Weekly Torah Study
Saturday at 8:45am - in person and on zoom
I and II Kings
Jewish Goddess: An Exploration of the Divine Feminine in Jewish Texts
Guest Instructor Rabbi Rachel Pass
Wednesdays, October 18, 25, November 1
We’ll examine goddess figures, such as the Canaanite Goddess Asherah; the Kabbalistic goddess-figure of Chochmah, Lady Wisdom; and the most well-known feminine aspect of God in Jewish tradition, Shechinah. Together we’ll learn more about our knowable God and the divinity within ourselves.
Cooper-Bernstein Scholar In Residence
November 19
Join acclaimed author Dara Horn for a discussion of her award-winning essay collection, People Love Dead Jews.
2:30pm - Book Signing
3:00pm - Book Talk and Q & A
4:00pm - Dessert Reception
Hanukkah: A Struggle For Identity
Rabbi Shira Gluck
evening option: Mondays at 7:30pm November 27, December 4 and 11
daytime option: Tuesdays at noon November 28, December 5 and 12
The events of the 2nd century BCE in Judea, as commemorated in the holiday of Hanukkah, are steeped in political and cultural turmoil both internal and external. The Maccabees rebelled against the Seleucid Empire after Jewish religious practice was proscribed. But their Hasmonean dynasty later waged a civil war against Hellenized Jews. Join us in examining Hanukkah as a struggle for identity and its resonance for Reform Jews in the modern world.
Sisterhood Book Group
Monday, January 23 at 7:30pm: Typecast by Andrea Stein - in-person and zoom
Brotherhood Torah on Tap - Wednesdays at 7:30pm: November 30 & March 1
Lunch and Learn - Tuesdays:
12:00 - 12:30pm - Bring your own lunch
12:30 - 1:30pm - Learning begins
When Words Alone Fail: Music and the Shoah
Cantor Marina Shemesh
Tuesdays at 12 noon January 16, 23, 30
This lesson will explore some of the musical activities that took place during the Shoah, and the ways that Jews have collectively remembered the Shoah through music. Through this 3-part course we will explore the many roles that music played during the Shoah and how that music holds out the promise of a better world, offering hope and motivation for action.
Tu biShvat Seder and Learning
January 28, 5:00pm
Artist-in-Residence: Rabbi Josh Warshawsky
May 3-5, 2024
Living Jewishly, Singing Globally: Lifecycles and Holidays of Moroccan and Persian Jewish Communities
with Cantor Marina Shemesh (CLICK HERE TO REGISTER)
(Join us for lunch at the Temple. Zoom option available. Look for the link in Kol Sinai)
Lunch & Learn Tuesdays, Nov. 29, Dec. 6, Dec. 13
Cantor Shemesh is offering a three-session class on the exploration and celebration of the very rich music and culture of the Moroccan and Persian Jewish communities. We will hear the differences and similarities in music with the goal to render all Jewish experience, culture, and music as part of one tapestry: It all belongs to one people and is part of the heritage of all of us. This program was developed by the Lowell Milken Center for Music of American Jewish Experience at the UCLA.
Tu B'Shevat Seder (CLICK HERE TO REGISTER)
Sunday, February 5 at 6:00pm
God and the Prayerbook
with Rabbi Erin Glazer (CLICK HERE TO REGISTER)
(Join us for lunch at the Temple. Zoom option available. Look for the link in Kol Sinai)
Lunch & Learn Tuesdays, Jan. 31, Feb. 7, Feb. 14
How do we reconcile our ideas of God with the language of the prayers in the siddur? Which prayers “fit” with our own sense of who God is and how God acts in the world? And what do we do with the prayers that don’t speak to us? Join us for an exploration of the prayers we say most often at Temple Sinai - and some that may be new to you - as we bring our own ideas about God into conversation with the words of the prayerbook.'
Jewish-Christian Relations: A History
with Rabbi Joseph Skloot, Ph.D. (CLICK HERE TO REGISTER)
(Join us for lunch at the Temple. Zoom option available. Look for the link in Kol Sinai)
Sundays, 9:30 - 11am
March 12, 19, 26
This course will explore the transformations Jewish communities and Judaism underwent after the emergence of Christianity as a world-historical force. We will consider the ways Jews both sought to acculturate (adopt the ideas and practices of the majority) and differentiate themselves. Special emphasis will be placed on the origins of Christianity and rabbinic Judaism; economic interrelationships; anti-Judaism and Anti-Semitism; and, Zionism and modern Jewish politics. No previous knowledge is required.
Rabbi Joseph A. Skloot, Ph.D. is the Rabbi Aaron D. Panken Assistant Professor of Modern Jewish Intellectual History at HUC-JIR/New York. He is an historian of Jewish culture and religious thought, and the author of First Impressions: Sefer Hasidim and Early Modern Hebrew Printing (Brandeis University Press, 2023).