Friday, May 7, 26 Iyyar 6:00 PM Please join Rabbi Plumb and Zach Mayer for a virtual "From Our Home to Yours" Kabbalat Shabbat Service.
Join us for Kiddush and HaMotzi with Nati Davidi, in honor of her mother, Meira Davidi for her birthday.
Saturday, May 8 27 Iyyar 9:30 AM Please join Rabbi Plumb and Cantor Ellen Band for a virtual "From Our Home to Yours" Kabbalat Shabbat Service.
Please stay after the service for an extended Kiddush for extra socializing time in small groups.
If you have a simcha, please share it with us and receive a special blessing from Rabbi Plumb during an upcoming Shabbat service. Sponsor a Kiddush by virtually inviting us to your home as you lead the community in KIddush and HaMotzi prayers. (we will provide challah and grape juice!) Please contect Rosalie Reszelbach, Janet Stein Calm or Toni Spitzer to arrange.
Please click here for the link to the new Conservative prayerbook, Siddur Lev Shalem: Shabbat Shaharit Siddur Lev Shalem The prayers will be the same as in our usual blue siddur, so feel free to use that instead if you wish.
Please click here for the link to the page numbers for Shabbat morning prayers in Sim Shalom (Blue) and in Lev Shalem Page Numbers for Shabbat Morning
Faith - Here & Now: An Interreligious Exploration
Rabbi Marcia Plumb will be presenting at the first session on
Tuesday, May 11 at 1:00 PM
What does the word “faith” mean in this liminal moment between quarantine and a return to public life? How have we held and expressed our faith commitments—religious and secular—over the course of the pandemic? What roles do doubt and questioning play as we sort through the collage of emotion that we carry with us daily?
This free 3 part virtual event is a collaboration of the Miller Center for Learning & Leadership and the Arts Committee of Hebrew College.
Today is Day 40 of the Omer, and the spiritual focus is Hod she’b’yesod, Humility in Bonding. The overarching theme for this week is yesod: bonding and connections. The trait we add to help us tweak the trait of yesod is hod, humility.
An example of the combination of these two traits today is that sometimes, someone we care about thinks differently than us. They might have a different opinion that we find hard to hear, or they might make us feel angry or hurt. It is easy to think that we are right, and to lose faith in them. When someone disagrees with us, or thinks differently than us, it can be hard to let go of our initial disappointment, anger or hurt. We can find it difficult to forgive, or see beyond the particular disagreement. Hod, humility, can be important in this situation. Humility reminds us that there is more than our opinion. There is more to a friendship or relationship than one or two disagreements. Humility tells us to broaden our focus from the thing that upset us, to see the full person, to see more than that one thing. It reminds us that perhaps their opinion is useful to hear. Perhaps we are a bit stubborn, or arrogant, in believing that our view or assumptions are the only ones that matter in an interaction.
In our parasha this week, Behar-Behukotai, we are told to practice humility when it comes to other people and to the land. We are not to see ourselves as owners of anyone or anything. Ultimately, everything and everyone is from and of God. Our parasha tells us that every seven years, there will be a Jubilee year, when all slaves are set free. The land is also freed from our incessant demands. God reminds us that ‘The land is Mine. You are but guests.’‘ (Lev. 25: 24)
Exercise for the day: This Shabbat, come to shul to offer thanks to God for this beautiful miraculous Airbnb we call Earth, that we get to share with our Divine Host. Today, bend a little for the sake of a relationship you are in. Set aside your ‘rightness’ for the sake of the connection between you. Be open to hearing a different perspective.
This Shabbat, may you find a deeper connection to God, and to God’s creatures and creation.
Shabbat Shalom Rabbi Marcia Plumb
Congregation Mishkan Tefila 384 Harvard St. Brookline, MA 02446
