Jun

8 2019

Shavuot Celebration

4:30PM - 11:55PM  

Havurah Shalom: Reconstructionist 825 NW 18th Ave
Portland, OR

Contact Teri Ruch
503-248-4662 ext. 4
teri.ruch@havurahshalom.org

Join us for our Shavuot Celebration on Saturday, June 8, from 4:30 pm on into the evening. Shavuot is the celebration of the early harvest and receiving the Torah on Mt. Sinai: revelation, a first fruits festival, a potluck dairy dinner delight, a literary event, and an opportunity to learn! Something fun for all ages.

The schedule:
4:30 pm, we'll make Shavuot paper crafts, celebrate the bounty of our spring gardens with a First Harvest Procession, beautify the Sanctuary, celebrate Havdalah and sing. (for all ages)  

5:45 pm, we’ll have blintzes and cheesecake for our potluck dinner, followed by Havdalah. (for all ages)  Please let us know what you will bring here.

6:30-8:00 pm, Havurah members Alicia Jo Rabins and Rebecca Clarren will read from their newly published books, Fruit Geode and Kickdown. (Older teens and adults. Childcare will be available.)

Fruit Geode was a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award, and her first collection of poems, Divinity School, won the APR/Honickman First Book Award; she is a poet, musician and Torah teacher, and will perform live music as part of the reading.

Rebecca is an award-winning journalist with extensive experience reporting on environmental issues; Kickdown, her debut novel, was shortlisted for the PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction. 

If you would like the authors to sign their books for you, please purchase a copy in advance as the books won't be on sale at the Shavuot celebration. You can purchase the books on Amazon or Powell's. 

8:15 pm, Deborah Eisenbach-Budner will teach Earthbound Revelation: Shavuot and Environmental Stewardship. She says: "Shavuot is a mixed heritage holiday: one part biblical harvest holiday and one part rabbinic celebration of revelation and Torah. We will look at the values and questions underlying the agrarian focus of Shavuot, especially as they relate to our current condition as humans dominating the earth. What does the Torah have to say about the role of humans vis-à-vis using the earth’s resources? How does our treatment of the earth mirror or interrupt our treatment of other humans, panim al panim (face to face)? What is the spirituality of being a citizen of the earth?"

9:30 pm, Benjamin will teach.
 
RSVP here!