Shabbat Shalom GRJC

Weekly Emails to the Congregation

Parshat Trumah 2008

Shabbat Shalom to the GRJC family,

We light our Shabbat candles this week at 5:03 pm.  Friday evening services will begin at 8 pm, and our Saturday morning service will begin at 9 am.  Tot Shabbat and Shabbat Sheli (1st – 3rd grade) will begin on Friday at 6:30 pm.  Junior congregation begins at 10 am on Saturday.

This weekend is our 2008 Scholar in Residence program with Dr. David Freidenreich, “Encountering Islam:  An Introduction for American Jews.”  Dr. Freidenreich will speak during the service on Friday night on, “Giving Islam a Seat at the Table.”  Saturday following services there will be a luncheon and lecture beginning at 11:30, “An Introduction to Islam.”  Saturday evening at 6:15 there will be a Havdalah service followed by a documentary film showing and discussion with our scholar.  See the February bulletin for details.

We read this week from parshat Trumah.  This week’s reading is the beginning of God’s instructions for building the Tabernacle, or Mishkan, the portable sanctuary that the Israelites used during their forty years of wandering in the wilderness.  The directions for building the Mishkan are specific and ordered.  They contain a wealth of detail, and the final product is a rectangular structure whose dimensions and contents are carefully measured and placed.  For example, the Mishkan is 100 cubits long and 50 cubits wide.  The Ark of the Covenant stands at the center of the inner courtyard and the altar stands at the center of the outer courtyard.

When we confront the building of the Mishkan, our thoughts turn to the architecture for our houses of worship across the centuries.  Our two Temples in Jerusalem reflected similar structural patterns to the Mishkan.  When synagogues became our places of worship, their architecture reflected the culture of the lands in which they were established.  In the Diaspora Museum in Tel Aviv (Beit ha’Tfutzot) we can see examples of synagogues from around the world.  We have the lacquer and vaulted roofs of the old synagogue in Kaifeng, China, and there is the synagogue in Toledo, Spain with its colonnades and arches in the classic Moorish style.

The building, though, does not create the religious experience; it houses the Torah and sanctuary where the spiritual and other Jewish activities occur.  Any place where ten Jews gather is a holy place for prayer.  On last year’s Jersey to Jerusalem trip to Israel, we had services in the Caesarea parking lot near the Mediterranean Sea, and I remember a Camp Ramah staff trip when we held a short service outside the Cineplex in Binghamton.

What places do you find to be inspiring and spiritual?  What are the qualities of those places and what emotions do they inspire?

ANNOUNCEMENTS:
1. Rabbi Tow will be out of town from Saturday evening Feb. 9th through Thursday Feb. 14th.  – There will be no Bar/Bat Mitzvah lessons Sunday through Thursday.  Lessons will resume Sunday the 17th.   Rabbi Jonathan Woll of Temple Avoda in Fair Lawn will be on call for emergencies.  The main number at Temple Avoda is 201-797-9716.

2. Nursery School Parents’ “Coffee” – Friday morning, 9 AM

3. Tot Shabbat and Shabbat Sheli – Friday at 6:30 pm.

4. Junior Congregation – Saturday morning at 10 am

5. Adult Choir Seeking Singers – The adult choir is preparing to perform pieces on the April 10th Zimriya, Israeli song festival.  The choir is seeking additional singers for this special evening program.  The remaining rehearsal dates are Feb. 7, 14, 28 and March 13, 27, and April 3 from 7:30 –9 pm.  For more info.:  ayelet@mishamusic.com.

6. Hebrew Conversation Class – Wednesdays at 8 pm at GRJC

7. Save the Date:  Adult Education – Rabbi’s Sunday morning class will resume on February 24th.  The topic of the new class will be “Jewish Business Ethics.”



Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Tow

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