Wednesday,  October 25, 2011

Shalom Everyone -

 We hope all of you had a wonderful Sukkot!  Our festival site - Season of Our Joy - was a huge success.  According to our records, 590 people attended SOOJ this year - a roughly 25% increase over last year.  In addition, there were over 120 people listening in on the Internet. 

This year we were able to help get a new feast site up and running - in Costa Rica.  Mark Roth along with Lee Miller have been working in Costa Rica this past year helping them to organize a festival in hopes of bringing all the various Hebraic groups together . . . and it worked!  With SOOJ's help, they were able to have a web site including a place to register.  We also helped them with organization, and even worked it out to where Rico Cortes was able to give a message for them in Spanish from where we were meeting in Missouri.  Though they only met for three days, 180 people from Costa Rica and Panama met for the first time for Sukkot, and they're already planning to meet for the other moedim as well.

While at the festival, we had a meeting for the various congregational leaders who were with us.  About 40 people showed up and shared ideas about how to bring groups together.  One of those ideas was to try to  study more than just the Torah and Haftara portions each week.  'Seems that some groups get bogged down on just the Torah portions, and fail to discuss the other important parts of the Bible.  I don't think we have that problem since we typically do a topical teaching each Shabbat in addition to the Torah/Haftara portions.

Never-the-less, I proposed last week that this year we exchange our reading of the Haftara portion for a strait through reading of the remainder of the Tnakh beginning with Joshua.  Though there were only 9 of us in attendance, there seemed to be a unanamous consent to that idea.

In addition, we've decided that every-other week we'll have a "teaching" during the "Traditional Service", and on the other weeks, have an interactive study of the Tnakh or the New Testament, with hopes of getting through Paul's epistles this year.

This week we'll have a teaching during the Traditional Service.  Angie will give a teaching she did at a break-out session during the festival entitled "The Joy and History of the Dance".  This teaching brings out some very interesting scriptures pertaining to dance in worship and shows why dance became taboo in many Christian circles.  You'll be amazed at what she found!

This Friday evening, October 28,  is New Moon for the month of Cheshvan, and  Angie and I invite you all to observe it at our home!  We're planning to have a hamburger / hot dog cook-out.  We'll supply the hamburger, hot dogs, and the buns;  you all supply everything else.  We'll cook our food, open the Sabbath, eat, then search for the new moon, afterwhich we'll have a short New Moon refresher.

Please plan to arrive by 6:00 PM so we can begin eating right at sundown.  Don't forget to bring your shofar!

Sabbath will be at Gladewater as normal. Can you believe it - we finished Acts last week, so we'll start Romans next week.

Shalom Aleichem

Sabbath Schedule

• Torah Study
  12:00 - 2:00 PM

• Snack Break
  2:00 - 2:30 PM   

• Traditional Service
  2:30 - 4:00 PM   

  • Announcements

  • Praise through Song and Dance

  • Blessings and Prayers

  • Teaching

  • Closing Blessings

This Sabbath . . .
Torah Reading:

Noach

"Noah"

Genesis 6:9 - 11:32

Haftara Reading:
Isaiah 54:1 - 55:5

Tnakh Portion -
Joshua 2

Cheshvan - 8th Month
Friday Evening, Oct. 28

Blessings!
Do you want to learn the blessings we say each week?  They can be found on the lower right corner of the Sabbath Services page!

For the latest and greatest information and updates, be sure to check our web site -
 www.amiyisrael.org
the website is normally updated on Thursday