't make it services? Watch from the comfort of your own home!
Temple Beth El now offers
LIVE STREAM of our services.
|
Karen and Rabbi Chuck emailed invitations via Paperless Post to every member of the congregation for Ezra's upcoming Bar Mitzvah Service on Saturday, April 22, 2017 beginning at 10:00 a.m. They understand that some of you may not have received it. Even if you did not receive your emailed invitation, please
RSVP to Carrie in the TBE Office so that we may plan accordingly for the
kiddush
lunch that will follow the service.
Please note that every Shabbat morning service at TBE, especially those where someone is becoming bar/bat mitzvah is open to the entire congregation. Your response to the Briskin's "formal" invitation to the congregation will help to ensure that there are enough seats, and adequate food for the kiddush lunch that follows.
|
Friday, April 7
6:30 p.m. Family Shabbat Service
Please join us for Family Shabbat Service featuring birthday blessings for children under 13.
Saturday, April 8
9:30 a.m. Lay-Led Shabbat Shaharit Service
Noon Potluck
Kiddush lunch
Friday, April 14
7:30 p.m. Shabbat Service with Torah reading
Please join us as we celebrate Shabbat. Rabbi Briskin will speak and Rabbi Catherine Mummert will read Torah.
Saturday, April 15
10:00 a.m. Meditation Service
Monday, April 17
5:00 p.m. Pesah Yizkor Service at TBE
6:00 p.m. Hametz Dinner off-site at Lamppost Pizza
Celebrate the end of Passover with your TBE family. Bring your friends and family to Lamppost Pizza and 20% of your purchase goes to TBE. Individuals will order food for themselves.
Lamppost Pizza: 2955 Rollings Hills Road (at Crenshaw) in Torrance.
Friday, April 21
6:30 p.m. Musical Shabbat Service
Join us for our musical service featuring the Moody Jews.
Saturday, April 22
10:00 a.m. Shabbat morning service during which
Ezra Briskin becomes a bar mitzvah
All are welcome to attend.
|
Shoe Drive going on NOW through May 31!
We are collecting any lightly used men's, women's, and/or children's shoes and NEW (unworn) socks to benefit Shoes for the Homless, Inc., a 501 (c)3 charitable corporation, whose mission is to provide shoes, free of charge, to the homeless and those in need in our local community.
Donation Bins are located in the lobby
next to the elevator.
|
|
| |
We hope to see you soon at
Temple Beth El.
Call the office for more information: 310-833-2467
Or drop by for a visit:
1435 W. 7th Street, San Pedro 90732
|
|
|
|
| |
|
