Shabbat Morning Services are VIRTUAL ONLY this week
Friday, May 5, 14 Iyar 6:00 PM Please join Ellen Allard for a Hybrid Kabbalat Shabbat Service.
Saturday, May 6, 15 Iyar, 9:30 AM Please join Cantor Lorel Zar-Kessler for a VIRTUAL 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
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
Saturday Bernice Kazis John Kaitz Geri Graff Abraham S. Cohen
Sunday Zona Hoffman Lena Levy
Monday Celia Katz Israel Katz Saul Glina
Tuesday Beulah Katz
Wednesday Edith Burg Zinaida Brodskaya Libby Seltzer
Thursday Isadore Shier Herbert Kotzen Stephen P. Silk
Friday Abraham Salzman Sarah Adelson
A Teaching from our Rabbi
‘Speak to the children of Israel and tell them, You shall be holy for I am holy.’ Lev.19
Parashat Emor this week mentions the word Kadosh/ Holy at least 20 times. The High Priests, and the bnei yisrael are meant to imitate G*d by being holy. But what does holiness mean? How do we Be Holy?
Kadosh means special, distinct, set apart. Some say it is problematic that the Jewish people are meant to be separated from others; some say that is the way we keep Judaism alive.
It is somewhere in between.
Our sacred texts, the Torah, launched ethics into the world. We were told to be a light to the nations. Live among others and inspire them to be holy. But Holiness can spread only if we ourselves practice it.
Holiness is not something that is placed upon us, like a hat we wear. Putting on a kippah does not make us holy. Kedusha comes from within, from our inner attitudes and ways of thinking, as well as the ethical behaviour we exhibit because of those attitudes.
Rabbi Harold Kushner, who passed away this week, said, ‘Everything in God's world can be holy if you realize its potential holiness. Everything we do can be transformed into a Sinai experience, an encounter with the sacred. The goal of Judaism is not to teach us how to escape from the profane world to the cleansing presence of God, but to teach us how to bring God into the world, how to take the ordinary and make it holy." (From his book To Life)
This Shabbat may our homes and hearts be filled with kedusha. May we live our lives with holiness in mind.
Shabbat Shalom, Rabbi Marcia Plumb
Congregation Mishkan Tefila 384 Harvard St. Brookline, MA 02446
