Please remember Congregation Leyv Ha-Ir~Heart of the City when you have any occasion to send a greeting card to someone. 

While we are happy to receive contributions in any amount, for a minimum $10 contribution we will gladly send one of Marci Fleet's lovely art cards created for this purpose to the recipient of your choice.

Sue Frank will send Marci's card and compose a note that expresses your thoughts. She can also customize a card based on your suggestion.

Saturday, July 12, 10:00 AM, Shabbat Morning Service

Join our lay-led minyan for a Shabbat morning service, Torah discussion and pot-luck veggie/dairy lunch.  

Location: Myrna Schlanger's home in Cherry Hill, NJ

Contact: Myrna at myrna111@aol.com or (856) 795-6956 for transportation coordination.

Monday, July 14, 7:00 PM, Council Meeting

All members are invited to our monthly Council meeting.
Location: Phyllis Gottlieb's home in center city Philadelphia. 

Contact Phyllis at 215-983-0353 or phyllis.gottlieb@gmail.com for exact location.  

Friday, July 18, 6:30 PM, Home Shabbat Service and Dinner 

Join our lay-led minyan for a Shabbat morning service, Torah discussion and pot-luck veggie/dairy lunch.  

Location: to be advised 

Contact: LHI at 215.629.1995 if you need additional information at this time.

Take a complete look at Congregation Leyv Ha-Ir upcoming activities. 

From the Inquirer, June 10, 2014 A group of minimum wage activists showed up to City Hall Tuesday demanding immediate enforcement of a minimum wage extension.

"We're concerned that people are still working full time, living in deep poverty here in the City of Philadelphia," Bishop Dwayne D. Royster, executive director of Philadelphia Organized to Witness, Empower & Rebuild (POWER), said. Royster, speaking on behalf of the group, told Nutter's assistant that Nutter needs to be more vocal about increasing wages NOW and not when contracts are up for renewal.  

Have you ever wondered why Rosh HaShana starts in the evening?

In fact all Jewish days, whether they are ordinary days or holidays, start in the evening.

Why? Because of this paragraph:

"In the beginning God created heaven and earth. The earth was without form and empty, with darkness on the face of the depths, but God's spirit moved on the water's surface. God said "Let there be light," and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and God divided between the light and the darkness. God named the light Day and the darkness Night. It was evening and it was morning, the first day.

Did you hear in that paragraph how the rabbis knew when a Jewish day begins? They knew because there was evening and morning the first day.

Ancient cultures reasoned from within their own systems so the Torah was a proof text that determined the correct position.

Isn't it interesting that to get to the light of morning, you have to go through the dark first? That's kind of a metaphor for enlightenment in general. The only way out is through. You gotta go through the night to get to the day. When you have been through the dark night and only then, do you know the depth of your courage and your endurance, your creativity and your full human-ness.

And the only way to the light is through the dark night. It is by facing our fears and losses, our grief and our regrets, that we eventually know our whole selves. To deny any of that shadow side, diminishes and distorts, and cuts you off from part of your wholeness. Historically the dark side has been considered bad, you know, the Dark Knight and the Dark Side, which plays into an unintended racist parallel that dark equals not good.

By contrast, I am holding up here, in the tradition of mystical Judaism, the supernal value of the dark: that is where the journey happens, that is where you birth your life's work, that is where the struggle for wholeness and healing happens and where the gift of integration, of shalom, is born. All human beings travel through the dark. You are in good company on this journey. The only way to reach the light of the next morning is through the night.

The dawn of a Jewish day is actually twilight, an in between time, in Hebrew called bayn ha shamayim, between the lights. Dusk, which we've all come through to get here this evening is a mysterious, liminal time on any day. At this juncture of the Old and New Year it is especially potent with potential, with the unknown future.

At these moments when the old touches the new, the prayers of Jewish people and our friends throughout the world surge forth. Prayers for a good year for each one of us and for all the world. Prayers for healing, prayers for health. Prayers for peace and goodwill. Prayer that this will be a year of choosing life for this planet and for the people who dwell on it.

In the story of creation, at the break of day, God said Let there be light and there was light. Y'hi or v'yehi or. Our ancestors wondered about this. How could God create light on that first day when God didn't even create the sun and moon until the fourth day? What was that first light?

It is said that that first light was not light from the sun or the moon; it was primordial light, the very light of God in the process of creating.

This light of creation is now a hidden light within each of us and within every thing. As Meister Eckhardt said, "Somewhere inside you is a place that has never been hurt." That is the God place of primordial light.

That light is within you what ever you go through. It is there to sustain and nourish you and to shine through and beyond you in your acts of kindness and compassion. What a world this would be if each of us knew about that tremendous glow, that original light, burning within ourselves. What if each of us could relate to the other light to light, sloughing off reactions of annoyance or disappointment or anger and simply seeing the pure light of the other doing the best she can do?

In the course of a year, through the daily batterings of human existence, our inner light gets veiled, more and more hidden, almost covered by the scar tissue of survival. You may feel your separation from that inner source, in the form of lassitude -- the opposite of clarity, zest and purpose. You may feel beaten down, a spiritual exhaustion, that you are just barely keeping your own head above water and can't be generous of spirit to others in thought or deed. It may feel that your light is under water, maybe that it is damp or drenched, or even flooded.

Judaism offers ways to re-kindle that primordial sparkle throughout the year and especially on these holy days. When we light the Shabbat lights each week or the holiday lights throughout the year, we intentionally reignite that primordial light. The simple practice of lighting candles together, renews and refreshes our inner light. It may be enough for you to do this once a year at these holy days but if you need a more consistent practice of re-kindling, you are welcome to join this community for our frequent Shabbat and holiday celebrations.

The natural state of human beings when we are well lit on the inside, is one of open hearted generosity. There is naturally an interconnected spread of chesed, kindness, throughout the world, when it isn't blocked by firewalls. If you don't feel that surge of compassion for yourself and for others, then I invite you to make your own spiritual renewal a priority in this new year. We are here to support you in that quest. We trust that your spiritual renewal will be good for the world.

In the words of Psalm 36:

Cee imcha makor chayyim b'orcha nireh or.

With you is the source of life. In your light we see light.