Shabbat Lunch 1.0

Our first event, a Shabbat/Chanukah Lunch will take place on December 12.

We will meet at 11:00 am for a short, song-filled Shabbat morning service followed by lunch and discussion of a Chanukah-related topic at 12:30 pm. Please show up whenever you would like!

Please bring a vegetarian item to share. If you can let me know what you are bringing that would be very helpful. I am planning on making a hearty soup and latkes.

Also, if you are excited about the service/ritual aspect and would like to request something to be a part of the service, please chime in and let me know and it will be accommodated.

My building is not wheelchair accessible, though there are extraordinarily helpful doormen if one needs help with a stroller or wheelchair, or whatever else one might need a hand with.

Please contact me with any concerns or questions and of course invite interested comrades.

Notes from 1st Meeting of "New Circle" on November 23, 2009

Working name of group: “Page 36”

Email list: page-thirty-six@googlegroups.com

Blog: http://page36community.blogspot.com/

Mark your calendars:

1. Saturday afternoon December 12^th—lunch and ritual and talk on Hannukah/Hellenistm on UWS

Mich and Daniel L-L are point people

2. Wednesday, December 23^rd – learning of some kind TBD

Alissa and Aaron are point people

3. Tuesday, January 5^th- planning meeting at JCC in Manhattan
   

Attendance:

Daniel Lang- Levitsky

Eve Sicular

Aaron Levitt

Abigail Miller

Michelle Kay

Max

Alissa Wise

Emmaia Gelman

Staci

Aleza Summit

More practical tip:

- Meet bi-weekly on rotation (i.e. 1^st Wednesday and 3^rd Shabbes, still TBD)

- One of the two meetings/month will be Shabbes thing (either Friday eve or Saturday day) that include study/action

- Space: core location and some satellite locations for geographic accessibility focus on Manhattan below 125^th Street

- No Debbie Friedman melodies

- Concentrated time for ritual and eating/schmoozing, not blending of two

- Create community, secular/religious together

- Find values in other’s worlds (have variety of things that not all of us will always participate in and that is OK)

Some things we would want to learn about:

- Hannukah/Hellenism

- Hebrew script/art/magic/craft

- Mikveh

- Jews & math

- Secular-religious divide

- The Dybbuk film

- Eve Sicular lectures

- Warsaw Ghetto Rebbe’s writings

Notes from the go-around (collection of people’s thoughts):

-More cultural connection then religious—music, yiddish, queer

- Don’t want to worry about fashion when going to shul

- Want a place to recharge, Jewish spirituality or nature work for me

- Cant be engaged in supporting or blind to ethnic cleansing or exploitation of people

- Lifecycle stuff—celebrations outside of babies and weddings…want to use lifecycle to celebrate other things too

- Frustrations with Zionism in synagogues (repeated often)

- High holidays are always stressful, to figure out what to do

- I often feel generationally out of place

- In many Jewish spaces my queerness feels invisible

- I have given up dreams of all parts of me to exist in one place—complacently out of place at this point

- want to rebuild cultural, social, and political life

- want to do text study—Talmud, hassidut, etc

- Want to use ritual and reinvent it too

- Wants a community that takes care of one another when necessary (death/illness)

- Want community to wear different hats, political, cultural, creative, intellectual, religious, spiritual (repeated often)

- Celebrate and mark holiday cycle together

- Havurah style of community—folks step up to do different things at different times (lead, teach, babysit, cook, clean, host…)

- Not that into formal synagogue formation

- JFREJ has been community for me, origin of my community

- Want the community to be intentional about being a community

- Shabbes dinner crew, core of people that are dependable (maybe with services and ritual)

- Not looking for a spiritual home because I don’t have a soul and don’t need one

- I am not looking for community of practice but don’t want my presence to obstruct others from seeking that here

- Community can do things that not everyone likes/wants because it does lots of different things

- Awareness of inevitably of my existence as next step in Jewish history, good moment for new constructions

- Religion as moral compass idea, want to think about that

- Want to bring in outside people to teach and talk and we discuss

- Want community for kids to grow up in

- Periodic moments of reflection, more than once a year

- Ritual that involves study (not just Jewish)

- Folks step up to do things as they feel moved

- I am atheist

- Like traditional davenning, some places are too woo-woo for me

Welcome to Page 36!