Lev Tahor

Getting ready for Purim - Fake Treyf and Purim Jeopardy:  Ahead of Purim, everything's upside down! Join Lev Tahor, PSJC's all-sung, community-led Kabbalat Shabbat, on Friday March 6 at 6:30pm, for our annual pre-Purim "Famous Fake Treyf Banquet!" Test your knowledge with Purim Jeopardy! Feast on “ham” and cheese sandwiches, “lobster” mac and cheese, pulled “pork,” “shrimp” cocktail, and other “delicacies” while trying to ring in and provide your "answer" in the form of a question!  Winner goes home with Elizabeth Schnur’s giant hamantaschen. All voices welcome -- RSVP appreciated!
 
Bring your best “Treyf” potluck (vegetarian or dairy please) and your thinking cap!  Register here!

Ethical Eating:  On Friday evening, December 6th at 6:30pm Lev Tahor welcomes Hon. Laura Safer Espinoza, former NYS Supreme Court judge and current executive director of the Fair Food Standards Council, which advocates for human rights in agriculture -- and has convinced big-agra growers to pay a little more for farmworkers' well-being. Please let us know what you can bring. Feel free to send an email to lev.tahor@psjc.org.

On Friday evening, October 4th at 6:30pm Lev Tahor welcomes you to engage in forgiveness as it is one of the core issues of Yom Kippur and these Ten Days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. It is also one of the hardest to bring about. On this night of Shabbat Shuvah, we will engage in conversation with psychologists from the community to help us think about how to deal with the needs/demands of forgiveness. Feel free to send an email to lev.tahor@psjc.org.

5776

Lev Tahor with Author Joshua Henkin
Friday, June 3 | 6:30PM
Join novelist Josh Henkin at Lev Tahor, PSJC's all-singing, lay-led Kabbalat Shabbat service, for a conversation about his most recent novel, "The World Without You" (also the topic of PSJC's book group discussion on Saturday, June 4th, half an hour after kiddush). Henkin tells the story of a Jewish-American family's steep loss after the death of a beloved child and sibling, killed while covering the war in Iraq.
Multiple print copies are available at BPL and NYPL branches, along with ebooks. Buy the audiobook at Audible.com or mention PSJC at Community Bookstore/Terrace Books a 10% discount, thanks to PSJC member and owner Ezra Goldstein. Please RSVP here for the dairy/pareve pot luck (and to help our wonderful staff best arrange the space). Thank you!

Lev Tahor: Unpacking Israel's "Gorgeous Mosaic" and the Refugee Experience with Reut Michaeli
Friday, May 6 | 6:30PM
Please join friends familiar and new at Lev Tahor, PSJC's all-sung, lay-led Friday night service. In addition to a rousing (and occasionally rowdy) Kabbalat Shabbat, we will welcome guest speaker Reut Michaeli, a leader of The Hotline for Refugees and Migrants in Israel, which provides legal advocacy and public policy guidance around issues of refugees from Africa, migrant workers and human trafficking - concerns that extend across the globe. Come and explore some of the social complexities of modern Israeli life a few days before Yom Hatzma'ut. Please RSVP potluck (and to help our wonderful staff best arrange the space) for the dairy/pareve here. Thank you!

Lev Tahor: We're Not Fooling Around
Friday, April 1 | 6:30PM
Join Lev Tahor in its first spring sing-in -- it's Game Night! All are invited to join PSJC's all-sung, lay-led Shabbos service and linger for a diary/pareve pot luck -- and fun galore! Bring your Shabbos-friendly board games; brush off your charades skills, and enjoy an evening with friends familiar and new.Community members of all ages warmly welcome. SIGN UP HERE (please and thank you!) -- a sense of who's coming helps our wonderful staff know how many chairs to set out. Following services, we hope you'll stay for kiddush, (wine and grape juice), hamotzi,(challah) and cookies.  


Lev Tahor with Rabbi Sue Oren
Friday, February 5 | 6:30PM
The service begins with Yedid Nefesh on page 252 in Sim Shalom. During the service, page numbers are not announced, but there will be a binder showing the current page number. Please keep your eyes out for it as needed. In general, the service progresses through the siddur without a lot of skipping around. During Kabbalat Shabbat, we proceed through a series of psalms and L’kha Dodi, as we recall the week that has just passed. Sometimes we sing the psalms together, all the way through.If you do not read Hebrew, please ask an usher or Rabbi Carter for a transliteration of the service. Note that the silent prayer during the Ma’ariv service is not transliterated. Please feel free to use the English translation in the siddur or the prayers in your heart. There is a choreography to the service that may be confusing at times. Certain prayers are said standing, while others are said sitting. Please feel free to look around and find someone to follow as you are comfortable. Remember, if it is difficult for you to stand, you can feel free to sit at any time. Following services, we hope you'll stay for kiddush, (wine and grape juice), hamotzi,(challah) and cookies.
lay-led, all-singing Friday night service, welcome member and teacher Rabbi Sue Oren, who will share reflections on her two decades' experience leading "sophisticated beginners" in deep exploration of Jewish life and learning, via lasses that offer an intensive journey into egalitarian Judaism that is the "heart-center" of her rabbinate. She'll also help us think about what makes PSJC unique. Services are followed by a dairy/pareve potluck dinner. Sign PSJC's, TahorLev up  here; your RSVPs help us plan how to arrange the space, so thanks in advance for signing up.

Lev Tahor with Author Shulem Deen
Friday, January 8 | 6:30PM
And get your 2016 calendar ready: Save the date, January 8, for an extraordinary literary evening at PSJC, when author Shulem Deen (“All Who Go Do Not Return”) will be our guest and teacher. (Get the book at shul member Ezra Goldstein's Community Books or Terrace Books -- or at the BPL, NYPL or electronically.) Link for January dinner here.

Lev Tahor: Human Rights Shabbat
Friday, December 4 | 6:30 PM
Join Rabbi Carie Carter at Lev Tahor services on Human Rights Shabbat. We look forward to learning with Rabbi Carie about how we can advance and promote human rights in our everyday lives, and about current human rights campaigns in the Jewish world. Services are followed by a dairy/pareve potluck dinner, to which all are invited. (Sign up here.)

Lev Tahor Services followed by a Potluck Dinner and Program with Max Nissen, PSJC Rabbinic Intern
Friday, November 6 | 6:30 PM
Heretics and Believers In an Age of Reason: Is belief reasonable in a modern and post-modern world? What might it mean to affirm both belief and a scientific worldview? Are we all heretics in classical Jewish terms? And is that a bad thing? Please join us as we discuss these questions and explore our own spiritual biographies, struggles, and discoveries. Sign up for the potluck here.
 

Lev Tahor and Dinner in Sukkah
Friday, October 2 | 6:30PM
Our regular Lev Tahor service followed by a catered dinner in the Sukkah. This dinner is a catered chicken dinner. More information and reservations, click here.

5775

Understanding Poverty in the NY Jewish Community
Friday, June 5th | 6:30PM following Kabbalat Shabbat
Join Rabbi Brian Fink in learning about poverty in the NY Jewish Community and ways we can respond. The program will follow services and a vegetarian potluck dinner. Questions RSVP at http://tinyurl.com/LevTahorJune

Lev Tahor: Board Game Shabbat!
Friday, May 1 | 6:30PM following Kabbalat Shabbat
Stay after dinner to play board games with friends and family! Sign up here and contact lev.tahor@psjc.org with questions.

The Hebrew Priestess: Discovering Women’s Spiritual Leadership Roles in the Bible and Later Jewish Life.

Friday, March 6 | 6:30 PM

Join friends and members at this all-singing, which will be followed by a pareve/dairy potluck dinner and a special evening with Rabbi Jill Hammer. Rabbi Hammer lay-led, energetic service, is is the author of five books including Sisters at Sinai,

Hebrew Priestess Institute. She lives in Manhattan with her wife and Kohenet. She is the Director of Spiritual Education at the Academy for Jewish Religion, and the co-director of the The Hebrew Priestess: Ancient and Contemporary Visions of Women's Spiritual Leadership, and the forthcoming The Jewish Book of Daysdaughter, and was ordained by the Jewish Theological Seminary in 2001.

Come out and sing, learn, and enjoy a savory nosh, sign up HERE for the dairy/pareve potluck dinner, and join what promises to be an extraordinary evening.

Lev Tahor and Atid: A Match Made in Heaven: Match-making in the Progressive Jewish World
Friday, February 6, 2015 | 6:30PM
Join friends and members at this all-singing, lay-led (and energetic) service, which will be followed by a pareve/dairy potluck dinner and a special program with PSJC Rabbinic Intern Raysh Weiss. Tradition says making 3 matches earns you a place in heaven. Raysh has recently received funding from several grants, including one from the Myers Foundation Grant at JTS for the launching of innovative outreach projects and from the Alumni Venture Fund of the Bronfman Youth Fellowships, to create a network of matchmakers dedicated to pluralistic matchmaking for Jews of all backgrounds and orientations who are seriously seeking a partner. Raysh feels it is through the community that we can make meaningful connections. The talk will incorporate a mix of traditional Jewish texts and also draw on our own experiences and values to consider our role in communal matchmaking. Come out and sing, learn with Raysh, and enjoy a savory nosh – sign up for the dairy/pareve potluck dinner and join what promises to be an extraordinary evening.

Lev Tahor: Faith, Belonging, Conformity and Conflict in an emerging genre of popular Jewish literature
Friday, January 3 | 6:30PM
In the 1960’s the popular novels of Jewish life centered on the struggles of young men such as Reuven Malter and Daniel Saunders in The Chosen, Asher Lev in My Names is Asher Lev and even Alexander Portnoy. Nowadays, from Pearl Abraham’s A Romance Reader to Eve Harris’ The Marriage of Chani Kaufman, young orthodox women have moved to center stage in popular novels of Jewish life. In this program, PSJC members Angela Weisl and David Rosen (Professors of Literature and Anthropology respectively) examine the central issues of faith, belonging, conformity and conflict in an emerging genre of popular Jewish literature.

Lev Tahor: Autism and the Jewish Community – An Aspie perspective
Friday, December 5 | 6:30PM
Services followed by a potluck dinner and speaker Dylan Rothbein
Dylan Rothbein, who describes himself as a young “Aspie” who wants to become a leader in his community of Autistic youth.

What’s a nice Jewish girl doing in a place like this? Lev Tahor and speaker Rabbi Sarah Zacharia
Friday, November 7 | 6:30PM
With Rabbi Sara Zacharia: What’s a nice Jewish girl doing in a place like this? The Jews having been telling and retelling their stories for generations. Each of us has a story. Rabbi Zacharia’s is a story from ultra-orthodoxy to becoming a Conservative rabbi and beyond. This talk will explore how the Jewish tradition provides a framework for storytelling and why perhaps in the 21st century there are so many people writing memoirs.
Rabbi Zacharia most recently moved back to Brooklyn to be closer to her daughter, Sasha. She has been a rabbi for 15 years, ordained as a member of the first class at the Ziegler School for Rabbinic Studies in Los Angeles. Rabbi Zacharia’s rabbinate brought her to Boston and LA. She has developed and teaches Jewish mindfulness through study, meditation, prayer and eating practices. Rabbi Zacharia posts aweeklyTorahTweetontheparasha @rebzee99.
Rabbi Zacharia practices meditation, enjoys reading, dancing, music,knittingand long walks. Her interests include urban farming, environmental and food justice.

Lev Tahor followed by Poverty and Social Justice in Israel Discussion
Friday, March 7 | 6:30PM
Following a rousing Lev Tahor Kabbalat Shabbat service, join us for a vegetarian, dairy potluck dinner and a compelling conversation with Brownstone Brooklyn's first community potluck, Orly Dabush Nitzan, about issues of poverty in Israel.
As a lawyer and a director of Neve Schechter and the chair of Shacharit-Creating Common Cause, Orly has been actively involved in social justice in Israel and works towards Israel engagement in our community at large.

Lev Tahor with Annie Polland and Daniel Soyer
Friday, April 12 | 6:30PM
Annie Polland and Daniel Soyer describe New York's transformation into a Jewish city at the turn of the 20th century. Their recent book,The Emerging Metropolis: New York Jews in the Age of Immigration tell the story of New York's emergence as the greatest Jewish city of all time. Though the deadline for signing up for dinner has passed, please join us for the talk beginning at approximately Soyer and Polland, 1840-1920, is volume two of City of Promises: A History of the Jews of New York, winner of the 2012 National Jewish Book Award for Jewish Book of the Year. 8:15PM.Questions? Email Helene.