This Weekend at Kehillath Shalom Synagogue - November 21st -23rd, 2014

Friday night services - 7:30pm

Join us on Saturday, November 22nd for an oral history of our synagogue.  We'll share stories of how we came to be!

This Weekend at Kehillath Shalom Synagogue - November 14th - 16th, 2014

Saturday, November 15th - Torah Study at 10am
                                             Services at 11am

Bagels and Books is Sunday, November 16th at 10am - call the office for more details

Hebrew School on Sunday!













And a reminder:

Next weekend!

This Weekend at Kehillath Shalom Synagogue - November 6th - 9th

There's a Social Action Committee Meeting at 1pm on Thursday, November 6th at the Cinema Arts Centre Cafe.  Click on the link for the location!

Friday Night services begin at 7:30pm

Torah Study at 10am on Saturday, November 8th with services following at 11am

Note: there is no Hebrew School on Sunday, November 9th in observance of Veteran's Day, with thanks to those who have served our country.

Workshop with Elizabeth Yaari - The Saga of Abraham, Sarah and Hagar

At Each Other's Throat's, In Each Other's Arms

The Saga of Abraham, Sarah and Hagar

A Workshop by Elizabeth Yaari

Tonight!  Tuesday, November 4th, 2014

7pm at Kehillath Shalom Synagogue

$20 members/$25 non-members

Call (631)367-4589

Kehillath Shalom Synagogue - Home of Explora-Torah

Kehillath Shalom Synagogue; An Oral History of Our Shul

Have you ever wondered about the story of how our shul came to be our shul?  Have you heard snippets but can't quite remember the details?  Always wondered about the symbolism built into our Sanctuary?

Join us on November 22nd, 2014 at 11:30am for an oral history of our "little synagogue in the big woods."

Exploring Ishmael and Isacc with Explora-Torah's Elizabeth Yaari

Painting out our experience of the story of Abraham, Sarah and Hagar at Explora-Torah's program
"At Each Other's Throats; In Each Other's Arms" with Elizabeth Yaari

A Moving Midrash 

by Deborah Globus (c)2014

Isaac and Ishmael at their father’s grave.  In Abraham’s place is an overturned chair.  Thus the stage is set in the bibliodrama Elizabeth is leading.

These two (half) brothers have not seen each other in no one knows how many years.  What do they say to one another?  You – Isaac, what do you say?  You – Ishmael, what do you say?

We answer, in character, each of us imagining how it went. 

One of us suggests, “I’ve missed you brother; let us make peace”

Another imagines, “What are your intentions?”

Still another sees it this way, “This is my land.  Be gone!”

But I know this scene.  I have been here before.  And suddenly I am no longer at “the grave” but in a hospital room, years earlier.  In the bed is my brother, 39 years old and steadily poisoning himself with alcohol.  Within a year he would be dead.

There’s another person in the room, in the corner, seated by my brother’s head.  I hardly notice, overcome as I am by the tragedy that is my brother’s life, his emotional pain and failing organs, the induced coma.

The figure in the corner speaks to me and slowly comes into view.  It’s my sister, absent from my life these last five years.  Her choice, not mine.  She is changed, no longer the teenager she was when she left the family.  Her face, like I imagine mine, is warped with grief, reminders of the hurts we all carry.

I don’t actually recognize her.  I wonder how this nurse knows my name.  Why she is staring at me?  Expectantly.  Waiting.

Waiting for my response.  Waiting for recognition.  Like Ishmael across his father’s grave, waiting, possibly hoping, for recognition from the baby brother he left behind so many years ago.

At last I see her for who she is and years of longing and pain come rushing into a room already too full with sorrow.  I stutter, say hello, flounder for what comes next.  She quietly steps out of the room, leaving me to my visit with our brother who cannot even know I’m there.

The recognition came, but not quickly enough.  And in that hesitation – and the flustered awkwardness that followed – was a hurt so deep that it became a chasm, across which we still haven’t reached. 

I know how the meeting of the brothers went.

We end our bibliodrama once again in front of an overturned chair and two more behind it, upright, turned slightly towards one another.  One is labeled Isaac and the other Ishmael.  The brothers, a chasm apart, offer a blessing to one another only they have no voices to speak.  We, the participants, are asked to write their words.

And echoing through the ages, from one set of broken siblings to another, comes this benediction to my lips:

May we find our way past these times of misunderstanding and find our way to peace.