Shavua tov! Looking forward to Lag Ba’Omer and Shabbat Emor

Shabbat Services This Week

Join us in the CBI Zoom room at 9:30am on Saturday morning for Shabbat morning services led by Rabbi Pam Wax!

Torah Portion and Commentaries

This week we’re reading from parashat Emor. If you’d like to read some commentaries on this week’s parsha, here are a few:

And here’s commentary from the URJ:

Happy Lag Ba’Omer!

Lag Ba’Omer is this week. Tradition teaches that on this date, a plague that had afflicted Rabbi Akiva’s students finally ended. It’s marked with bonfires, haircuts (many Jews refrain from haircuts during the first 32 days of the Omer, as we also do during the month of shloshim after a death), and celebratory study. Here are new poems and illustrations from the Liturgical Arts Working Group at Bayit: Building Jewish, which we hope will bring meaning to our second pandemic Lag Ba’Omer: Yearning For Our Plague to End.

Save the Dates

Our next First Friday Zoom Shabbat Dinner will be at 7:30pm on May 7 in the CBI Zoom Room.

Join us for Shabbat morning services at 10:30am (note the unusual time!) on Saturday May 15 as we call Sadie Lentzner to Torah as a bat mitzvah.

And save the date for our Tikkun Leyl Shavuot — on Sunday May 16 starting at 7:30pm, we’ll celebrate the revelation of Torah with learning, song, poetry, and more! As we did at Tu BiShvat and Pesach, we’ll join together with Temple Beth El of City Island and Rabbi David Markus for a joint festival celebration, with special guests Rabbi Bella Bogart and Rabbi Cyn Hoffman in addition to our own Rabbi Rachel and Rabbi Pam.

We’ll begin at 7:30pm with Festival Maariv (Evening Prayer) — featuring some beautiful melodies we don’t usually hear, and the joyful psalms of Hallel, and also the memorial prayers of Yizkor recited four times a year. We’ll continue at 9pm with Late Night Learning, culminating at midnight with a teaching from the Zohar about midnight in the garden of Eden and opening to divine flow.

Plan to join us; more information is coming soon.

We hope to see you soon at CBI.