NEWSLETTER

January 2014 - 5774

Volume LXII #4

Member of the Union For Reform Judaism

978-251-8091

www.congregationshalom.org

From our Rabbi

From our President    

From Our Education Director  

Although as a general rule my newsletter speaks about upcoming events, I want to take the liberty to reflect back on the first Chai Session and hopefully look at the question that I get asked so often - why send my kids to Chai?? What does the Chai School offer our children that is different than their previous classes?

For each of the 8 weeks of Chai School, I have the pleasure of walking into the kitchen and witnessing a group of happy and engaged teenagers socializing and sharing the events of their week over pizza and a cookie before class even begins. Sometimes you will hear a student make an announcement about Shalomites and sometimes you will see teenagers just chatting and laughing together. What is most important about this pizza dinner is that what I witness every week is a supportive and engaged student body that is not divided by age, but rather I see a happy and connected group of Jewish students from different grades and different schools hanging out together and socializing.

Visiting the Chai classrooms, I hear excited and involved students learning new ways to explore their Judaism. Whether it is moral issues, anti-semitism, the Holocaust, or asking probing questions about the existence of G-d, our teenagers are grappling with real life Jewish ideas in ways that are meaningful and exciting to them. Even our electives offered students the opportunity to engage with Judaism in a way that relates to their lives today. How do Jews live around the world? Why do we as teenagers care about some of the Jewish holidays and why is Yiddish such a vibrant part of our Jewish tradition were some of the issues our students grappled with last session.

On the very last class, you may have smelled the delicious aroma of hamantaschen coming from the kitchen. Many people asked me why hamataschen in December? Well, it was not the food itself that was important, but rather the moment that baking offered, where our whole Chai school came together to roll dough and pinch cookies into triangles - because it is this simple traditional cookie that offers us the opportunity to foster a sense of identity and belonging. It is the lessons that the teachers shared about Purim around the world, what the word hamantaschen means and what is its origin, and the importance of food and community that made hamantaschen in December so relevant. The last class was truly as one of our electives was called, "bissel this a bissel that" (a little this, a little that).

So this leaves the question - why Chai? I believe that Chai School offers our children a home and a learning community that is warm, nurturing, safe and at its core Jewish. I believe that this sense of community and age appropriate learning is the key to raising students with a love of learning and a love of Judaism that will stay with them forever. If you have students in grades 8 - 10 and would like to find out about our second Chai Session, or you have students in grades 11 and 12 who may be interested in our incredible monthly Post Confirmation class, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Please click here to read previous columns on our website. 

Communications Corner:

Blogs and Feeds for our Temple Family 

As part of our new website, and to allow our temple leaders to be able to communicate with us when they have something to say, the monthly columns of our Rabbi, President and Educational Director are now in the form of blogs on our temple website. In addition to the latest installment of each in our monthly newsletter, you can find their blogs on our website, at these links: 

Our Rabbi's Blog 

Our President's Blog 

Our Education Director's Blog 

As our Rabbi begins her sabbatical, she has already begun posting her thoughts, using her blog as a way to keep in touch over the next months. Blogs not only allow our Rabbi to write about what she is doing during her sabbatical, but you can also comment on those blog entries, to make the communication more of a discussion.

Since you never know when any of these people might be motivated to update their blogs, we have also enabled RSS feeds for each. What's as RSS feed ? RSS stands for Rich Site Summary, or Really Simple Syndication. It's a way for you to subscribe to a webpage, and find out whenever it has been updated. There are a variety of RSS readers for your browser or mobile device of choice (even if the popular Google Reader is no more) - browse the web or ask around. Once you have a Reader installed, you can subscribe to our RSS feeds via these three links (or you can use the RSS logo at the bottom of each of our blog pages on the CS website)

Our Rabbi's RSS Feed 

Our President's RSS Reed 

Our Education Director's RSS Feed 

We urge all members of our community to read these blogs, subscribe if you'd like and share your comments. We hope this is one way you will find our new communications more valuable and rewarding. Please let us know at communications@congregationshalom.org.

On behalf of our communications committee,

Peter Sohn

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Meditation and Drumming

Shabbat Service

 

January 31st at 7:00 pm.

 

 

There will also be meditation and drumming on Sunday, January 12 at 11 am.

 

Please click here for more information.