Thurs, Aug 27 12-1pm Online via Zoom Meeting ID: 955 4183 9308, Password: 024117 FREE
Let’s prepare ourselves for the Days of Awe together through three weeks of thematic classes. Attend one, two, or all three; it’s up to you!
What’s the nature of teshuvah/repentance? How do we go about doing it? How can it help us improve ourselves, our relationships, and the world? We’ll learn and discuss traditional Jewish sources to find out!
Upcoming Topics Wake Up! The SHOFAR – Sept 3 SELIHOT: Praying for Forgiveness – Sept 10
EVERYONE IS WELCOME. No prior Jewish learning experience required. Sources presented in both Hebrew and English translation.
If it’s raining at 5pm or later, we’ll be online via Zoom Meeting ID: 955 4183 9308, Password: 024117
Wind down from the week and welcome Shabbat with soulful and song-filled services.
For our community’s and broader society’s safety, we are strictly following Toronto Public Health’s Guidance for Places of Worship.
If you feel unwell or have any COVID-19 symptoms, you must stay home.
Please bring:
MASK that covers your nose, mouth & chin (MANDATORY!) Blanket, cushion, or chair for sitting (optional) Siddur/prayer book (optional); we’ll have photocopies of services in Hebrew & phonetic transliteration available Kippah/head covering (if you wear one during services) Seating will be physically distant and there will be separate sections for women’s, men’s, and mixed (all genders) seating, from which you can choose when you register. Since we’ll be outdoors and not in a regular prayer space, there won’t be curtains between these sections.
Any children who come must be able to sit next to their parent for the full duration of services and maintain physical distancing from all others. Children must be registered as well.
This Fri, Aug 7 7-8pm Outdoors & In-Person near Bloor & Bathurst
(exact location provided upon registration) FREE REGISTRATION
ABSOLUTELY REQUIRED for public health purposes LIMITED SPACE
If it’s raining at 5pm or later, we’ll be online via Zoom Meeting ID: 955 4183 9308, Password: 024117
Wind down from the week and welcome Shabbat with soulful and song-filled services.
For our community’s and broader society’s safety, we are strictly following Toronto Public Health’s Guidance for Places of Worship.
If you feel unwell or have any COVID-19 symptoms, you must stay home.
Please bring:
MASK that covers your nose, mouth & chin (MANDATORY!)
Blanket, cushion, or chair for sitting (optional)
Siddur/prayer book (optional); we’ll have photocopies of services in Hebrew & phonetic transliteration available
Kippah/head covering (if you wear one during services)
Seating will be physically distant and there will be separate sections for women’s, men’s, and mixed (all genders) seating, from which you can choose when you register. Since we’ll be outdoors and not in a regular prayer space, there won’t be curtains between these sections.
Any children who come must be able to sit next to their parent for the full duration of services and maintain physical distancing from all others. Children must be registered as well.
Next Thurs, Aug 13 12-1pm Online via Zoom Meeting ID: 955 4183 9308, Password: 024117 FREE
What can Judaism teach us about work and workers’ rights? How might this inform our contemporary ethics and policies? Let’s learn and discuss traditional Jewish sources to find out!
EVERYONE IS WELCOME. No prior Jewish learning experience required. Sources presented in both Hebrew and English translation.
Next Fri, Aug 28 7:00-7:45pm Online via Zoom Meeting ID: 955 4183 9308, Password: 024117 FREE
We’ll wind down from the week and welcome Shabbat by singing the joyous melodies of Kabbalat Shabbat together as a community and hearing a brief devar Torah.
Just before bringing in Shabbat with the final stanza of Lekha Dodi, we’ll bid each other Shabbat shalom and log off to light candles and start Shabbat the good ol’ unplugged way.
Have your Shabbat candles ready to light. If you have siddur (prayer book), please use it; we’ll also post the prayers on the screen.
We’ll also live stream online via Zoom for those unable to join us in person. (No need to register for online viewing.) Meeting ID: 955 4183 9308, Password: 024117 In the event of rain, we’ll be online.
Please join us for a powerful, contemplative evening marking historical Jewish loss and ongoing brokenness in the world as we usher in Tishah be-Av, the ninth day of the lunar month of Av. This date marks the destruction of the Temples in Jerusalem and other tragedies in Jewish history. It is traditionally observed with fasting, refraining from wearing leather, and other mourning customs. (For more background, see here.)
We’ll pray the brief evening service and listen to the Biblical book of Eikhah/Lamentations, hauntingly chanted by community members. We’ll also sing some songs, kinnot (elegies), and niggunim (wordless melodies).
For our community’s and broader society’s safety, we are strictly following Toronto Public Health’s Guidance for Places of Worship. If you feel unwell or have any COVID-19 symptoms, you must stay home.
Please bring: MASK that covers your nose, mouth & chin (MANDATORY!) Flashlight Blanket, cushion, or chair for sitting (it’s customary to sit low to the ground for Eikhah) Cash to donate toward feeding the hungry, in keeping with the spirit of Isaiah 58:6-7, “This is the fast I desire… It is to share your bread with the hungry.” Kippah/head covering (if you wear one during services) Seating will be physically distant and there will be separate sections for women’s, men’s, and mixed (all genders) seating, from which you can choose when you register. Since we’ll be outdoors and not in a regular prayer space, there won’t be curtains between these sections.
Any children who come must be able to sit next to their parent for the full duration of the program and maintain physical distancing from all others. Children must be registered as well.
Please note that washrooms will NOT be available.
FYI, the fast begins Wed at sunset, 8:43pm, and ends Thurs at nightfall, 9:32pm.
Thurs, July 30 12-1pm Online via Zoom Meeting ID: 955 4183 9308, Password: 024117 FREE
What can a day commemorating events that happened thousands of years ago mean to us today? We’ll learn halakhic (legal) and aggadic (narrative) sources to spark ideas and open discussion on how Tishah be-Av remains relevant and what it has to teach us.
EVERYONE IS WELCOME. No prior Jewish learning experience required. Sources presented in both Hebrew and English translation.
Makom, TPM, Annex Shul, and Beth Lida are combining forces to bring you a Tikkun (Motza’ei) Shavuot experience you’ve never had before.
As Shabbos ends, and Yontif recedes, join us for a spirited, musical Havdalah followed by insightful and inspiring classes from many of your favourite teachers, all from these four holy communities!
The theme for our Tikkun #TorahFest will be #Bikkurim, or first fruits. We’ll delve deep into this Shavuot-offering, exploring newness, creation, creativity, and how to bring innovation into our lives.
We’re honoured to have classes taught by Makom’s Rabbi Aaron Levy, Lea New Minkowitz, Annex Shul’s Aaron Rotenberg, Beth Lida’s R’ Joshua Schwartz, and TPM’s Dr. Anna Urowitz-Freudenstein!
Our friends at FENTSTER have installed a new, real-world exhibition in Makom’s storefront window (following safe distancing measures, of course), on view until Aug 14.
Toronto artist Robert Davidovitz created a striking stained glass art installation, paying homage to his roots in Vilna and to the fragile material that buttressed his family for generations, making their livelihoods from repairing broken windows.
The painting Marc Chagall made upon visiting the Vilna synagogue of an influential 18th-century Rabbi known as the Vilna Gaon. Davidovitz reinterpreted the colourful windows in Chagall’s canvas of the synagogue that was later destroyed during WWII. Cracked panes remind us how brokenness is a part of life, undeniable at a time when our existence feels shattered.
Join the livestream opening for an engaging conversation between the artist Robert Davidovitz and curator Evelyn Tauben, hosted by esteemed international scholar, Dr. Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Ronald S. Lauder Chief Curator, Core Exhibition at POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews, in Warsaw.
Featuring a live performance by the lead singer of the New York-based Yiddish rock band Yiddish Princess, Sarah Gordon, of the poem “Ver Vet Blaybn” by Avrom Sutzkever, which inspired the exhibition title.
Tues, May 12 7:00-7:40pm Online via Zoom or call 647-558-0588 Meeting ID: 835 2443 7272, Password: 016080 FREE
Families with kids! Let’s come together to celebrate Lag ba-Omer – the joyous 33rd day between Passover and Shauvot – with a bonfire, s’mores, crafts, music, and a bedtime story.
If you’re able, challenge your kid(s) craft a medurah (bonfire in Hebrew) beforehand and they’ll get to show it off during the program. (Crafting suggestions below.)
You can also make microwave s’mores to eat during the program – yum!
Medurah (Bonfire) Crafting Tips: You can make it flat or 3D.
For the wood: go outside and collect twigs, or use popsicle sticks (you can colour them brown) or brown paper (even from a paper bag), or create a textured base by putting a rough texture under the paper and rubbing over it with a brown crayon.
For the flames: tear up construction paper, tissue paper or wrapping paper and glue or tape it into the shape of a flame, or use markers to draw the flame.
For the night sky: if you’ve used a dark colour as the background for your bonfire, you can fill the night sky with stars using stickers, glitter glue or glitter pens, or even dots of tin foil.
