PJ Library Make your own Stuffed Animal Event – July 28th

PJ Library Make your own Stuffed Animal Event
Sunday July 28, 2013
Allentown JCC from 10:30am to Noon
Cost is $12.00 per child per stuffed animal. Accompanying parents are free.
Pre-Registration and payment is required at the JCC front desk by July 19, 2013 in order to have sufficient supplies.
For more information contact Brenda Finberg at bfinberg@lvjcc.org or 610 435 3571
Sponsored by Andrew & Christy Block and Robyn & Brad Finberg

For more info, Click Here: PJ make your own stuffed animal event

 

Abby Trachtman
Project Coordinator
Jewish Federation of the Lehigh Valley
702 North 22nd Street | Allentown, PA 18104
610.821.5500 ext. 321 | abbyt@jflv.org

Congratulations to our graduating seniors!!

Congratulations from TSS to our graduating seniors!

Andrea Lewis
Elana Schettini
Sydney Krassen
Sofia Rembalsky
Tyler Silverstein

 

 

Best of luck as your journey continues!

De-stress, Express, Compress, and Bless – at Shabbat Worship!

Summer is a great time of year. The weather brings us outside to enjoy backyard barbecues, trips to the beach, reading on the deck, gardening and all sorts of sports. Even a summer rain is a welcome respite from the heat, refreshing and renewing us to begin it all again.

Attending Shabbat Services in the summer is much like a summer rain. Our everyday lives are busy with activities. We sometimes need a break from all the fun we are having. Seriously … we need to de-stress, express and compress. De-stress from our busy week, express our faith with friends and family and compress our lives with the brotherhood and sisterhood of our spiritual community.

It’s as refreshing and renewing as a summer rain. Coming to Services may seem like the last thing on the list at the end of each week, however, once you are there, you immediately feel peaceful. And you will most likely learn something too.

Cantor Sussman is expert at teaching us lessons from the Torah. It is always a conversation with Cantor incorporating everyone’s input into her Sermon. And this week, we are eager to learn of the experiences of our own Sam Zionts-Bernstein who spent a high school semester in Israel. You will want to come and bring your own children to hear what Sam has to say.

So if you are in town, put this week’s Shabbat Services on your calendar. We look forward to seeing you there.

The Red Heifer and Faith

This week’s Torah Portion is Chukat. In it God instructs Moses and Aaron in the slaughtering of the red heifer. The ashes of the red heifer are to be mixed with water and used as a purifying agent for anyone in the community who has come in contact with a person who is dead. The law also says that anyone who is ritually clean who comes in contact with the mixture is then considered unclean for the rest of the day. This is a very mysterious portion of the Torah. The Rabbis could not explain how the ashes from the heifer could make the clean unclean and the unclean clean. We must remember Judaism is an ancient religion and we have lost the rationales for many of the passages in the Torah. We just don’t know ultimately what the story of the red heifer means. But God expected the Israelites to follow the laws of the Torah on faith. Faith is a cornerstone of religion. Sometimes we can not use our rational brain, we must tap into our spiritual self to get the most out of leading a religious Jewish life.