WHAT’S HAPPENING AT A GLANCE
Membership News and Upcoming Events
- This Weekend! RSVP Now for Annual Potluck Picnic, August 23
- Meet-n-Greet with Rabbi Eitan, August 24
- Membership Renewal Forms Now Open
- Solar Capital Campaign
- Book Club, August 25
Creative Worship and Ritual
- Shabbat Evening Service, Friday August 21
- High Holidays are Coming -- Register and Help!
- New! Book of Life Submissions
- New! Help Needed with Audio Set-Up for High Holidays
- Join the Shul Cloud Support Team
- High Holiday Food Baskets, August 23 and 30
- Building Operations Committee Seeks New Members
The Rabbi’s Corner
- "The Redwoods' Lesson"
Education
- School Calendar Announced
Ongoing Fundraisers
- Help Shir Hadash Earn Free Donations with iGive
- Fundraising Opportunity with Amazon Smile
- Samuel I. Andes Scholarship Fund
- Permanent Restaurant Fundraisers: The Continental and Butterfield’s
SHOP Shir Hadash
MEMBERSHIP AND UPCOMING EVENTS
This Weekend! RSVP Now Online for Annual Potluck Picnic, August 23
It's time again for our annual day of Fun, Food, Family & Friends! Online registration is now available for our Community Potluck Picnic to be held at Shir Hadash on August 23, starting at 4:00pm. There will be games, music, and great socializing. It's also a great time to bring friends who would be interested in learning more about Shir Hadash!
We will be grilling Kosher hamburgers and hot dogs. Please note that for this event the Wheeling Health Dept. requires that all pot luck foods be store-bought. Baked goods can be homemade. Also, since this will be a meat meal, all pot luck dishes should be milk-and-milk-product free.
Visit the website for more details, and to sign up. If you have any questions, please contact Melanie Andes at fmandes@comcast.net. Don't miss this special family evening!
We will be grilling Kosher hamburgers and hot dogs. Please note that for this event the Wheeling Health Dept. requires that all pot luck foods be store-bought. Baked goods can be homemade. Also, since this will be a meat meal, all pot luck dishes should be milk-and-milk-product free.
Visit the website for more details, and to sign up. If you have any questions, please contact Melanie Andes at fmandes@comcast.net. Don't miss this special family evening!
Meet-n-Greet with Rabbi Eitan, August 24
Rabbi Eitan will be holding another meet-n-greet for members and prospective members. Drop in for a cup of coffee and a nosh, and share with Rabbi Eitan your ideas, comments, and thoughts about services, worship, and spirituality at Shir Hadash!
- Monday, August 24, 2:00 to 3:30pm at Panera, 190 Waukegan Road in Deerfield.
It's time once again to renew your membership to Shir Hadash. All the forms you need for membership, school registration, and more are available online here. Please be sure to complete your renewal promptly. If you have any questions, contact info@shir-hadash.org.
The Solar Capital Campaign is making progress on our goal of raising funds to help pay for the Solar Power System that will soon be installed on our roof. We hope to have the system installed this summer. To learn more about our dream to go green, please read our story on the Chicago Tribune's website. Then be sure to visit our website where you can make a donation to help purchase a Solar Panel, a Solar Inverter, or donate other amounts. If you have any questions about the Solar Capital Campaign, please contact Art German at artgerman@comcast.net.
Our next Book Club meeting will be Tuesday, August 25, at 7:30pm, at the home of Gerry Freibrun, 574 Cypress Point Court in Riverwoods. Our book will be Invisible City by Julia Dahl. Please RSVP to Meryl Abensohn, abenkras@aol.com.
CREATIVE WORSHIP AND RITUAL
This Week's Service:
Shabbat Evening, Friday August 21, 7:30pm
"Recon 201: What Do We Think About God?"
As you may recall, in our last Friday night service, Rabbi
Eitan taught Recon 101, explaining what Reconstructionist Judaism is all about. This Friday (at 7:30) we continue to Recon
201, which is all about God. Throughout
the course of the service, Rabbi Eitan will offer explanations on what
Reconstructionism teaches about the meaning of prayer, and what we mean when we
pray to God. And of course, you can ask
questions. So come, enjoy the service,
and learn about God. What more could you
want? Well, there is always the oneg -
don't forget to bring something for the spread.
See you Friday night!
High Holidays – Register and Help!
High Holidays are coming soon!You should have gotten an e-mail about registration – if not, please let us know at cwr@shir-hadash.org. In addition to registering, we need your help making the holidays happen. There are many parts to play in creating the program – calling people to read parts, transporting stuff over to Our Lady of the Brook (and back), preparing and serving food, helping with the kids’ program, taking registration calls and questions at the office, and many other things that happen “behind the scenes.” If you would like to help in any way, please let us know – just send a note to cwr@shir-hadash.org , and we’ll find something for you to do.
Book of Life Registration
Book of Life Registration
When you register
for the High Holidays on Shul Cloud, please remember to add the names of
your departed loved ones to our Book of Life, which will be printed and
distributed on Yom Kippur for the Yizkor service. If you have already registered for the
Holidays, but forgotten to go onto the Book of Life page to include your names,
just click here.
If you have any questions, please send a note to cwr@shir-hadash.org.
VOLUNTEER OPPORTUNITIES
To prepare for the High Holidays, we need some volunteers to help set up audio equipment for our services at Our Lady of the Brook, 3700 Dundee Road in Northbrook. We need one to three people on the following dates:
- Sunday, September 9 – 6:00pm
- Sunday, September 20 – 4:00pm
Set up should take about two to four hours. If you have experience with audio equipment, that is a
definite plus! Please contact Joe McArdle at 847 322 1531 if you are free on
either (or both!) of these dates. The more people we have, the faster it will
go. Thanks for your help!
Join the Shul Cloud Support Team
Want to help out, but hate going to meetings? Read on! We are looking for a few good people to help on the Shul Cloud team. If you have been looking for a way to get involved with helping the synagogue and have some knowledge in technology -- we want you! We are looking for people who:- Enjoy teaching and coaching
- Have experience with computers other than word processing
- Have experience with web or graphic design
After initial training, there are no regular meetings. You get to help out the shul in a very needed way, and everything can be done from home! Everything thing we do is task based -- assuming we have a full team, we will be able to flex the work around different schedules and skill sets easily.
Interested? Please contact Lise Schleicher at info@shir-hadash.org as soon as possible. We hope to get the team trained and running in early August.
High Holiday Food Baskets, August 23 and 30
Once again this year, Shir Hadash will be joining with Maot Chitim of Greater Chicagoland to help them pack and deliver High Holiday food baskets for needy Jewish families all over the Chicago area. There are two different ways you can help, either packing food boxes or delivering them.
- Packing will take place on Sunday, August 23 from 9:30 to 10:15am. The address for the packing is 1808 Holste Rd., Northbrook, IL.
- Delivery of food packages will take place on Sunday, August 30 from 9:30 to 11:30 am in the Buffalo Grove/Wheeling area. We will be delivering 105 food packages, which will be in large boxes weighing approximately 20 lbs. each. We deliver to several large complexes and use a rental truck to transport the boxes. I will provide the address of where to meet for those interested in helping deliver boxes.
The Building Operations Committee is looking for new committee members. Specifically, the committee needs a person with interior/exterior experience and someone with general building supervisory experience. The BOC meets once a month on the third Wednesday of the month. We are also looking for people with project management skills to work on some specific projects. Please contact Marc Fargotstein at 847-612-6579.
THE RABBI’S CORNER
August
21-22, 2015 / 7 Elul 5775
Shabbat
Shofteem
Torah:
Deuteronomy 16:18 - 21:9 / Haftarah: Isaiah 51:12 - 52:12
“The Redwood's Lesson”
[Note: The Jewish
month of Elul began last weekend. The great rabbis have taught that because
this month precedes the High Holidays, it should be observed with meditation,
introspection and preparation for the New Year.]
Dear Friends,
Dawn and I just returned from a brief visit to Seattle,
Washington to attend the wedding of a dear friend’s son. While there, we drove east to the Cascade
Mountains for a day of hiking. What
beautiful country, magnificent forests, and fabulous hiking trails. As we ascended a mountain path leading to a
distant waterfall, we enjoyed the thick moss hanging heavily on the tree
branches and all the ferns spread out as far as we could see. We found ourselves in a northern pacific
coast rain forest. So, it should not
have been a surprise when a few minutes later I saw a bunch of impossibly tall
orange-colored trees coming into view and I yelled out, “Redwoods! We are in a
forest of redwoods!” These were younger
ones – not the thousand year-old famous ones in California. But, they were still huge and tall and strong. We continued a little further up the trail
and I found the truly large trees... however, all that was left were massive
moss-covered stumps. This area had been
logged many decades ago and the stumps stood in a sad, still, and quiet salute
to the massive trees that had once graced this mountainside.
Yet, the sadness was quickly turned to joy and wonder. For emerging from many of those old and
rotting stumps were young trees – new, healthy redwood growth climbing skyward,
hanging on and continuing the journey.
These trees were not only still alive; they were thriving with renewed
vigor and promise for the future.
In many ways, this is indeed what we pursue when we seek
renewal in the upcoming High Holy Days.
We recognize that life does not end when we close a door on a project, a
relationship, or a behavior. The good
and the bad that come from the life experience of our past in turn becomes the
base, the pedestal upon which we continue into the future. From these ‘stumps’ of the past come new
growth, understanding, knowledge, and wisdom....
EDUCATION
Shir Hadash's Religious School Calendar has been set! We start the year with a kick-off event on August 30, and then begin our regular Sunday morning schedule on September 20 (following Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur). Watch for the complete calendar to be posted to Shul Cloud soon.
ONGOING FUNDRAISERS
You can help Shir Hadash every time you shop online – the iGive Button makes it simple! iGive is a free and easy way to support the shul. Average shoppers using iGive raise between $30 and $100 a year for their causes. There are 1480 online retailers helping to make donations happen through iGive.
Click here to learn more and join iGive. If you have questions, contact Sandi Schleicher, finance@shir-hadash.org.
Amazon Smile Fundraising Option
Shir Hadash is now registered with the Amazon Smile fundraising program. Just go to smile.amazon.com, search for Shir Hadash (be sure to select the one in Wheeling), and from then on 0.5% of your purchases will automatically be donated to Shir Hadash at no cost to you! Note that this works in conjunction with iGive (see below) and allows for double-dipping: if you go to Amazon through iGive.com or the iGive button, SH will get money from both Amazon and iGive. And to triple-dip, just pay for your purchases with a SHOP Amazon gift card! Happy Shopping!
Scholarship Fund
To help families in financial need pay for their children’s Jewish education at Shir Hadash, Melanie and Fred Andes created the Samuel I Andes Scholarship Fund in memory of Fred’s great-uncle. Click here to donate online or mail in your check made out to Shir Hadash with “Scholarship” written in the memo line.
Don’t Forget Our Permanent Restaurant Fundraisers!
The Continental Restaurant in Buffalo Grove and Butterfield’s Restaurant in Northbrook will donate 5% of your total bill to Shir Hadash! No flyer needed – just mention Shir Hadash when you are paying or fill out the Shir Hadash book behind the desk.
SHOP SHIR HADASH
SHOP Over the Summer!
SHOP is our congregation’s ongoing fundraiser – and the easiest way to support the shul without spending an extra dime! Purchase gift cards through SHOP and the vendors pay a percentage back to Shir Hadash. SHOP orders of at least $400 are now payable by credit card, as well as annual SHOP orders. Orders can be picked up at the synagogue office.
Bonus Offers
Meijer Illinois Grand Opening Bonus: 4% on physical cards until August 28.
Auto Zone: 1% Bonus August 15-28
IHOP: 5% Bonus August 15-28
Auto Zone: 1% Bonus August 15-28
IHOP: 5% Bonus August 15-28
New ScripNow Retailer - Carnival Cruise Lines Carnival Cruise Lines ScripNow eCards are now available in increments of $10, from $10 - $1000, with the same great 8% rebate as physical cards.
Another New ScripNow Retailer - Burger King Burger King ScripNow eCards are now available in increments of $10, from $10 - $100, with the same great 4% rebate as physical cards.
Six Flags Tickets Available
Please note, Six Flags® tickets are once again available to order. Tickets cost $44.25 and award a 7% rebate. Tickets ordered now are valid through the 2015 season only, expiring on 12/31/15.
Now Available: $25 spa and wellness gift cards by Spa Week.
Summer hours for Customer Support at Great Lakes Scrip, one of our Shop vendors: 8:00am - 4:00pm Eastern Monday through Thursday, and 8:00am - 12:00pm Eastern on Fridays. They will resume their normal schedule on Tuesday, September 8.
Now Available: $25 spa and wellness gift cards by Spa Week.
Summer hours for Customer Support at Great Lakes Scrip, one of our Shop vendors: 8:00am - 4:00pm Eastern Monday through Thursday, and 8:00am - 12:00pm Eastern on Fridays. They will resume their normal schedule on Tuesday, September 8.
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