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The New Shul

Parshat Sh’mot

This week’s parashah, Sh’mot, begins the story of our liberation from slavery in Egypt. The parashah opens by recounting the names of the children of Israel who had gone down into Egypt in the first place.

According to the Ba’al Shem Tov, the recounting of those names hints at how God will ultimately redeem us. God will awaken us from our enslavement by reminding us who we really are, by calling us by our true names.

As members of a spiritual community, we do the same thing for each other. The challenges of every-day life can grind down one’s spirits and erode one’s sense of worth. When we see a person who seems lost in that way, it is our mitzvah to remind that person who he/she truly is, a unique image of God. A smile, a word of encouragement, an extended hand, can be profoundly redemptive in that they restore that person’s sense of self. By offering that support to one another, we all have the potential to be redeemers.

  • Shabbat services at The New Shul are on Friday evenings from 6 to 7 pm and on Saturday mornings from 9 am to 12 noon. The kiddush this Shabbat is sponsored by Myrna Weinstein and Larry Goldstein.
  • Childcare is available from 10 am to noon on Shabbat mornings. Beyond Bim Bom I, our learning service for grades K to 1, is from 10:30 to 11:00 am. Parashah study for teens is from 10:15 to 11:15 am.
  • Minyanim during the week are on Sunday mornings at 9:30 am and on Wednesday mornings at 7 am.
  • The New Shul Book Group meets on Wednesday January 9 at 7:30 pm. The book is Those Who Save Us by Jenna Blum.
  • Finding Our Way, Rabbi Wasserman’s class on Jewish prayer continues on Shabbat afternoon January 19 after kiddush.
  • On Martin Luther King Day, Monday January 21, The New Shul community will serve meals to the hungry at St. Vincent de Paul’s Jackson St. dining room. Please let us know if you can help.
  • Join us on Sunday January 27 at 10:30 am for the 11th annual meeting of The New Shul community. All are welcome.
  • On Sunday evening February 10 at 7:30 pm, The New Shul will host a public lecture by Rabbi Arthur Green: Spiritual Insights from the Hasidic Tradition: A Scholar Reflects. The lecture is free and open to all.