. Meditation, Shabbat service & Avery's B’Mitzvah July 2!
. New Ark update & more...
. Reading can be sacred
. Volunteer at our High Holy Day services
. Join our choir
. Conversation between Rabbi Emeritus Aviva Goldberg and Jinks Hoffman coming this fall!
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Pride community Shabbat
Thank you to Cantor Wunch for representing our congregation so beautifully, co-leading the Pride Erev Shabbat Community Service, together with Rabbi Miriam Margoles and Singer/Songwriter Aviva Chernik, three inspiring women. Cantor Wunch, in full-voice, loud and proud, led the appreciative community congregation of close to 200 in song and prayer.
Mazel Tov to the Chapnicks!
We hope you will join the Chapnick family on July 2nd as together we celebrate the B’Mitzvah of Avery Chapnick. The service will be in person at the JCC and there will also be an online option.
B’Mitzvah Class registration information is coming
The board is working with Cantor Wunch to plan next year’s B’Mitzvah course, starting in the fall. There are already 10 families who have expressed interest. If your child will be in grade 6, 7, or 8 as of September, 2022 and you would like them to be able to engage in this rite of passage with CSL, please watch for a separate registration communication coming soon!
High Holy Day tech assistance
While we are all anticipating summer, the board is already busy planning for the High Holidays. We would like to be able to offer the option of attending in person, or participating online, but to do this, we need some assistance with the technical aspects. We are looking for volunteers who might be both knowledgeable and interested to serve on a time-limited ad-hoc technical advisory committee. Please contact (Jamie Flagal, jflagal@rogers.com or Karen Lior, karen.charlie.lior@gmail.com if you can help us with this.
Ukraine Refugee Welcome Circle
Some congregants have formed a Welcome Circle for new immigrants from the Ukraine. For details about what a Welcome Circle is, check out our May newsletter for details, scrolling down to the Volunteers section. If you would like to get involved in this meaningful and worthwhile initiative, please contact Dorothy Rusoff, (dorothy.rusoff@sympatico.ca), or Jamie Flagal,(jflagal@rogers.ca).
Cost of New Ark
As we wrote in the June newsletter, our congregation is in need of a new Ark. The Board is considering several options and will choose in the near future. Arks are expensive, between $3,500 and $5,000. Please consider making a donation towards the cost of a new Ark. To donate to our New Ark Fund you can send us an e-transfer to shirlibeynuadmin@gmail.com. To donate by credit card, please click here to pay through PayPal Giving Fund. If you'd prefer to pay by cheque, please visit our website for those details. Please make a note on your donation that it is for the New Ark Fund.
Finally, the Board hopes everyone has some time this summer to enjoy good weather and have some fun! Stay safe and be well.
Board of Directors
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Join Cantor Wunch for our Shabbat service on Saturday, July 2nd at 10:30 am during which we will celebrate the B’Mitzvah of Avery Chapnick!
In person services are being held at the Miles Nadal JCC. Mask-wearing is encouraged. Please remember to print your Siddur and prayer supplement, or bring a device on which you can open them to the service.
NOTE: If you feel at all unwell, please join us via Zoom.
If online is better for you, we have that too! There is no need to register. We will send the Zoom link to everyone on our email list, along with the PDF of the siddur (service booklet) and prayer supplement on Friday, July 1st. Please do not share the link, especially on social media. If you receive this newsletter, you will automatically receive the service link.
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Meet our July B’Mitzvah
Avery is a Grade 7 student at Winona Drive Senior Public School in Toronto. She is enthusiastic, friendly, and proud of her Jewish heritage. She is also perpetually mischievous with a wicked sense of humour. In her spare time, Avery loves to read, to listen to Taylor Swift, and to spend time with her friends. She also anchors the defence on her rep-level soccer team. A hard worker, Avery is known to ask lots of questions of her teachers at school.
Although Avery did not have the opportunity to participate in the Shir Libeynu B’Mitzvah program this year, she very much enjoyed preparing for her B’Mitzvah directly with Cantor Wunch.
Her parents, Erica Berman and Adam Chapnick, and her older sibling, Cameron, look forward to joining with members of the Shir Libeynu community to celebrate Avery’s important milestone on July 2 either in person or via Zoom.
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Catch Your Breath Before the Service with Lorne Blumer,
In person & online
Lorne has once again generously volunteered to offer his meditation session in person before our Shabbat service! He'll offer it at the usual time (9:30 to 10:15 am) in the room that we used for childcare (304-306). To attend in person at the MNjcc, please email our Administrator, Lillian at shirlibeynuadmin@gmail.com.
You don't need to register to attend the meditation session by Zoom. You'll receive the link on Friday before the session. Lorne will likely connect to Zoom using his phone, so you'll be able to hear his voice but you won't be able to see him.
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Anything that gets you better at loving can be sacred
Several months ago I was listening to one of my regular podcasts, when I had to pause, rewind, and listen again. The podcast I was listening to is called Terrible, Thanks for Asking, and the general premise of the show is the host, Nora McInerny, talks to people who have gone through terrible things in their lives, and discusses how they have learned to overcome those situations. It is not always the most uplifting podcast, as you hear about some pretty upsetting situations, but the guests always have something to share about resilience, perseverance, and being kind to ourselves.
One particular episode called Self-Portrait of My Own Misery, featured Vanessa Zoltan, a Jewish woman who talked about her struggles with depression and anxiety, and the generational trauma - trauma passed down from one generation to the next - that were at the root of her challenges. Her particular story is a painful and beautiful one, and on the podcast she shared a bit about her family history, but the part that I was struck by is how she has learned to manage her depression and anxiety – through prayer.
Vanessa Zoltan said that despite growing up fairly observant, she never felt a spiritual or emotional connection with Jewish ritual. She didn’t find prayer to be helpful or comforting until, that is, as an adult, she truly learned how to pray… and strangely enough, she began her prayer practice with Jane Eyre.
Vanessa described knowing that she wasn’t ready for Jewish texts, but she did want to release her struggles into a text that she loved, and so she asked her mentor to teach her to pray with her favourite book, the words of which she learned to treat as sacred; to find meaning in them.
She said: “… the most important part is that you have faith in the text. And by faith, I mean you believe that the more time you spend with the text, the more gifts it will give you. And even a book with a lot of bad stuff in it, like Jane Eyre. Right? Like, Jane Eyre has a lot of really bad colonial slavery stuff in it. But the more time you spend with it, the more you figure out why that's bad, and what's healthy about…Rochester and Jane's relationship and what's not. And any minute I spend with that book, I have more and more spiritual resources. We treat a text as sacred in order to treat our neighbor as sacred. And you realize that actually if a text is betraying you and you can still love it, that means you can still love your neighbor even if their tree is growing over your wall or they play their music too late. And then the other thing is that the more time you spend with the text, the ready-ier it is for you when you are in moments of despair. So if you've read a book a hundred times … and you've underlined all of your favorite quotes, when you get a piece of bad news and you don't know what to do with your body, you can just open it. And Past You will have taken care of Current You. You know, a sentence that you've underlined will speak to you, and you'll be like, ‘Oh, my God, it's like it was meant for me in this moment.’ And so I just don't think that those books have to be the Bible... And it just like, doesn't have to be the Old Testament, the New Testament, the Koran. It can be Harry Potter, it can be Jane Eyre. It can be, I would argue, your favorite romance novel. Right? Anything that's complicated, anything that's generative, anything that gets you better at loving can be sacred.”
This is the part that made me stop what I was doing and listen again. “Anything that gets you better at loving can be sacred.” I love the idea that even a text with bad things in it can be sacred, and that it’s the lessons we take away each time we engage with the text that make it holy.
Prayer can be as simple as focusing on a favourite book, poem, song, or text and finding comfort and meaning there. As the podcast host so eloquently summarized: “Vanessa prays to Jane Eyre. When there are things going on in her life that feel out of control, that make her feel those familiar feelings of despair and futility, she can open up that book and find a passage that illuminates some truth. A bit of wisdom that can help her in her current situation.”
So this summer, if you find yourself with a little bit more down-time, I urge you to return to a book that has been impactful on you, or pick up a new book – whether it’s a Jewish holy book, or not – and, having faith in it, find the words that will keep you coming back time and again. Perhaps you already have such a book in your life. Whether new, or one you’ve returned to, share it with me – I’d love to know where YOU find prayer. I’d love to even find ways to include your prayerful texts into our congregational rituals. Together we can continue to expand our repertoire of sacred texts that get us even better at loving.
B’ahavah (with love),
Cantor C. Wunch
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High Holy Day Voices
We are beginning to prepare for the 2022 High Holy Day Services, and need your help! We are thrilled that our choir is planning to be in-person this year, and we’d love to add your voice. No previous choral experience is necessary, just a love for singing. If you’re interested in joining the choir, please contact Vered at vered.philip@gmail.com or Cantor Wunch at cantorwunch@gmail.com.
We are also looking for people who are interested in delivering sermons, sounding the shofar, and chanting Torah this year. Please contact Cantor Wunch if you’d like to volunteer for any of those important roles.
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CSL Rabbi Emeritus Aviva Goldberg in conversation with Jinks Hoffman - coming this fall!
Psychotherapist, spiritual leader, poet and good friend of our Congregation Jinks Hoffman will discuss with Rabbi Emeritus Aviva Goldberg her latest publication, The Light of God’s Shadows: Musings, Stories and Poems on “Waking Up”. This conversation is what we all need, especially at this time as we continue to weather the dual storms of COVID and the war in Ukraine.
Watch for the date, time and location of this meaningful discussion!
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ATTENTION: LGBTQIA2S+ Canadian soldiers, sailors, aviators and/or their partners
P-SEC (the Psycho-Social Ethnography of Commonplace Research Group) is composed of a number of researchers at various stages of their careers. The focus of their research is to investigate the connections between marginalized groups’ life experiences and the organizations that shape their lived realities. They have researched areas such as women working in men-dominated occupations, elderly people living in rural areas, LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) soldiers working in the Canadian military, mothers birthing in hospital settings, and single mothers living on social assistance.
Little research exists documenting the realities (eg why did you join) of LGBTQIA2S+ people serving in the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF). Currently this research group is conducting a qualitative study to document the experiences of serving LGBTQIA2S+ soldiers, sailors or aviators in the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) or the LGBTQIA2S+ spouses or partners of CAF soldiers, sailors or aviators. They want to hear the stories of serving in the CAF or being partnered with someone serving in the CAF.
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CASTING CALL for a Netflix Feature Film Produced by Adam Sandler
YOU ARE SO NOT INVITED TO MY BAT MITZVAH!
We are seeking LGBTQ+ community members to be background performers for a variety of scenes, including guests at a Bat Mitzvah celebration!
**No previous experience required**
We are particularly looking for the following background roles: A transgender teen (12-14 years old) A nonbinary teen (12-14 years old). Queer couples (19 and older).
Filming takes place in the GTA between June 29 – August 12 (filming takes place on weekdays only). Background performers may be needed 1 to 4 days over the course of filming.
To apply, please click on the appropriate link below:
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If you missed any of our past offerings or wish to view them again, please email Lillian, our Administrator at shirlibeynuadmin@gmail.com.
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Congregation Shir Libeynu
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