First Addendum on Kickoff for Second Semester

Friends,

For those of you who were not there last week, we distributed copies of the Torah chanting book (complete with accompanying CD), which is the book that Jon and Debbie were asking about.

Debbie, if you are not at shul on shabbat, I will either send it to you of have someone drop it off. John, I will give you my copy of the book on Friday, and pick up on another on shabbat.

I will get back to some of your other questions later.

Stuart

Second Semester Kick-Off (Even After the Super Bowl!)

Friends,

I have not yet decided on the financial charge for our class this second semester, but will let you know on shabbat.

Correction by the way on the information I gave you last shabbat. I will be out of town on the week-end of the 16th, so we will next be meeting on shabbat, the 23rd of February.

Here are your assignments:

Work on the first TWO chapters in the Torah chanting book. The best way to do this is fifteen minutes or more a day, five or six days a week. If you do this, you cannot fail.

Also, in siddur audio at sidduraudio.com, work on two things. In the Saturday/Shabbat Morning Service section, work on the following:

1. The Amidah - Part 1 - which is somewhat familiar to you from our services
2. The Ashrei - which comes just before returning the Torah

All of this work is more than enough to keep you busy. I will be checking up on you this shabbat, so get started now!!

Check in here a couple of times this week for updates.

Shavua Tov!

Stuart

What Next?

Hi, Everyone,

So what will be our next unit? I will have some suggestions, as will you. Let's process them together and see what comes to the fore.

Assume the unit will be ten weeks long,

Two ideas from me to start things off:

1. We could dedicate ourselves to recrafting how the Shacharit service is done, not by eliminating the liturgy, but by spreading the readings out the various people, by altering how we use music and how much we use, etc. The advantages of such a project are two: First, in revising the service, we will become deeply familiar with its structure and the interplay and relative importance of its elements
2. We could do a study on David Stern's remarkable, prophetic book, Messianic Jewish Manifesto as a means of developing a six week course on Messianic Judaism using it as a text. That course would be taught at Ahavat Zion or at the Stern Center.
   
3. We could work together on my book, "I Am The Door: Yeshua and Jewish LIfe--Entrance Not Exit." I would work on one chapter each week and the class would read, review, critique and improve it. At the end we would have a book for publishing.
   

What do you think of these ideas? And do you have any others?

Do tell!

Rabbi Stuart

Assignments for October 27, 2007

Dear Everyone,

Here it is, a trifle late. Let's read this stuff during the next two weeks and all prepare to discuss it. This is interesting material and I am sure our discussion will be stimulating.

Because I will be out of town next week, and not in easy proximity to a computer, we will break our normal pattern and have reading BOTH weeks, rather than the second week concentrating on questions.

In vew of this, see if each or you can come up with three questions for each week's readings, and share these questions plus our comments on the blog. I will join in when and as I can.

This week - Read . . .
SOS – Chapter 3-4 (God; Israel);
Wolfson - Chapter 3-4;
Donin - Chapter 1

Next week - Read . . .
SOS - Chapter 7 (World to Come);
Wolfson - Chapter 9-10;
Donin - Chapter 21

Shalom!

Be careful out there!

Boro Park Symposium Report

Dear Friends,

Sorry you have had to wait for this!

Thanks for praying for me this week. My presentation went very well--I elected to do an effective oral presentation (lots of eye contact, index cards held in the hand as prompts for speaking instead of head done, reading from a text). I regret that very few people if any at all are ready to make major adjustments in their world view--(turning from the theological conviction of the expiration of Torah to the demands of learning a Torah lifestyle), and from their traditions of piety (convictions about what it means to be "saved," who is and who is not, how one knows, drawing lines in the sand as to who is in and who is not, etc.). However, I do believe I delivered the message God assigned me, and of course, all participants have the paper to read and digest, if they will. I fear that more will read the paper for ammunition than will for edification.

Such is life.

Thanks again for praying. This week I will be bringing a couple of papers from the Conference for all of of us to read and digest. Good ones! I have more than we can cover, and you will find this interesting.

See you shabbat. And thanks again.

Rabbi Stuart

First of Two This Week - Me at The Boro Park Symposium

Hi guys,

As promised, here is some data about me at the Borough Park Symposium.

I will be speaking on Tuesday morning, October 9, somewhere around 10:00 AM I would guess, as I am the second of three speakers. I expect there will be a presentation by each of us, followed by a discussion following each speaker. Since the morning sesssion goes from 9:00 AM to noon, my guess is each speaker will speak for twenty minutes followed by forty minutes of discussion, followed by the next speaker.

If they do it otherwise, then all three of us will speak in the first hour (me second, speaking at about 9:20-9:30 AM, followed by two hours of discussion.

Just for fun . . . and for our discussion together, look at the website for the symposium and learn what you can. Have fun, you insiders, you.

http://boroparksymposium.com/

I will log to see comments here, and also give you a new reading assignment no later than Tuesday night.

And thanks again for you help today.

Stuart

For August 16

Hi Gang,

Sorry I'm a bit late.

In keeping with our decision last shabbat, we are going to leap to the readings that were intended for August 25 and do them NOW, to discuss them on at the synagogue on the 18th. Here they are:

SOS - Chapter 8 (Shabbat); O and J - Chapter 4 (Entering Shabbat); Wolfson Chapter 11-12; Donin - Chapter 5.


Also, be reviewing the Kinzer CD on Shabbat liturgy between now and then. Our next session together will be all about Shabbat observance, and we will be doing at least as much practicing as discussing.

Also, between now and then, let's continue interacting on the previous blog post page about the readings of last week. I will be commenting there later today, and regularly until we meet.

Shalom.

Stuart