Musicians & Scholars In Residence Shabbat

March 29, 2019 - 7:15 pm - 9:15 pm

March 29 and 30 – Musicians and Scholars in Residence Or and Feliza Zohar  will lead a special musical Shabbat Service and following dinner teach on Lecha Dodi: the inner Language of the Awakening Soul.

Rabbi Shlomo Halevi Elkabetz belonged to the Kabbalist’s circle of Tzfat, a group that invented the practice of an augmented musical religious prayer on Friday evenings known as “Kabbalat Shabbat”. The stanzas of his legendary poem “Lecha Dodi”, which are sung in practically every Jewish synagogue in the world, show us through a step by step journey of the soul, from its disarrayed condition during regular moments of the weekdays, into its awakened state known as “Shabbat”. We will follow this poem closely, in order to learn how its coded language may be useful to us as weekly spiritual practitioners of remembering and keeping Shabbat.  

Friday March 29 @ 6:00 —  Welcome home a very special service with guests Rabbi Or and Feliza Zohar who the northern travelers will have met in Tzvat. This amazingly musical couple will lead the service and teach about Lecha Dodi at a talk after services. Dinner reservations ($20 per person) can by made by clicking here and reserving online or contacting Chris@cbibpt.org.

And at Torah Study at 9:30 on Saturday morning:  Jacob’s Ladders

The Zohar literature is a library of Jewish mystical traditions of the middle ages. Just as in the instances of the Talmud and Midrash literature, it often portrays numerous angels of interpretations regarding a single issue. We will demonstrate this phenomena by looking at some complimentary interpretations of Jacob’s ladder, all found in one page in the Zohar. We will see how different Kabbalists interpreted Jacob’s ladder differently, linking it to the practice of meditation, or to the ability to face one’s “inner demons”, or to existential questions about finding God’s presence in difficult times.

4:00-5:00 p.m. – Shabbat Afternoon singalong with Rabbi Or and Feliza.  Musicians bring your instruments (we’ll have music for you) and everyone bring your voices!