Chailites 11/25/2020, DIY Shabbat, TBC Book Group, More!

CHAILITES

November 25, 2020

TBC Events Through December 2

Friday, November 27, 7:30 pm - DIY Shabbat
Saturday, November 28, 9:30 am - Torah Study
Sunday, November 29 - No Hebrew School
Tuesday, December 1, 7:30 pm - TBC Book Group - Man's Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl
Wednesday, December 2, 2:00 pm - Dorothy Day Hospitality House
Wednesday, December 2, 4:30 pm - Hebrew School

Please remember that you must REGISTER for everything that you plan on attending.**

Once you click on the registration link, you will be taken to a webpage where you will enter your name and email address. Once you submit this information, you will receive a CONFIRMATION EMAIL that includes the LINK you will use to join the program and the PASSWORD that you will need to enter after clicking the link to join.

**YOU MUST SAVE THE CONFIRMATION EMAILS THAT YOU RECEIVE. THEY ARE THE ONLY PLACES WHERE THE LINKS AND PASSWORDS WILL APPEAR.**

DIY Shabbat

For Friday, November 27

The Cantor is taking a much needed few days off but wanted to provide you with a guide to celebrate this coming Shabbat at home. We have created a DIY Shabbat booklet. In it, you will find many of the Shabbat prayers including links to audio recordings of the Cantor chanting those prayers. To access the recordings, just click on the audio icon. To download a copy of the DIY Shabbat booklet, click here.

TBC Book Group

Tuesday, December 1 - 7:30 pm

For this book group session, we will be discussing Man's Search for Meaning, by Victor Frankl. This 1946 book chronicles Victor Frankl's experiences as a prisoner in Nazi concentration camps during World War II, and describes his psychotherapeutic method, which involved identifying a purpose in life to feel positive about, and then immersively imagining that outcome. Click here to register.

We need YOU as part of our Dorothy Day Crew

Wednesday, December 2,

2:00-4:30 pm

We are now covering the first Wednesday of each month. This will be our third venture at Dorothy Day - with the COVID protection system in place. Last week we had a fabulous crew. Bev Hunt and Ronnie Ross did a spectacular job and we all felt safe in the new, protective set up. Don and Melinda Weber made the sandwiches.

Here's the set up - just to refresh your memory: Guests are served “grab and go” bags from behind a table placed lengthwise at the kitchen door. No guests are to enter the kitchen at any time – even to use the bathroom.

All volunteers wear masks and gloves at all times and observe social distancing. Crews provide the sandwiches- if needed - and then pack the bags with the sandwiches and assorted other things like fruit and cookies. To volunteer please contact: Peggy Zamore at peggyz18@gmail.com.

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Our Daily Bread aka Danbury Food Pantry: Sign Up - The need for volunteers is huge! Here’s the link: https://signup.com/go/TcpKUft

The food pantry is now working in a very different way. For years crews from various organizations, including ours, had been assigned days to cover the food distribution. They have now gone to an online sign up system. They are serving many more people and enabling food pick up much more often. The need for food in Danbury is HUGE!!!

If you're interested in donating food, you can check out their website for details.

https://www.dailybreadfoodpantry.com

Tot Shabbat and Chanukah Celebration Family Service

Friday, December 11 - 5:00 pm / 6:30pm

(note this is the 2^nd Friday in December!)

Please join Cantor Harriet at 5:00 pm for an amazing Tot Shabbat experience! Children up to age 7 or 8 along with their families are invited to welcome Shabbat together with singing, dancing, special guests and even some challah and soup making! Make sure to bring an instrument or shaker and a stuffed friend, and get ready for a fun and participatory 25-30 minutes of music, learning and laughs as we welcome Shabbat together!

Then, don’t miss our Family Chanukah Celebration and Shabbat Service! Join us at 6:30 pm for our Communal Chanukiot Lighting, Chanukah Celebration and Family Shabbat Service! Please bring your Chanukiah (Chanukah Menorah) and 3 candles – a shamash, and candles for the first and second night of Chanukah so we can light together! After we light our Chanukiot and sing some Chanukah songs, we will welcome Shabbat together with a family friendly service geared toward families and children ages 7-107! Please join Cantor Harriet as we welcome the Festival of Lights and Shabbat together. Remember to also bring a smile and your favorite dancing shoes! Click here to register

"Chanukah Chavdalah" Under the Stars

Saturday, December 12 - 4:00 - 5:30 pm

TBC Parking Lot

Let us gather for some safe, socially-distanced merriment! Bundle up your family for Havdalah and 3rd night Hanukkah lighting. Joyous songs will follow, led by Cantor Harriet Dunkerley. Details: You will be directed to park near the street side of our lot in every other spot. You are welcome to bring Havdalah sets, your Hannukah menorah and a little table if you wish to kindle. We suggest chairs, blankets, hot beverages, etc - anything to keep you and the kids /grandkids comfy and warm. MASKS ARE REQUIRED. Due to Covid restrictions, our building remains closed, so we cannot provide bathrooms or latkes.

RSVP quickly for EACH person in your family/group. We are limiting this event to 50 people in total. Come, let's celebrate Hanukkah together!! Click here to RSVP

Chanukah Menorah Making Extravaganza!

Sunday, December 13 - 9:30 am

Chanukah is coming, and so is our next all-school T’filah and Chanukah celebration! That means, we need YOU to participate in our Family Chanukiah (Chanukah Menorah) Making Extravaganza!!! Your Chanukiah can be functional or not and can be created from whatever materials you have in and around your house. Think outside the box… your Chanukah Menorah can be large or small, edible or inedible, 3D, 2D, even donatable (picture a giant Chanukiah made of cans of food that you can then donate to a food pantry!) What about a chocolate Menorah?!

More info to come, especially from our teachers during our next Sunday School session on 12/6. Until then though… start planning and getting creative! This even is open to our entire TBC community! The big reveal will take place on Sunday morning December 13^th. Let’s see who can be the most creative with Chanukiot and Candles!

Wilton Library

Zooming Hanukkah Hoopla

Stories and Fun!

Special Guest Cantor Harriet

Thursday, December 17, 4:00 pm - 5:00 pm

Join the Wilton Library, alongside special guest Cantor Harriet Dunkerley, on Zoom for a fun afternoon all about the festival of lights. You will learn about the holiday, hear stories, do a craft and get the opportunity to see a variety of menorahs. If you have a menorah at home, feel free to have it on hand to share. Registration required. Once you are registered you will be contacted to pick up your kit containing craft supplies and some fun Hanukkah treats. Zoom link will be sent out the day of the program. For children in grades Kindergarten and up. Click here to register.

Torah Shabbat

Friday, December 18 - 7:30 pm

Please join us for our next Torah Shabbat, Friday, December 18 at 7:30 pm for our “Torah Shabbat”! In order for all of us to have the opportunity to fulfill the mitzvah of hearing Torah read, we will be chanting Torah at Shabbat services on the third Friday of each month.

We would love for YOU to be involved! Please click here to sign up to chant 3-6 verses of Torah or to chant the blessings during a future service. A list of dates is provided on the sign up sheet!

TBC's NEW

Baby Grand Piano...

TBC recently had an amazing opportunity thrust upon us to purchase a beautiful Baby Grand Piano in excellent condition for just $2,000. The piano could easily sell for $5,000 to $7,000. We just couldn't pass up this amazing opportunity. The piano will enable all of us to share in its beautiful sound. And we are so fortunate to have John Dunkerley to play it for us. And, if you were at last week's Torah Shabbat Service, you had the pleasure of hearing its exquisite sound.

The Cantor paid for the piano out of her discretionary fund. Let's replenish her fund so she can use it for other, pastoral and social action purposes. We are hoping to raise $3,000 to cover the purchase price, moving expenses and tuning. We are about half way there, so please consider contributing. To make a donation, please click here.

Message from our Social Action Committee

The Social Action Committee would like to thank everyone for their support of the High Holiday Food Drive. Your generosity enabled us to donate $350 to The Community Action Agency of Western CT, The Redding Food Pantry and the Women’s Center of Greater Danbury. We also gave $300 to the Wilton Food Pantry. We are donating $300 to Wilton Social Services for Thanksgiving and $200 for Chanukah gift cards for Jewish children. We would not be able to do this without your help.

We also use about $150 of the tzedakah funds each month, to provide food for our day at the Dorothy Day Hospitality House, aka Danbury Soup Kitchen.

Your donations are also used for our part in the Laundry Love project, an interfaith project in which the Social Action committee works along with the Sisterhood. Through both funds and participation, folks in need are provided prepaid laundromat cards and detergent to be able to have clean clothes, bedding, etc.

We are still volunteering, in a covid safe way, at Our Daily Bread Food Pantry and Dorothy Day. If you would like to help with either of these please contact Peggy or Jane click here.

In Our Community ...

If you have TBC community news you'd like to share, please send the information to chailites@templebnaichaim.org!

Pfeffer Family Forum - Lessons From Elie Wiesel for Today

December 6, 3:00 pm (CST)

Memory, madness, faith, friendship, language — these were the lifelong preoccupations of Survivor, witness, and Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel. But Wiesel was also a teacher and writer who left us a treasure trove of tales and moral teachings that we can apply to today’s world.

Join Rabbi Ariel Burger, a devoted protégé of Professor Wiesel, author of the award-winning book, Witness: Lessons from Elie Wiesel’s Classroom, artist, activist and scholar, as he shares insights into some of today’s most complex issues. As we struggle with renewed questions of racial justice, hatred, power, and polarization – all against the backdrop of a global pandemic – what do Elie Wiesel’s teachings tell us? How can they empower us to not only survive these challenging times, but make moral sense of them? Come and hear from one of Wiesel’s closest students who is carrying on the legacy of his teacher.

Click here to register

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about how to access the program.

Community Partners: Children of Abraham Coalition; Congregation Beth Am; Congregation Sukkat Shalom; Consulate General of Israel to the Midwest; Hillels of Illinois; Interfaith Youth Core; Midwest Center for Jewish Learning - Yeshiva University Torah Mitzion Kollel of Chicago; Office of Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs - Archdiocese of Chicago; Sheerit HaPlaitah of Metropolitan Chicago.

Bennett Center for Judaic Studies

The Bennett Center offers lectures and programs on Jewish themes, some free and some for a small fee. For more information please click here.

The Weekly Torah Portion

Vayeitzei

And [Jacob] Left ...

Genesis 28:10−32:3

Jacob dreams of angels going up and down a ladder. God blesses him. Jacob names the place Bethel. (28:10-22)
Jacob works seven years in order to marry Rachel, but Laban tricks Jacob into marrying Leah, Rachel's older sister. (29:16-25)
Jacob marries Rachel but only after having to commit himself to seven more years of working for Laban. (29:26-30)
Leah, Rachel, and their maidservants, Bilhah and Zilpah, give birth to eleven sons and one daughter. (29:31-30:24)
Jacob and his family leave Laban's household with great wealth. (31:1-32:3). click here to learn more

From Nancy Altchiler, Synagogue Liaison for Jewish Senior Services: Jewish Senior Services has moved to its beautiful new campus at 4200 Park Avenue in Bridgeport! If anyone is interested in a tour please contact Nancy Altchiler at naltchiler@jseniors.org. To learn more about the first state-of-the-art intergenerational senior living campus and Household Model nursing home in the state, visit www.jseniors.org. If you are interested in volunteering, contact Darlene Miakos at dmiakos@jseniors.org. Also, membership in the new J Fitness Center (opening September 1st, 2016) is open to the public. There is a discounted rate for synagogue members. Please contact Kim Fox at Kfox@jseniors.org for more information. This is an exciting time for our community, please be a part of it!

Yahrzeit Memorial Plaques at TBC

During this challenging time, we know that many of us are thinking of loved ones who have passed away. We invite you to commemorate the lives and blessings of your loved ones with a memorial plaque. A special service of dedication for the entire community will be scheduled at TBC when that again becomes possible. Ordering information is available here.