Torah Study, 1st and 3rd Saturdays 8:30 am via Zoom
TORAH STUDY SATURDAY AUGUST 15 AT 8:30 am
ZOOM LINK BELOW
Contact Suzanne (suz_darby@hotmail.com) for information and study guide
Topic: Torah Study Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/
Meeting ID: 845 9030 4211
Religious School Begins Sept 6
We’re excited to welcome everyone back for a new year of learning and community! Sunday School at Sha’are Shalom begins on Sunday, September 6 (time TBD) and we can’t wait to see our students and families for another fun and meaningful year of Jewish learning, friendship, and celebration. Our first day will focus on getting to know each other, determining each student’s goals for the year, and learning about the High Holy Days.
Interested in joining the religious school or volunteering, email lizgilpin@gmail.com.
Liz Mildenstein
301-752-0761 (c)
Email: lizgilpin@gmail.com
Annual Picnic Is Sunday, August 30, at Noon
Our annual end-of-summer picnic will be on Sunday, August 30, at noon at the synagogue. Come on out to enjoy food, fun, and games! The Men’s Group will provide basic picnic food (hamburgers, hot dogs, corn on the cob) to accompany side dishes, drinks, and desserts from members of the congregation. The picnic also will have games and activities for the whole family. Setup will begin at 11 a.m., and we’ll start serving food at noon. Activities will continue until around 2.
Please contact Mark Holt at mark.edward.holt@gmail.com or 202-695-9924 if you’d like to attend, so we know the amount of picnic supplies we need. We can also discuss what side dishes, desserts, and drinks you would like to bring to ensure a good variety. Free for members! (And $5 contribution requested for non-members to help cover the picnic food.)
CONGREGATIONAL YIZKOR BOOK
Congregation Sha’are Shalom is once again offering you the opportunity to list the loved ones whom you have lost in a Yizkor Book. This will be made available on Yom Kippur before the Yizkor service and will remain on the table for you to pick up before the Ne’ilah service or the break-the-fast. The donation will be $18 per name for the first two names and a flat $50 if you want to list three or more names. You can send a check to our treasurer or you can make a donation online at
http://shaareshalomsomd.org/
In the comments section, please write:
For Yizkor Book
And then write your listing as you want it. Eg:
The Moses Family
Moses ben Amram
Aaron ben Amram
Miriam bat Amram
For the kind of donation, please mark “General Donation”.
Pizza, Purpose, and Pals: Let’s Build Something for our Teenagers
Our teenagers know each other but are basically otherwise isolated Jewishly. Once they’re no longer attending religious school, we have been letting them drift, instead of harnessing the power and incredible spirit of a teenaged cohort. They go to summer camp, they spend time with each other and other Jewish teenagers there, and then they come home to nothing designed with them in mind.
Here are some suggestions for getting things started. We don’t have to have formal planning meetings or committees. A program can be connected to something already happening at CSS (like before or after a Friday night service) and involve bringing in pizza and hanging out just for the teens. Or planning a field trip somewhere interesting – even for a movie or a concert (Wolf Trap, Strathmore, Capital One Arena, The Anthem?). And we don’t have to build this alone – we already belong to a network designed exactly for this!
As a Reform congregation, we belong to a program – NFTY1 – built specifically to give Jewish teens community and leadership opportunities. There are local and national fellowships and leadership programs open to Jewish teens right now, and I’d love to help any of our teens apply. Check this out:
http://urj.org/blog/9-
NFTY no longer requires rigid, highly structured local boards to get started. Under the Powered by NFTY framework, we can host simple, low-barrier local events. So we can start out informally and build to the extent our teenagers are interested!
http://www.nfty.org/powered-
If you’d like help getting this off the ground, or if your teen would come to a pizza night after services, email me. I have additional contacts and would love to work with the community to give this age group the programming that it deserves.
1The URJ (Union for Reform Judaism) is Reform Judaism’s central organization. NFTY (National Federation of Temple Youth) is its subgroup focused specifically on Jewish teenagers. This national program in turn is broken up into regions; we are part of NFTY MAR (Mid-Atlantic Region). NFTY MAR has a Facebook page:
http://www.facebook.com/
Fund Raiser For Safety Personnel
Dear Members,
Congregation Sha’are Shalom has started a never ending Fundraiser to pay for Security at our synagogue.
We want all our members to feel safe coming to services and events at the Synagogue, so we will be having
Security Personnel there at all events.
There will be a tab under Donation on our website where you can make a donation for Security.
Thank you in advance.
Jackie – Treasurer
SPOTLIGHT ON OUR MEMBERS
The Brag Space for Members to share special moments and events
VOLUNTEER OPPORTUNITIES
Lead a Friday evening Shabbat service — we’ll help you!
We at Sha’are Shalom are proud of our long tradition of member participation in everything our synagogue does — including leading Friday night services. While we’re fortunate to have Rabbi Gail Fisher on the second Saturday morning of most months, it’s our own congregants who lead the evening service on the fourth Friday.
Our prayer book makes it easy — just choose your favorite reading from each two-page spread, either in English or Hebrew, spoken or sung. We even have some pre-chosen plans to use. The pressure is very low — the audience is usually small and supportive. If you’d rather not write a brief d’var Torah (a mini-sermon on how something from the week’s Torah portion might apply to our lives today), Suzanne Darby has volunteered to write it; and if you’re hesitant about leading songs, I can help out with that.
We’d just like more of our members to come up and play a part in services, and so we’re eager to help any way we can.
You don’t have to know Hebrew, and you just have to be past bar/bat mitzvah age. You can even enlist your spouse and/or kids to be your co-leaders. We’re looking for volunteers for Friday evenings. Please contact me at myerspat@gmail.com to sign up or for more information.
See you at our next service
HELP WANTED
Dates Available for Oneg Sponsors
Shar’are Shalom each Saturday morning (every 2nd Saturday) and Friday night (every 4th Friday) service at the temple ends with the pleasure of fellowship. A little nosh usually makes this fellowship last longer and adds to its delightfulness. Each post service nosh or oneg requires an Oneg Sponsor. Whether it is wine, juice, a challah, and some cookies, or even more – it is always appreciated by those in attendance.
Contact Marshall Jones (Mjones.shaare@gmail.com) if you would like to sponsor an oneg or lead a Friday Night Service or have any questions about doing either.