Friday, April 14, 23 Nisan 6:00 PM Please join Rabbi Marcia Plumb and Ellen Allard for a Hybrid Kabbalat Shabbat Service. Come in-person to celebrate Brett, Michael, Nicole, Rose, Sam, and Leslie, as they receive a special blessing, as they prepare to depart for Israel to celebrate Yom HaAtzmaut.
Saturday, April 15, 24 Nisan, 9:30 AM Please join Rabbi Marcia Plumb and Cantor Ellen Band for a Hybrid Shabbat 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
Dear CMT Friends,
We are continuing our counting of the Omer, the 49 days between Pesach and Shavuot.
Every year at Congregation Mishkan Tefila, we count the Omer with a special thought for the day. The Omer began on Thursday evening, April 6. This year, I will greet you, every morning, with a short video message to help you start your day in a positive inspired way.
I invite you to celebrate someone you love by sponsoring a day of the Omer. Choose someone to honor, who has instilled an important value in you. You may choose someone in your family (past or present), a teacher, a friend, or anyone who has taught you an important life lesson. Please share their name, and yours, so we can celebrate you both. The cost to sponsor a Day of the Omer is $118. Be sure to read the morning emails to see your day!
Thank you so much, and we look forward to celebrating the Omer with you, Rabbi Marcia Plumb
We Remember: This week's upcoming Yahrzeit Observances
Shloshim Stuart Levine Rosalind Glickman Mel Drukman
Saturday Harold Glazer Alexander Brown Dr. Edward Krensky Julius Lieberman Charles Cohen
Sunday
Monday
Tuesday Philip Goldstein Samu Stein Philip Goldstein Malva Stein Ralph Berman Robert Kelso Antonia Stein Edward Rosenthal Melvin Wintman Klara Stein Endre Stein
Wednesday Jane Grinberg Ann Kaplan Rubin Ernest Katz
Thursday Elizabeth Boronkay
Friday Herbert Rubin Nathan Alpert Sylivia McCall
A Teaching from our Rabbi
‘You are what you eat.’ In the case of this week’s parasha, Shemini, that seems to be true. In the parasha we find the laws of kashrut regarding which animals we can and cannot eat. The mix of animals has been debated and discussed for centuries–why we can’t eat fish without fins and scales, for example. Theologians, anthropologists, biologists, halachic experts and more have devised many different understandings to try to understand the rationale behind it.
But one type of animal we can’t eat, birds of prey, has a clear reason. The Mishnah defines a bird of prey as one that has a pronounced strike talon. A species that is always ready and willing to kill at a moment’s notice is ‘ipso facto not appropriate eating for a people which seeks to uphold the sacredness of life.’ (Rabbi Yitz Greenberg)
What we eat clearly affects our bodies. Hasidut tells us that what we eat also affects our souls and attitudes about life. Rabbi Greenberg points out that ‘eating predators instills aggression, be it physiologically or psychologically.’
This would imply that, from a spiritual point of view, the more types of aggressive animals we put into our bodies, the more aggressive we might become. This may or may not have scientific validity, but it does seem clear that kashrut may be part of our laws and culture as a way of reminding us to keep a close eye on who we are, and how we behave in the world.
This Shabbat, may we protect our bodies and souls from harm by eating well. May our homes be filled with an appreciation of the sacredness of all life.
Next Shabbat morning please join us for Yom Ha'Atzmaut celebration.
Shabbat Shalom, Rabbi Marcia Plumb
Congregation Mishkan Tefila 384 Harvard St. Brookline, MA 02446
