Although there are many holidays on the Jewish calendar, we focus on the ones that bring people together and allow them to express themselves in a Jewish communal way—Etz-style. The singing and dancing and celebration of Simchat Torah, the dinners and services in our sukkah at Sukkot and the extraordinarily beautiful sight of our candle lighting ceremony at Chanukah are among the highlights of our fall/winter calendar. In the spring we celebrate a delightful seder service for Tub’Shevat, the madness and merriment o Purim, the  Pesachs econd night seder,and our observationsof Yom Hashoah,Yom Ha’atzmaut andShavuot.

 

Some of these festival celebrations are largerand more elaborate intheir scope, and others may be celebrated in a more informal way. Among our most fun andfestive nights occurredwhen we celebrated Purim this year—with a megillah reading, pizza, hamantaschen, customized drinks for the holiday (including the Vash-tease and Pu-um),and a karaoke Esther-Mordecai-Haman shpiel for the ages!! A wonderful time was had byattendees of all ages.

 

 Our goal on the Festivals committee is to help provide a setting where new and prospective new members feel as welcome and included as our longtime congregants. We work closely with the religious practices committee, Rabbi Cartun and the Etz Chayim staff to make the celebrations fun and meaningful.

 

We have members on our committee who have been working on this together for more than five years, and some wonderful, talented and creative new members who have joined the committee in the past year and have added an enormous jolt of high octane energy!! We’d love to have many more Etz Chayim members join the committee. How can you go wrong it’s the one place you always get to plan a party!! Please let the office know if you’d like to join in on the fun. And if you have any suggestions for new ways to celebrate the festivals, please let us know that, too!!