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Havdalah and Selichot Service Tomorrow Night

Posted by Rabbi Thiede on September 7, 2012   |   Comments Off on Havdalah and Selichot Service Tomorrow Night

Come, come, whoever you are
Wonderer, worshipper, lover of leaving
It doesn’t matter
Ours is not a caravan of despair
Come, even if you have broken your vow
a thousand times
Come, yet again, come, come

Rumi

Please join us tomorrow night for a gentle evening centered around the theme of forgiveness.  We’ll take the time to assess our past year and identify what we long for in the next.  Surrounded by community and carried by prayer, we’ll take an important prepatory step for the Days of Awe.

Come and hear the old chassidic story about a girl who looked for God in unlikely places.

Please bring something to share at oneg; we look forward to seeing you there.

Date and Time: September 8, 2012, 7 p.m.
Location: McGill Baptist Church, Concord

Selichot Service: Love Means Knowing When to Say You Are Sorry

Posted by Rabbi Thiede on September 4, 2012   |   Comments Off on Selichot Service: Love Means Knowing When to Say You Are Sorry

At the close of this Shabbat we will come together for a deeply reflective service. Selichot, Hebrew for “forgiveness” is a loving element in the Jewish liturgical calendar. On Selichot, we take the time to consider the nature of forgiveness — both human and divine.

This Elul week, take the time to ask yourselves these questions: Who would you like to forgive? What do you need forgiveness for? What do you need to forgive in yourself?

Our service will begin with havdalah. We will say a sweet goodbye to Shabbat and make a tender entry into this next week. We will read and sing from psalms. We will begin the process of dissolving the burdens we carry. We will open to the reality and the nature of forgiveness.

Join us for Selichot. Dress comfortably, and bring journals or your Books of Life from last year with you.

Please also bring something to share at the oneg following the service.

Let us understand when we need to say we are sorry — even to ourselves.

Date and Time: September 8; 7 pm
Location: McGill Baptist Church, Concord

September 2012 Shmoozeletter

Posted by webmaster on September 1, 2012   |   Comments Off on September 2012 Shmoozeletter

The September 2012 Shmoozeletter is online here.  Points of interest include:

  • Information about the new Oneg signup sheet
  • Temple Or Olam’s wish list
  • Rabbi Barbara on High Holy Days
  • Meet the Mishpoche: At the Kids’ Table
  • 2012 Religious School staff introductions

Shabbat-O-Gram

Posted by Rabbi Thiede on August 31, 2012   |   Comments Off on Shabbat-O-Gram

We toss out the eggshells (hopefully to recycle them!).  We sweep off the debris on the deck.  Every now and then we sort through our clothes; the frayed khakis just have to go.

On Rosh Hashanah, we leave our joyous and celebratory morning service determined to toss away the emotional baggage, the doubtful decisions, and the moral compromises we’ve made with ourselves, our family and friends, our co-workers and community.

We head to the little creekside in Dorton park after Shacharit services for tashlich. 

The word “tashlich” comes from the Hebrew “to cast.” During that ceremony we cast away things that have dogged us year-round.  We want to free ourselves to be happier, healthier, and kinder persons. We name everything we would like to rid ourselves of — apathy, jealousy, pickiness, sarcasm.  We imagine those qualities in our hands; we experience the feeling of freedom when we let loose the bread crumbs or the cereal.

This year, our High Holy Day class studied the nature of atonement and forgiveness.  Students pointed out that we only seem to name the negative things that we want to free ourselves from.  Indeed, naming — and casting away — the negative makes sense if we want to make room for the positive.

At the end of the Days of Awe we will also take some time to complete the process.  At Neilah, some of our High Holy Day students will introduce a new ritual that will leave us all blessed by all that we hope to become.

Look forward to this beautiful new ritual for the Days of Awe!

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Barbara

Rabbi Barbara’s office hours, Fall 2012

Posted by webmaster on August 23, 2012   |   Comments Off on Rabbi Barbara’s office hours, Fall 2012

Fall is here and Rabbi Barbara’s full-time job and classes at UNCC have started.    Listed below are the hours when she will be working at her desk as your rabbi this fall.  In addition to these times, there are many hours she devotes to TOO service preparation, congregational teaching, pastoral care and spiritual direction, leading services and festival events.    So, you are welcome to send her email or make a phone call at any time but it may not be answered until one of these defined periods.

IF YOU NEED HER IMMEDIATELY FOR AN EMERGENCY, flag that message in some way.  Of course, email works best for this purpose.  She cannot answer any sort of phone call or email while in class.

Rabbi Thiede’s TOO office hours for Fall 2012:

  • Email answering — Sunday evening and Tuesday morning
  • In her office for all communications — Friday morning, 9-11.

Psalms for Elul — And Yours?

Posted by Rabbi Thiede on August 23, 2012   |   Comments Off on Psalms for Elul — And Yours?

One thing I ask of Adonai, only that do I seek: to live in the house of  Adonai all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of Adonai, to frequent Adonai’s temple.  Psalm 27:4.

This past month, some of our congregants sat down to study the history and liturgy of the High Holy Days with me.  They learned that many Jews read psalms during the month of Elul – most particularly  Psalm 27.

The psalms are a collection of heartfelt prayers.  They range from laments to joyful celebrations.  Their authors express the full gamut of human emotions, from despair to celebration, from longing to untrammeled hope.

During our study time together I asked everyone to try writing their own psalms as part of their preparation for High Holy Days.    Imagine Rosh Hashanah as a celebration – the birthday of all creation.  Imagine Yom Kippur as a time when you could embrace the opportunity to examine and cleanse your spirit and soul.  What might you want to ask God for?  What joy might you want to express?

I include, with permission from its author, and for inspiration, the first psalm I received.

The author, Cheryl Greenwald, chose to use El Shaddai, one of our many names for God in the Tanakh, in her psalm.

El is an ancient term that means, simply, “god.”  Most scholars believe that Shaddai harks etymologically (perhaps) to an ancient semitic word for “mountains.” Thus, “God of the mountains.”  Some have also suggested that shaddai actually refers to fertility (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Shaddai).  In either case, this psalm suggests that God is a protecting, nourishing force.

Are there other psalms waiting to be written as we prepare for the Days of Awe?

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Barbara

If I ask God for comfort
 El Shaddai
Will answer and comfort
If I ask for forgiveness
 El Shaddai
Answers and forgives
If I ask that no man, woman or child be abused
 El Shaddai
Will hear me
Where can we go and be safe?
El Shaddai
Will find a place
El Shaddai
Will comfort us
Praised are You who O Lord, who brings us comfort

The Month of Elul — Finding Wisdom and Love

Posted by Rabbi Thiede on August 19, 2012   |   Comments Off on The Month of Elul — Finding Wisdom and Love

Today is the first day of the month of Elul.

The rabbis say that Moses ascended Sinai for the last time on the night of Rosh Hodesh Elul. He went to recover the covenant, to make it anew. The first tablets had been destroyed after the terrible debacle of the Golden Calf. Hope seemed broken beyond repair.

And yet, Moses ascended. This time, God told Moses to carve the tablets. This time, the covenant would be carved and inscribed by both human and divine energies.

Elul was – and is – a month for reflection: Moses remained above with God, learning that the covenant would have to be a joint project. The Israelites stayed below, reflecting on the burdens they had schlepped into their new lives. How could they let go of things they no longer needed to carry?

The name of the month of Elul has exactly the same numeric value as the word binah, wisdom. It is a good time to reflect on the stuff of the past year, on the pain and trouble we have carried, the misguided decisions and the hasty actions we could wish away. It is a time to reflect on hopes and dreams yet unrealized, on the longing to draw near to God.

Elul: The name of this month is an acronym, so our sages say, for a well-known phrase from Song of Songs: Ani l’dodi v’dodi li: I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine. During Elul, we hear the call of our Beloved in the shofar that is sounded each day of the month in traditional communities. That primal sound awakens us, reminds us.

For what? To discover our own wisdom. To reflect on who we are now and who we long to become.

As we walk through each of the last thirty days of this year, let us begin opening up our hearts and minds. Let us prepare for these High Holy Days with consciousness and joy.

Take some time to write, in your own words, about the fears and troubles of this last year in your Books of Life or in journals you might buy for yourselves. Write about your joys, too. Ask yourselves what wisdom you long for. Listen, Israel.

Our covenant is being rewritten and reinscribed every year. During the month of Elul, we partner with God in the renewal. As this year ends, we define what we long for in the next.

Elul: Wisdom and love. May we go up just as Moses did, and may we, like Moses, receive.

Funky will do!

Posted by Rabbi Thiede on August 16, 2012   |   Comments Off on Funky will do!

Dear Folks,

Many of you have mournfully declared that you no longer possess tie-dyed clothing to wear to tomorrow night’s Love Song service.

Funky will do just fine.  (See cat.)

So pull out those red shoes or that rainbow tie.  Join us on Shabbat.  Love is all you need…

Shabbat Shalom (a leetle early),

Rabbi Barbara

Shabbat-O-Gram: On Silly Love Songs

Posted by Rabbi Thiede on August 10, 2012   |   Comments Off on Shabbat-O-Gram: On Silly Love Songs

You’d think that people
Would have had enough
Of silly love songs.
I look around me and I see it isn’t so.
Some people wanna fill the world
With silly love songs.
And what’s wrong with that? I’d like to know.

Years ago, I created kippot with symbols of love songs I imagined singing to God.  There was the one with a moon and sun on it. I enjoyed having folks guess the song it represented (Night and Day).

This year, I suggested to our Temple Or Olam band that we think about doing an entire service of love songs our congregants could imagine singing to God. So we sent out emails, asked for ideas and contributions, and began rehearsing Don McClean and Elvis Presley, the Animals and Toad the Wet Sprocket. Yup, and Cat Stevens, the Beatles, and Van Morrison too. And more.

We created a whole service from the suggestions we received and used almost all we got. Love songs from the sixties through the nineties. Love songs that are joyous and free. Love songs that express sadness and longing. These, two, are part of our relationship with God.

At the service, we’ll find out how those words and melodies mirror the prayers we typically sings – from the Barchu to Mi Chamocha to Adon Olam.

So look in the closet for those headbands, fringes, love beads, and tie-died shirts. Tap into happy, free, and, if you like, what it feels like to be goofy with love.

Join us on August 17 for our first ever Love Song Service at 7 pm at McGill Baptist Church in Concord. There’s a lot that’s right on about all those silly love songs.  J

Shabbat Shalom!

Rabbi Barbara

August 2012 Shmoozeletter

Posted by Ralf Thiede on August 2, 2012   |   Comments Off on August 2012 Shmoozeletter

The August 2012 Shmoozeletter is on line (please click here).  Points of interest:

  • August 03 service
  • Temple Or Olam receives Lenora Stein grant
  • ‘Love Song’ service August 17
  • Meet the Mishpoche: Yvette Spivock
  • Keri Huneycutt, Terri Malin to direct Religious School
  • Religious School relocated to University City
  • High Holy Days Intensive Seminar with Rabbi Thiede August 11 and 18