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The New Shul

Parshat T’rumah

In this week’s parashah, T’rumah, God explains to Moshe how to build the mishkan, the sacred structure that will capture God’s presence and bring it into the center of the community. The first step is for members of the community to come forward with free-will offerings of the materials that the mishkan will be made of:  gold, silver, precious stones, wood and fine cloth.

Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav taught that those gifts symbolize our best internal qualities, the unique points of goodness that exist within each person. In other words, the true mishkan is not a physical structure but a spiritual one, which we create from our most precious inner gifts. By offering up the best qualities that each of us possess, and sharing them with each other, we make our community itself a sacred structure.

Together, we have the power to bring God into the world in a way that none of us can alone. We do so by creating sacred community. That means drawing out the best in one another, allowing others to draw out the best in us, and weaving all of those qualities together into a larger whole. May the mishkan that we create together bring joy and meaning to our lives, and help to heal this broken world.

  • 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-lunch this Shabbat, March 4, is sponsored by Randi and Jon Brodsky in honor of the first anniversay of Benjamin Brodsky’s bar mitzvah.
  • Childcare is available from 10 am to noon on Shabbat mornings. Our learning service for grades K to 4 is from 11 to 11:40 am.
  • Minyanim during the week are on Sunday mornings at 9:30 am, Monday evenings at 7 pm, Wednesday mornings at 7 am, and Wednesday evenings at 7 pm.
  • Purim begins on Saturday night March 11. Join us for our megillah reading and shpiel beginning at 7:30 pm.
  • On Shabbat morning April 1, we will celebrate the bar mitzvah of Bijan Bobrow, son of Ben and Mojdeh Bobrow.
  • Please note that there will be no e-bulletin next week. The bulletin will resume on Thursday March 16.