Called "Z'man Simchateinu" (the Time of Our Rejoicing) or simply "The Festival" during Biblical times, this festival falls immediately after Yom Kippur, beginning on the full moon of Tishrei and lasting for seven days. In history it commemorates our 40 years of wandering, as we dwelt in fragile temporary booths; in nature it commemorates the fall harvest. Thus we celebrate Sukkot by building and living in the sukkah, our own fragile booth, decorated with a cornoucopia of vegetables and other objects. It is followed immediately by Shemini Atzeret, the 'eighth day of assembly,' and Simchat Torah, the Rejoicing in the Torah when we finish our annual cycle of Torah reading, and begin anew. Adat Shalom follows the Israeli calendar in considering only the first and the eighth days to be "chag," with Simchat Torah and Shemini Atzeret being celebrated concurrently, though we recognize that the second and ninth days are still festival-time for folks both in and beyond our community.
From the Torah School Music Program: Sukkot Song Sheet
Chanukah brings light to the darkest time of year: it always falls over the new moon (when nights are darkest) closest to the winter solstice (when nights are longest). A late addition to the holiday cycle, Chanukah is the only ancient festival devised entirely by the rabbis, without any biblical basis. According to one school of thought. Chanukah commemorates the miraculous victory of a ragtag group of Jewish fighters, the Maccabees, over the Hellenized Syrian empire in 167-164 BCE. Another school—uncomfortable with the militancy or the secularism of the first interpretation, or uncomfortable with the Maccabees' own less-than-ideal leadership—emphasizes instead the miracle that supposedly happened when the victorious Jews rededicated the Temple, and one day's worth of oil lasted for eight days. We celebrate the eight-day festival by lighting our own chanukiyot (a.k.a. menorahs), eating oily foods like latkes (potato pancakes) and sufganiyot (jelly doughnuts), spinning the dreidel, offering modest presents to one another, and singing joyful songs.
From the Torah School Music Program: Chanukah Song Sheet
Rosh Hashanah is the new year for people, but Tu B'Shvat—the 15th day (full moon) of the month of Shvat, which falls in January or February on the secular calendar—is the new year of the trees. Around now, at least in Israel, sap begins to rise, and the earliest stirrings of the regrowth of spring take place. The medieval kabbalists (mystics) wrote a seder for Tu B'Shvat that parallels our Passover observance, a version of which we still use. And through ardent 20th century efforts to grow trees in the Land of Israel, the festival has acquired new Zionist resonance. Today, Tu B'Shvat stands as the Jewish Arbor Day or Earth Day, when we focus on the beauty and fragility of Creation, and on our own responsibility as enlightened stewards of the trees, ecoysystem, and biosphere.
Tu B'Shvat: Finding Ecology in the Jewish Spirit D'var Chinuch by Cheryl Kolin
Environmental Program: Some Biblical animal species of the desert
"Tu Bish'vat: the Earth, the Tree, and You" Socialaction.com article by Rabbi Fred
"Oh once there was a wicked wicked man, and H-man was his name; he tried to murder all the Jews, though they were not to blame. Oh, today will merry-merry be—and nosh some homentaschen." The popular song captures the essence of this early springtime festival, which commemorates the deliverance our early diaspora community in Shushan, Persia, some 2500 years ago. The story is outlined in the Biblical book (or scroll / megillah) of Esther, which is chanted with great fanfare and celebration on Purim eve. Though the story has its dark moments, the festival has over the years become Judaism's most raucous, edgy, kid-friendly all-out joyous day with gift-giving, dressing up and cross-dressing, hard-drinking and hard-laughing.
At Adat Shalom, we celebrate Purim eve by coming to shul in costumes and having a Tot Purim party for the kids. Following a potluck dinner, complete with every flavor of hamantashen you can imagine, we are treated to a Purim Shpiel and Megillah reading all rolled into one. In 2005, Adat Shalom's talented members presented "Motown Megillah Madness," a rock 'n roll version of the story of Esther and how she helped saved the Jews in Persia.
In 2005, Adat Shalom introduced a unique approach to Mishloach Manot (gift-giving) and Matanot L'evyonim (gift to the poor) in honor of Purim. A total of 65 members purchased 210 Purim gift bags to share with family members and friends. They also donated $1,632 to Moadon Ramat Lechi, an after-school club that provides nutrition, tutoring, and after-school enrichment for at-risk children. In addition, the Purim project raised $500 for Adat Shalom. Thanks to Harriet Shugerman, Beth Phillips, Jaime Banks, and Mara Clawson for bringing this opportunity for a special mitzvah to Adat Shalom.
From the Torah School Music Program: Purim Song Sheet
This most-beloved, most-celebrated, most ritualistic festival comes at the full moon of Nisan, in the midst of the early spring harvest, and the beginning of the season's verdancy. Preparations begin weeks in advance, as we rid our households of any chametz (bits of bread)—and while we can easily go overboard in this process, it has rich personal, social, and ecological connotations, even as it occassions a good spring cleaning! A commemoration of the exodus from Egypt, we celebrate Pesach on the first (and often the second) night with an elaborate seder and meal, in which we tell the story and elaborate on its meaning, using ritual food as symbolic object lessons. For the full seven biblically-mandated days—and many Adat Shalomers add an eighth day, in tandem with diaspora Conservative and Orthodox Jews—we avoid bread or bread-like products from the five biblical grains (wheat, oats, barley, rye, and spelt; strict Ashkenazim add legumes, corn, and rice) if prepared under any but the most controlled circumstances, so that we eat only un-risen food, just as our ancestors did when they left Egypt in a hurry. Pesach forces us to consider the meaning and price and implications of freedom, for ourselves and for others, in the past and present and future. "Let all who are hungry come and eat... in every generation we must see ourselves as if we, ourselves, came out of the narrow place ... everyone who goes beyond the mere recounting of the story of the Exodus is deemed praiseworthy."
Rabbi Fred on Pesach Food and Wine
From the Torah School Music Program: Pesach Song Sheet
Reconstructionist Press: "A Night of Questions: A Passover Haggadah" Information and Ordering Remember as an Adat Shalom member, you are a JRF member, entitled to the member prices.
During the seven-weeks-of-seven-days from Pesach to Shavuot—from liberation to revelation—Jews traditionally count the passage of time with special significance. This period known as the omer (meaning sheaf, from the sheaves of wheat being gathered between the early and late spring harvests) is observed in semi-mourning, as we wait to know how good the harvest and the year will be, and in rememberance of the victims of plagues and violence in this season in years past. Yom HaShoah, the day on which the Jewish world pauses to remember the horrors of the Holocaust, takes place during this season, on the anniversary of the fall of the Warsaw Ghetto in 1943. But only five years later, on the fifth of Iyar (May 15) of 1948, David ben Gurion read Israel's Declaration of Independence—and so immediately following Yom Hazikaron, the Day of Remembrance for all of Israel's fallen heroes, the Jewish world celebrates the birthday of the modern State of Israel, "reishit tzmichat ge'ulateinu, first fruit of the flowering of our redemption."
A sadly under-celebrated holiday, Shavuot is the last of the biblical "Big Three" pilgrimage festivals (with Sukkot and Pesach), when Jews in biblical times would shelp from all over to Jerusalem to gather, pray, donate, sacrifice, and celebrate. Coming at the end of the Omer (the carefully-counted 49 days between Pesach and Shavuot), Shavuot commemorates in nature the late spring harvest, and in history the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai. We celebrate Shavuot—for one day, though individuals often observe a second day as well—with blintzes and ice cream and other dairy products, with joyful liturgy, with recitation of the biblical book of Ruth, and with a late-night or all-night study session called the Tikkun Leil Shavuot, the "opportunity to repair the breach in God's world on the eve of Shavuos."
Everything bad that ever befell the Jews, tradition tells us, happened on the 9th day of the month of Av, in mid-summer. Most significantly, both Temples were destroyed on this day—the First Temple by the Babylonians in 586 BCE, and the Second Temple by the Romans in 70 CE. We commemorate this sad day by reading the Book of Lamentations, recalling our losses, and committing ourselves to play whatever part we can in building a more positive future. To help us in this process, we fast; though there are five "minor" fast days across the Jewish year when we abstain from food and water and other practices only from sunup to sundown, on Tisha B'Av (as on Yom Kippur) our fast is for the full 24-plus hours. The haftarah selections in synagogue in the weeks preceding Tisha B'Av are drawn from prophetic passages of rebuke, but for seven full weeks after—from Tisha B'Av until Rosh Hashanah—they carry the message of consolation.
Mourning and Warning Rabbi Fred on socialaction.com site.
Adat Shalom Reconstructionist Congregation
7727 Persimmon Tree Lane
Bethesda, MD 20817
E-mail info@adatshalom.net
Phone: 301-767-3333 x106 | FAX: 301-767-3340
Shabbat Services: Saturdays, 9:30 a.m.
We are an affiliate of the
Jewish Reconstructionist Federation
and part of the
Chesapeake Region of the Jewish Reconstructionist Federation
(CRJRF)