Please join the Mishkan Tefila community for our Shabbat Services in our beautiful sanctuary.
If you are unable to join us in person, please join us on Zoom.
Friday, December 29, 17 Tevet 5:30PM Please join Rabbi David Starr and Ellen Allard for a HYBRID Kabbalat Shabbat Service.
Saturday December 30, 18 Tevet 9:30AM Please join Rabbi David Starr and Cantor Ellen Band for a HYBRID Shabbat Morning Service.
Genesis 47:28 - 49:26
Siddur Lev Shalem Shabbat Services Click here for Kabbalat Shabbat and Maariv Click here for Shabbat Morning and Shaharit
A Message from
Rabbi Starr
My grandfather grew up in Ukraine. He lost his mother as a young boy, and when he was an adolescent, his father took ill. The nearest doctor lived in a larger town, dozens of kilometres away. My grandfather accompanied his father to that town where for the first time he saw electric light.
The doctor could not save my great grandfather. Now an orphan my grandfather made his way to America. He left the darkness of his personal life, of the mostly poor folk of Tsarist Russia, of the particularly difficult fate of Russian Jewry, for the light of the Statue of Liberty.
We often see darkness and light through the prism of social and political progress and technological progress. Human dignity comes with commitment to goods like health care education adequate housing citizenship and the like. Those things change lives and make the world brighter.
But people also carry lights of their own deep inside of them. In this week’s Torah portion, we’re told yet again how old Yakov was as he approached death. He lived to be such and such an age the Torah says. The Gerer Rebbe understands that to mean that however hard life became for Israel in Egypt, however dark life in exile may be, every person lives and navigates life by their own light, their own values, their own truth. Israel knew that—though much of the drama and pathos of the Bible reflects how hard it was for them, like for all of us, to remember our truth, our internal light.
Peoplehood—the love and nurturing and pride we give to each other—and Torah—our texts and values and teachings—provide us with the tools to have faith, the strength to remember to look inside ourselves, to see our own light. Look at the world, pay attention to what others need, and remember too, to look inside yourself, and to have the faith and courage that your life has meaning.
Daily Mishna Learning with Rabbi David Starr Monday - Friday, 12:00PM
We invite everyone in our community to join Rabbi David Starr for daily Mishna learning and open dialogue on Zoom. The sessions meet at 12:00PM, for 15 – 20 minutes Monday through Friday.
Participant-led Mincha will follow each learning at 12:20PM.
