Shabbat Blast

Dear Congregation Beth Ohr,

​​​​​​​Many of us are looking for deeper meaning in life. We spend most of our time concerning ourselves with the physical world: what’s for dinner, fixing the plumbing, filling our gas tank, getting to the gym..., but we also have a sense that the invisible world, the world of connection, of eternal truths and awe, live in the subterranean layers of our everyday lives. But how do we access what lies beneath?
 
Cultures and religions around the world have their own spiritual disciplines: yoga, fasting, prayer, dance, chanting, singing, prostrating... These are attempts to reach out and in simultaneously and our own tradition has rich practices that have evolved over thousands of years to help us reach more spiritual plains.
 
When we delve into the particulars of the Mishkan, the Israelite’s traveling desert temple, I can’t help but reflect on how Jewish spiritual expression has changed in some ways and stayed comfortingly the same in others. For the Israelites, it was sacrifice which bridged the gap between the physical and the spiritual worlds. We no longer sacrifice animals, but we shouldn’t forget the daily, weekly and yearly connections, like Shabbat and Kashrut, that remind us to transcend our basic needs.
 
Many view Jewish spiritual disciplines as needlessly restrictive. The need stems from the sense that we could be better versions of ourselves as individuals and as a society if we only paid attention more, if we only stopped to think and were asked the right question or given the right instruction. There is a sense that we can be dead even when we’re alive because parts of us are asleep. The role of our rich Jewish disciplines is to wake us up to deeper daily meaning. We say blessings over food so that we do not mindlessly take our sustenance for granted.
 
Looking towards Pesach, we can see this restriction-heavy holiday as a way of bridging the gap between the home and the heart. After a year of physical build up, it’s time to cleanse and to reinvigorate. This is an invitation to both feel the challenge of our religious traditions, but also embrace how their can shift our mindset. I hope that this Pesach prep can help each of us see our homes in new ways and jumpstart a spiritual awakening.
 
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Bernstein

From the Alix Rubinger Kosher Pantry 

Please note that our pantry does not need Passover food.
​​​​​​​However, we are always in need of staple foods.

Suggested Items to Donate:
Solid white tuna in water, peas, tomato sauce, string beans, corn, vegetarian beans, vegetarian vegetable soup, corn meal, flour, pancake mix, applesauce, sugar, canola or vegetable oil (small bottles), white or brown rice,  jelly or jam, peanut butter, pasta, oatmeal packets, individually wrapped rolls of toilet paper.  Cans should be small, not industrial size.  All food items should have a Kosher symbol.

The pantry will be closed April 2 and April 5.

Purchase Ad Space in our Cabaret 2018 Playbill
Click Here

Guarding the Flames for 24 Hours
Begins Wednesday, April 11, 8:30 PM
and Ends Thursday, April 12, 8:30 PM
Sign up (as a pair or more) to sit vigil with 6 candles representing the 6 million Jews lost. You will sit and reflect in silence, read about the Holocaust, recite the names of those who perished.