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Starting January, from 7:30 to 7:00. First Friday remains 6pm.

 Be Seder – In the Cranny of the Cliff

At weddings I often sing a few verses from Shir Hashirim, the Song of Songs. As I sing, the couple circles each other seven times, symbolizing bonding on levels seen and unseen. The passage in part speaks in the voice of one love looking for the hidden lover: “In the recess (ba-seter) of the cliff, let me see your face.”

     Traditionally we sing the sensual and erotic Song of Songs on Passover, which is a spring holiday.  It is good to give it voice in winter as well. This lovely book has been included in our sacred canon as a metaphor of the relationship between God and Israel. However, much of the time it is impossible to know for certain who is female and who male, who Israel or God, the seeker or the sought. The pronouns are often switched.  The voice goes back and forth while the images shift and turn. In our mystical tradition, who is seeking whom between earth and divine is a fluid, fecund and dynamic circle.

     Singing Shir Hashirim in the cold, we notice that the life of trees has gone underground and beneath bark. As the weeks wind on and on we will wait with ever deepening longing for the sap to flow again. In this thinly veiled metaphor of our own blood and veins, the difference between us and the trees begins to blur.

    In New England and the mountains, the ponds freeze over with frogs and fish in suspended animation.  We know they are there, awaiting the very regeneration in which we generally do not believe.  Around them, the river thickens with flows piling roughly together, maybe beautiful, maybe jagged. There is evidence still of the moving river below, inexorable currents and tides. We yearn for it to return as in days of spring, soft and warm. 

     Like the seeds in the frozen earth, the crocuses sleep just under the topsoil.  The buds hide just inside the tips of branches.  In winter it is as if life itself is in recess, waiting just behind a drawn curtain or closed door.

   Here in NC this week it has been winter and spring, mixing of cold and warm, and here, too, we sing Shir Hashirim.

Under this glorious Carolina sun, and grateful.

Warmly,

Rabbi Rose

P.S.  Please note: our Torah Service and Bagel Bruch/Torah Study for March has been changed to Mar. 8.  Hope you can come.

An Introduction to the Koran for Jews begins Jan. 16th for 6 Thursdays at 7pm

Participants should register with me by email, ravdawnrose@yahoo.com.

 Please get this text:  the Penguin edition of The Koran, translation by Dawood (available on Amazon).  It's essential we use the same translation, and this one is excellent.

Bar/Bat Mitzvah Prep Class starts, Tuesday 1/14, @6pm 

 Conversion Class (continues) Tuesday 1/14 @7pm.  Please register with me. 

Exciting things are happening here at CBS.  Come and be a part of it.

CBS Treasurer, Leah Grubb is from Asheville and has been there many times since the hurricane.  She reports that, while donations of food have been coming in, there is a terrible need for TENTS and other camping gear.  FEMA is just not responding fast enough and winter is soon upon the mountains.  Leah will return to Asheville at least twice in the next few weeks with camping gear donations.  

 Its our job to collect that camping gear. 

 Check your garages and storage spaces, ask your neighbors and coworkers, reach out to organizations or churches you have connections with, get on Amazon or go to Sam's Club. 

    Folks in Asheville need:

• tents
• new or freshly cleaned used sleeping bags
• camp stoves
• torches
• batteries
• tarps
• air mattresses
• air pumps
• camp cookery utensils
• new or freshly cleaned used winter coats
• warm hats, new gloves and scarves
• new socks in their unopened wrapping 
• ponchos

You can bring your donations during Service times on Friday or Sunday morning during Religious School.  If that doesn't fit your schedule, drop them on our back porch and let me know--ravdawnrose@yahoo,com, 917-673-2226 and I will make sure they are brought in shortly.  Please do not bring clothes.

All size gifts help to sustain the synagogue. Donations to the synagogue are always deeply appreciated. 

We gratefully accept credit card donations and dues payments using this link:
 https://baytshalom.shulcloud.com/payment.php

We also accept checks made out to Congregation Bayt Shalom and mailed to
Congregation Bayt Shalom, PO Box 2713, Greenville, 27836  – Attn Treasurer