What is Diversity? Working Towards A Time When All Will Be Treated The Same.

We are not there yet!  Rabbi Jay, Rabbi Jenn and the staff of Congregation Simchat HaLev is committed to the vision of welcoming all people equally under our tent.  To do this, we must all understand the definition of diversity and how it relates to synagogue life. We will continue to pray and will work hard together to bring about a time when all in our midst will embrace diversity regardless of race, culture, gender, ethnic background, social status, sexual preference, language spoken, mental capacity, learning style, and physical ability. And then, diversity will no longer need a definition. It begins with each and every one of us.

 

Family Time - Creating Sacred Memories

When was the last time you sat with your children around the kitchen table, had dinner and spent significant time together? When was the last time you engaged your children in helping you cook a meal or bake a special treat?  Family fun is not expensive.  In these days of financial uncertainty and stress, let us engage our family in the family experience that we may have had as a child or those that our parents, grandparents and their parents experienced. Let us teach our children that it is not only going to the mall, shopping and using the credit card that makes us happy.  We all get hooked, even the Rabbi does.  There are so many things that we can do that will create life-long memories. Memories that will last far longer than the newness of the purchase that we had to have. Family fun can include preparing a meal, together, baking cookies, playing Pictionary or charades, scrabble or monopoly. What about all those pictures that you took or have in your possession, why not look at them as a family, re-tell the stories, make a memory book or a collage. Something we have done as a family each year in Israel is to create a fun video.  We all have video cameras, set the camera on a tripod, plan a skit as a family and have fun acting it out. I am confident that you will laugh, have fun but most importantly capture the closeness with each other that will create that sacred memory that will last forever. Take the time to stop and to be. In this state of the economy and in a world filled with general sadness, create sacred moments together, its worth it, its fun and its free.  Amen.

 

What is Jewish Renewal?

Jewish Renewal is GD centered and grounded in traditional Judaism and ritual. Inspired by the work of Rabbi Zalman Schacter-Shalomi, z’’l, the movement's founder, Jewish Renewal Clergy are committed to providing their congregants with an experience of a Judaism that is alive, engaging, spiritual, creative, accessible, relevant and joyous. Jewish Renewal acts to fully include all Jews regardless of the origin of their Jewishness or level of religious practice; and to respect all people regardless of race, culture, gender, ethnic background, social status or sexual preference. It is the hope in Jewish Renewal that as congregants are engaged and renewed, they will spread kindness and love, promote justice and freedom, care for all life, the earth, and the world that GD has created. In the Jewish renewal movement there are people who also identify as orthodox, Torah observant, observant, reform, conservative, reconstructionist, neo-Chasidic, liberal, secular, trans/post-denominational (a combination of one or more of those descriptions), perhaps align themselves with a denomination, and others who feel a closeness to Judaism but are not technically Jewish.