Shabbat Morning Services are VIRTUAL ONLY this week
Friday, October 7, 12 Tishrei 6:00 PM Please join Rabbi Marcia Plumb and Ellen Allard for a HYBRID "From Our Home to Yours" Kabbalat Shabbat Service
Saturday, October 8, 13 Tishrei, 9:30 AM Please join Rabbi Marcia Plumb and Cantor Ellen Band for a VIRTUAL special Shabbat Shuva morning Service
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
Sukkot at CMT
Erev Sukkot - Sunday, October 9, 6:00 PM Led by Rabbi Marcia Plumb and Ellen Allard Hybrid Services
Sukkot Day 1- Monday, October 10, 9:30AM Led by Rabbi Marcia Plumb and Cantor Ellen Band Hybrid Services
We Remember: This week's upcoming Yahrzeit Observances
Shloshim Cheryl Dockser Mark Halpern Anne Sheila Zeger Arthur Dickerman David Cohen Esther Rubin
Saturday
Sunday David Karas Ira B. Gordon
Monday Louis H. Glickstein
Tuesday Ruth Golov Einstein
Wednesday Jacob Sandofsky Ruth Loventhal
Thursday Elia Karas Joseph Summers Rose Eshkenazi
Friday
A Teaching from Our Rabbi
Shana Tova to you and your loved ones. Following Yom Kippur, I hope you feel forgiven, released, and ready to create a new year for yourself.
Can you walk and chew gum at the same time?
Sukkot is almost upon us. When we think of Sukkot, what comes to mind? I imagine you said, ‘the sukkah’, or ‘shaking the lulav.’ Both of those are what I think of as well. But the rabbis of the Talmud add a third important element and that is Hallel. Hallel is the set of psalms of praise we sing on Sukkot, Pesach and Shavuot. On Sukkot, at shul, we shake the lulav while singing it.
The Talmud and its commentators over the centuries, ask a valid question, particularly for our day. Can you sing Hallel and shake the lulav in private, at home? And what if we need to look at the siddur in order to follow Hallel, but we also need to shake the lulav at the same time? How can we hold, or do both? It is a bit like, can you walk and chew gum at the same time?
They agreed that Hallel said in public is essentially different than in private. We saw that over the High Holy Days, and we know that our own experiences of engaging with people in person after lockdowns.
According to Talmud, it seems that the proper way to say Hallel is the way it was done during the Exodus from Egypt - one person leads and the rest of the group answers after them. This is only possible with a group. These sources imply that without this, Hallel is somehow less powerful. Shaking the lulav is more energizing when we are with others doing the same.
None of the Israelites crossed the sea alone. They faced the challenge together and gave each other courage and confidence. They needed each other to move through both the physical sea and the emotional abyss of leaving all they knew to go into the unknown. And they sang Hallel as they went, because parts of Hallel are in Moses’ Shirat Hayam (song at the sea).
So, too we move from the past to the future; from the year that has gone that we know all too well, into uncertain days ahead. We gather together on Sunday night and Monday morning to begin Sukkot, and shake the lulav in the sukkah.
This year, I encourage you to come to shul on Sunday night, or Monday morning, or come to our Sukkot events (Tacos and Tequila and Dine Under the Stars) so that you too can shake the lulav with others, hear the sounds, that echo the rain and wind, reverberating across the sukkah and the shul, and sing the Hallel of gratitude. This year, keep the flow of the High Holy Days going through Sukkot. Come in person, if you possibly can. Otherwise, buy a lulav and etrog (from Israel Bookstore in Brookline) and shake and sing with us from home.
Sukkot comes only once a year. Let’s celebrate hope together.
This Shabbat, may your home be filled with the smells of the myrtle from the lulav and the anticipation of the joy of Sukkot .
Shabbat Shalom, Rabbi Marcia Plumb
Congregation Mishkan Tefila 384 Harvard St. Brookline, MA 02446
