Despite the
warm weather summer is ending. The fall is beginning. This is the time of year
to get serious. Children have returned to school. Students are off to college.
In a week, we
will gather for Rosh Hashanah. In our homes we will sit around the table with
friends and relatives and dip apples in honey to wish each other a sweet new
year. In the synagogue we will gather with our fellow congregants to hear the
call of the Shofar summoning us to return to the path of righteous living.
We will soon
be resuming two study groups. Last spring we began our Jonah and the Meaning of
Our Lives group. We will resume our weekly sessions on Friday, September 20. We
meet each Friday for an hour at noon.
The Book of Jonah raises key questions about the purpose of our lives, including: Who am I? Why are we here? What is evil? You need no prior knowledge to be part of this group. This is a study group not a course. You do not need to attend every session to participate. Together we read selections from the Book of Jonah and explore what they have to teach us concerning how we lead and understand our lives. You can read the material we studied during our first six sessions last spring by clicking here.
On Saturday,
September 21 at 9:00 AM our Torah study group will begin a new year. For over 30
years we have been working our way through the Hebrew Bible. We are now in the
midst of the Book of Isaiah. There are no prerequisites for joining the Torah
study group. We have varying backgrounds but share an interest in the Biblical
text and conversation. You do not have to commit to attending every Saturday.
We look at
the text in the context of our lives and our ideas. Our explorations of the
text always touch on what is going on in the large world and in our Etz Chaim
world. While we avoid fancy scholarly vocabulary, our conversations regularly
return to big themes, such as; leading Jewish lives in the modern world, our
relationship with God, our understanding of truth, and truths and our
connection to the Jewish People and the Land of Israel.
