Shul News & Notes
Learn About Spring Gardening; Bring Lunch
Here’s news about the third week of our new Lunch and Learn program. We hope you were able to Zoom at noon on Monday to hear Sara Bloom talk about writing the moments in our lives that have made us the individuals we are. Rabbi Gadi led an absorbing discussion on Thursday about the halakah view of streaming/virtual services.
Coming up next week, Marian Friedmann and Adrianne Greenberg will lead off on Monday, May 4, with a talk about spring gardening. Rabbi Gadi will lead again on Thursday, May 7, with Part II of the discussion about Jewish law and streaming services. Rabbi Gadi will distribute literature prior to the Thursday session, so if you plan to attend, please let the rabbi know so he can email materials to you.
To join us for Lunch and Learn, sign into Zoom at 12 o’clock every Monday and Thursday, have lunch with shul friends, learn a little, followed by a Q&A and some lively discussion. Click on “Go to services” on the shul’s website. Follow the prompts, and type the password. (Get it from ctigreenport@gmail.com if you don’t have it already). And you’re in.
What’s ahead? Suzi Rosenstreich’s popular lecture on body language on Monday, May 11, and another session with Rabbi Gadi on Thursday, May 14, when he will take up another interesting facet of Judaism. Other topics in the works include cooking, music, travel, books, art, poetry, politics, health, photography, maybe some Yiddish, and who knows what else…
Why lunch alone? Come eat, come listen, come talk. Don’t forget: Zoom at noon for Lunch and Learn. See you Monday.
Book Circle Selection Reads Like a Spy Novel, But It’s True
The Book Circle will meet on Wednesday, May 20, at noon, via Zoom, to talk about Spies of No Country: Secret Lives at the Birth of Israel, Matti Friedman’s tale of Israel’s first spies. Reviewers rave that the book has “all the tropes of an espionage novel, including duplicity, betrayal, disguise, clandestine meetings, the bluff, and the double bluff — but it’s all true.”
The Book Circle meets monthly to explore books on Jewish themes by Jewish writers. For more information, call the shul at 631-477-0232, and leave a message for Susan Rosenstreich, coordinator of the group.
Oculus: Eye On Art
The shul’s Judaism and Art group has selected a work by Bruce Bloom as its featured piece for May. Bloom was a member of the group before his death in October 2019.
This painting, an acrylic on canvas titled “North Fork Morning,” captures the artist’s impression of the gray dawn so common here in early spring, with the promise of a brighter day as the sun penetrates the cloud cover.
The Bloom family thanks the art group for its thoughtfulness.
SMBloom photo
CAST (Community Action Southold Town) Is Our Official Charity Shul Members Respond To Plea For Personal Items
Pictured with one of many baskets overflowing with personal items, shul president Susan Rosenstreich, right, and shul member Veronica Kaliski delivered the collection to CAST, the shul’s official charity, early this month. Shul members responded with full hands and heart to the plea from CAST for items like toothbrushes, creams, diapers and other much needed supplies for adults, children and infants.
Byrne photo
Zoom! The Shul Schmooze Connection Expands And Delights
The Shofar delivers news and comments once a month. And the editors certainly hope shul members enjoy catching up on local and global news from the world’s Jewish community. But in the time of coronavirus, some thoughtful people in our shul hoped to strengthen our connection to each other each week, with a column titled “Shul Schmooze,” delivered to members’ email inboxes, mostly on Thursdays. From the scuttlebutt we pick up over here at Shofar central, shul members are truly enjoying the weekly missives from members — music, art, poetry, cartoons, jokes and the hello-how-are-you messages that let all of us know what’s going on in our homes.
And now, making a good thing even gooder (yes, yes, we know…), the Shul Schmooze idea has gone virtual two days a week. Mondays and Thursdays at noon, you can schmooze with shul members at a Zoom session called “Lunch and Learn.” Sometimes it’s chitchat; sometimes folks in our shul with particular expertise offer something for all of us to learn, and then there’s discussion, Q&A, and more chitchat. It’s instructive, it’s entertaining, it’s fun.
Our thanks to Judy Weiner and office assistant Andrea Blaga for the Shul Schmooze column. (And please email your contributions to Andrea at ctigreenport@gmail.com/.) And thanks to Rabbi Gadi for the Lunch and Learn idea to expand Shul Schmooze to all who want to Zoom at noon. Download the shul’s website, click on the “Shabbat services” item on the home page, and follow the prompts to the shul’s Zoom room. Come schmooze with us. Bring lunch.
Excerpted from the Shul Schmooze column
We ask you to indulge The Shofar’s appreciation for a poem by New York Times reader Joyce Bartlett, submitted to the Shul Schmooze column and reprinted here. As we huddle largely alone in our homes, away from our usual routines and those we know and love, the essence resonates.
May you find happiness in the small spaces. Joy in the staying put.
No highways. No office buildings. No crowded subways.
May you find peace in your own kitchen. May your four walls
Feel like a sanctuary. A haven from a noisy world.
May you take pleasure in a bad pun, a bowl of popcorn.
Laughing with the people closest to you. Patting the grateful dog. The clever cat.
May you discover the delight of writing letters on paper.
In baking cookies. In the birds visiting your early spring garden.
May you find yourself fully in the present moment. Where all of life
Is happening right now. And worries about the future don’t exist.
May you invent ways to help people who need you.
Because times like this were made to remind us that we are all the same.
Even as you wrap yourself in a blanket of solitude,
may you discover the secrets of the universe from your spot on the couch.
And…may you be so well loved that others will rejoice
when you are finally able to run into their arms again.
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