January 27, 2012   3 Sh'vat 5772
Congregation Beth Shalom - Bloomington Jewish Community - Bloomington, Indiana 
 
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Congregation Beth Shalom
3750 East Third Street, Bloomington, IN 47401
(812) 334-2440
Office hours M-F 9-3 and Sunday 9:30-12

bethshalombloomington@gmail.com

Congregation Beth Shalom is a house of community, of learning and of prayer that provides a unifying Jewish focus for its diverse membership as congregants explore their identity as Jews and their relationship as Jews to the larger community. To fulfill its mission, Beth Shalom offers communal activities; inreach to its members; outreach to the community; social welfare projects; education for children, teenagers, adults and families; and activities that foster spiritual exploration.

2011-12 Membership form

Sponsor an Oneg  

January to June Oneg Schedule

 

Please consider sponsoring a Friday night Oneg in honor of someone you love or a life cycle event. Click on the above link to be taken to the current sign up chart. If you prefer, you may contact the Oneg Coordinator, Lana Eisenberg or the office.

What's Happening at Beth Shalom?  

Friday February 10th 6PM: Spirit of Tu B'Shvat Salad Bar Dinner: Rabbi Josh will be here, and Carolyn Lipson-Walker helps with music, blessings and singing! $5/person, $15/family. RSVP via doodle

Tu B'Shvat Dinner RSVP

Sunday February 4th: 11:15 AM Tefillat No'ar (Youth Service)

Sunday February 12th: 4-6PM Congregational Meeting-Members Only

Sunday February 19th:4-6PM Jewish Humor in film event. "Yidl Mitn Fidl" (Yiddle with his Fiddle)

Tuesday February 21st: Open Book Club Stars of David by Abigail Pogrebin. Phyllis Dumes, Discussion Leader

 

 

 

 

The Gathering  

 THE  GATHERING

The Gathering Programs for Winter/Spring 2012:
 
February 16:  Shelley Sallee and Nancy Richman will discuss
"The History and Future of Volunteers in Medicine in Bloomington."  Shelley Sallee is the Volunteer Coordinator for Volunteers in Medicine and Nancy Richman is the new Executive Director.  Both have a passion for not for profit healthcare and will share the story of our local excellent free medical clinic for adults without health insurance or the economic means to pay for health care.
 
March 22:  Visiting Professor Haya Bar-Itzhak in folklore will talk about "Between Eve and Lilith:  Men and Women telling the Myth of the Creation of the First Woman."  Haya Bar-Itzhak is professor of literature and folklore and Chair of the Department of Hebrew and Comparative Literature at the University of Haifa in Israel.  She has focused on Jewish and Israeli folk literature, as well as writing about Moroccan, Polish, and other nation's Jewish folklore.
 
April 19:  Mark Roseman, Professor of History at Indiana University, will discuss "German Jewish Responses to Nazi Persecution."  Professor Roseman is a historian of modern Europe, with particular interests in the History of the Holocaust and in modern German history. His publications have covered a wide range of topics in German, European and Jewish history, with recent research in Germany in the 1920s and 1930s.
 
May 17:  Audrey Heller and Darrell Ann Stone will discuss the local Jewish Theatre and introduce their upcoming production.


The Gathering-In Pictures  
From the President  

"Other holidays repose on the past.  Arbor Day proposes the future."
-- J. Sterling Morton

“Suburbia is where the developer bulldozes out the trees, and then names the streets after them.”

  -- Bill Vaughan

Known as the Jewish New Year for Trees, Tu B’Shvat can be literally translated as the 15th of (the month of) Shevat. The date originally was created as the day to track the Biblical prohibition against eating fruit from a tree during its first three years. The fruit of a four year old tree should be set aside as a gift to God, and finally, in the fifth year the fruit can be eaten.  The kabbalists of the Middle Ages developed the idea of a Tu B’Shvat Seder, with each tree and fruit eaten given special symbolic meaning. By saying blessings over the various foods in the Seder, participants would not only stop and appreciate the gifts of the land, but would also be brought closer to spiritual perfection. The Kabbalists also believed that as we take from the world, we repair it by   reciting the appropriate blessings. 

Ever evolving, Tu B’Shvat is celebrated in Israel today with the planting of trees and is known as “Arbor Day.” The date has been adopted in Israel and in Jewish communities around the world to signify our commitment to the environment and our thinking about the future.

Living in a town called Bloomington, it seems natural that we would celebrate Tu B’Shvat in style. Always known for its trees, in 2010 the city of Bloomington won a $20,000 award from Tom’s of Maine to establish an orchard.  Meant to be a community resource, the first trees of this orchard were planted in 2011 next to the Willie Streeter gardens near the YMCA.  It is important that these trees are not just any trees, but fruit trees which give back the most to our environment by providing both shade and sustenance. As “an organization devoted to growing fruit for the community to share and enjoy,” the Bloomington Community Orchard is a “publicly owned orchard maintained entirely by volunteers with the harvest available to everyone in the community.” Doing the ‘biblical’ math, we should start eating the fruit from these trees in the year 2016.

Tu B’Shvat takes on even more significance as we think about our commitment to the environment within Congregation Beth Shalom. This past December, Congregation Beth Shalom was one of 4 congregations    nationwide to receive an award as being a ‘cool congregation.’  (Click here to read all about it)This award of $1000 was given by Interfaith Power & Light, a national organization whose mission is to mobilize a “religious response to global warming in congregations through the promotion of energy conservation, energy efficiency, and renewable energy.” We received this award because a third of our congregants have committed to serious greening measures in their own homes.  Tu B’Shvat gives us a chance to think not only about greening within our homes, but also outside in our landscape.

I encourage you this year to not only plant trees, but to think about things you can do to further create a sustainable environment. Here are some of the easy things I have started to do.  I now bring lunch everyday in a lunch box.  I’ve learned to make my own cleaning products from vinegar, baking soda and hydrogen peroxide and have been using micro fiber cleaning cloths for years.  Did you know that olive oil shines up stainless steel just as well as an expensive aerosol spray?  At Beth Shalom I’ve learned about low VOC paints, composting, and new hints on recycling and reusing.  

Tu B’Shvat falls on Wednesday, February 8th this year. We will celebrate as a community with a Tu B’Shvat salad bar dinner on Friday night, February 10th.  Let’s come together to celebrate Torah, the “tree of life to those who hold fast to it” and to rededicate ourselves to sustaining our world for future generations to come. 

As it says in Ecclesiastes Rabbah 7:13:

“See to it that you do not spoil or destroy My world – for if you do, there will be no one to repair it after you.”

Judith Rose

 

Pictures from Noah's Ark: A Journey Towards Understanding  
Save the Date!  

Gan Shalom 2012-13 enrollment forms and 2012 camp forms available shortly!

Camp sessions will be June 4-8, June 11-15, June 18-22, June 25-29 and July 2-6

Calendar of events  

For more information, see also the weekly At Beth Shalom email, Bulletin, and Calendar.

From the Webmaster -- Web update Notes  

Calendar: Google calendar maintained by Beth Shalom Office.
Bulletin: January 2012

Weekly "At Beth Shalom":
Shabbat, Beth Shalom Announcements, Member News, Community News

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Items of Interest  

For those interested in spending 10 minutes a day on study, the URJ (Union for Reform Judaism) makes study available via email (can read or can listen to).  Each day has a separate theme: Torah, Mishnah Day, Israel Connections, Delving into Liturgy, and Jewish World and Social Action. Select all five days or any combination.  The link is: http://urj.org/learning/torah/ten/."


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