TCJRC - tcjewishrenewal@gmail.com
Circle Chants with Cantor Linda Hirschhorn
August 23, Before Shabbat Services, 4:45 - 5:45 pm and during Service at 6 PM at Mount Zion Temple,
Join Cantor Hirschhorn for an uplifting hour of singing. Together, we will learn three melodies with optional (easy) parts. Song circle participants are invited to stay for a snack and Mount Zion’s Shabbat service, where you will join in singing and harmonizing the melodies you learned.
5:45-6:00 pm - Snack Pre-service snack with the Mount Zion community.
6:00 pm - Shabbat Service Celebrate Shabbat with a music-filled service. The service will be outside, weather permitting. Come to any or all of the above!
Co-sponsored by Mount Zion Temple and the Twin Cities Jewish Renewal Community, this will be a fun and meaningful way to lead into and celebrate Shabbat. Those who participate in the song circle are invited to sing what they learned during our Shabbat service.
RSVP required (details at mzion.org)
Join Cantor Linda Hirschhorn for an evening of song!
Chanting with Rabbi Shefa Gold
A Journey of Healing through Comfort in honor of Shabbat Nachamu Wednesday, August 14, 6:30 - 8:30 PM
Tent at Adath Jeshurun
Suggested Donation $18
One of the most important spiritual challenges we face is the need to sweeten the bitterness that is in us. Bitterness can accumulate within us, even without our knowing it, made from small or large disappointments, regrets, unhealed grief, grudges, anxieties or resentments. That bitterness forms the obstacle to fully stepping onto the Path of Love. According to the Baal Shem Tov, here are the steps we must take in order to sweeten that bitterness:
- Hachna’ah (being humbled, surrendering, Yielding)
- Havdalah (discerning God’s Presence in the midst of it)
- Ham’takah (Sweetening our Bitterness)
First we face and taste the bitterness within us, and are humbled by it. Then we look into that bitterness and find the seed of soul-growth. When we focus on that seed and water it with our compassion and awareness, the sweetening begins. In this workshop of contemplative chant and sacred conversation we will take the journey through comfort from bitterness to sweetening.
Celebrating the Birthday of Moshiach Consciousness
With Rabbi Shefa Gold
“The Arizal (a mystical source) tells us that in the throes of Tisha B’Av afternoon, as the raging fires were consuming the Temple, Moshiach is born. Redemption is conceived from the ashes of destruction. In the deepest darkness lies the strongest light. However, from our limited perspective we can only see one dimension at a time: either we see dark or we see light. Someone with deep eyesight and strong focus can see the light within the dark.” (R. Simon Jacobson)
Join Rabbi Shefa Gold as we chant our way into this renewed consciousness.
LOCATION: Westwood Hills Nature Center
8300 W Franklin Ave, St Louis Park, MN 55426
Rabbi Shefa Gold is an American rabbi, scholar, and director of C-DEEP, The Center for Devotional, Energy and Ecstatic Practice in Jemez Springs, New Mexico. Chant is the bridge between the inner life and the outer expression; between the solitary practice and the shared beauty of fellowship. When we chant, we are using the whole body as the instrument with which to feel the meaning of the sacred phrase. — Rabbi Shefa Gold
More info about Rabbi Shefa available at www.rabbishefagold.com.
Presented in partnership with Hineni.
SUNDAY, JULY 18 6:30-8:30 PM CST
COST: $5 - $36 set your own fee, pre-registration preferred, walk-ins welcome if there is space available.
Twin Cities Jewish Renewal Community (TCJRC) presents Healing the Earth and Ourselves
Please join us on Zoom, April 25, 2021, 1-5 PM CDT for a day of community building, learning, and inspiration as we welcome Spring and a new season of living with three powerful, uplifting voices in modern Judaism!
Sponsorship: Twin Cities Jewish Renewal Community (TCJRC) wishes to thank both ALEPH (www.aleph.org) and NCEJ for their sponsorship of this event.
PROGRAM OVERVEIW
Planting Seeds with scholar & musician Shoshana Jedweb and Rabbi Jill Hammer, PhD
Our afternoon journey begins with music, singing, and setting intention. We’ll encounter prayers that celebrate creation and honor the Shekinah, the Divine Presence.
Sefer Yetzirah: Dwelling in the Temple of the Cosmos with Rabbi Jill Hammer, PhD
Sefer Yetzirah, the Book of Creation, tells the story of how God created the world, and imagines God as an artist whose creative intention breathes life into the vast multiplicity of phenomena in our world. This brief, poetic, cryptic book invites us to view the cosmos as a temple of divine presence and can be viewed as an important resource for theology and practice focused on healing the earth as well as ourselves. In this session, we’ll consider passages from Sefer Yetzirah, and explore its powerful images as tools for connection to the sacred cosmos. We’ll experience the book’s meditative practices as a means to clear our minds and inspire our lives.
Weaving Spiritual Practice for a More Just World with Kohenet Keshira haLev Fife
Pirke Avot (the Ethics of our Sages) teaches that justice is a Jewish imperative. Join in an exploration into how we can integrate spiritual practices across the Four Worlds so that we’re fortified as we move, love and ultimately carry out the work of tikkun olam.
Harvesting Seeds with Kohenet Keshira haLev Fife and Rabbi Jill Hammer, PhD
We’ll gather our insights from the day and close our time together with healing chant and song and with setting intentions for the future. These reflections, like a rich harvest, will nourish us in the days ahead.
Jill Hammer
Author, scholar, ritualist, poet, priestess, midrashist and dreamworker, is the Director of Spiritual Education at the Academy for Jewish Religion (www.ajr.edu), and co-founder of the Kohenet Hebrew Priestess Institute (www.kohenet.com). Her most recent book is titled Return to the Place: The Magic, Meditation, and Mystery of Sefer Yetzirah. Rabbi Hammer is also the author of other books including The Hebrew Priestess: Ancient and New Visions of Jewish Women’s Spiritual Leadership (with Taya Shere), The Jewish Book of Days: A Companion for all Seasons, Sisters at Sinai: New Tales of Biblical Women, and The Book of Earth and Other Mysteries. Her forthcoming book is titled Undertorah: An Earth-Based Kabbalah of Dreams.
Shoshana Jedwab
As a child, Shoshana Jedwab would drum on parked cars, plates, tables, books and other people's bodies. Shoshana Jedwab is a percussionist, singer-songwriter, worship leader and prize-winning Jewish educator.
Shoshana brings depth, humor, voice, feminism and sizzling rhythm to her grateful audiences. Shoshana Jedwab’s original sacred music grounds body and spirit and brings the ancestral past into joyous contemporary practice. The original songs of Shoshana’s 2016 debut album, “I Remember,” and her 2018 zipper song single, “Where You Go,” emerged from ceremonies Shoshana was leading, and are now being sung, and danced to, in synagogues, churches, mosques, weddings and protest marches. Shoshana Jedwab was one of Jewish Rock Radio's Jewish Women Who Rock the Worship World. Shoshana Jedwab gives concerts, leads worship and drum circles, and has performed in Germany, the UK, and the USA. www.shoshanajedwab.com
Kohenet Keshira haLev Fife
Keshira haLev Fife (she/they pronouns) is a Kohenet (Hebrew Priestess) and a queer Jew of Colour who delights in serving as davennatrix (shlichat tzibbur), lifespiral ceremony/ritual creatrix, liturgist, songstress, teacher and public speaker. She is Oreget Kehilah (Executive Director) of the Kohenet Hebrew Priestess Institute, founder/co-leader of Kesher Pittsburgh, Program Director of the ALEPH Kesher Fellowship, and Lead Facilitator for Keshet’s GLBTQ+ Jewish Youth of Colour programming.
Twin Cities Jewish Renewal Community (TCJRC)
We welcome you to the Twin Cities Jewish Renewal Community to experience the joy, beauty, aliveness, inspiration, creativity and deep spirituality of Jewish Renewal!
We are a vibrant, egalitarian community embracing spiritual connection, heartfelt prayer, contemplative practices, lively study, musical and artistic expression, movement, Tikkun Olam, social justice, Eco-Kosher, Kabbalah, Mussar and other evolving and creative approaches to connection to Judaism and The Source of Life.
In addition to Jewish Renewal Shabbat and holiday gatherings, events and teleconferences, we share and promote a wide variety of renewal-inspired events, classes, retreats, and tefillah offered by local synagogues and other Jewish organizations.
We are affiliated with ALEPH: The Alliance for Jewish Renewal (www.aleph.org), which is a trans-denominational, inclusive approach to revitalizing Judaism. For more information, please contact tcjewishrenewal@gmail.com.