Thanks in part to a grant from the Legacy Heritage Innovation Project, and thanks in part to amazing energy at Beth El from our Shabbat Committee and our membership – we have just been approved for a third year of Green Mountain Shabbat programming here at Beth El.

 

The centerpiece of the initiative are the once monthly Green Mountain Shabbats themselves: Saturdays where the whole CBE community can connect to Shabbat in a great variety of ways through dynamic programming and activities. We have electives beginning at 9:00am for all ages, ranging from Torah Yoga to The Oy of Knitting to workshops on keeping honeybees or raising free-range animals to Torah Study to Breakdancing. There are morning services for adults and children, led by the Rabbi, Joshua Boettiger, and the rabbinic intern, Neora Snitz, as well as by members of the community and special guests. We have a catered community lunch, followed by an afternoon intergenerational program, which in this past year have included a trip to a local farm for a seed planting workshop, Tai Ji and large-scale calligraphy, and Israeli dancing. In the winters, our Green Mountain Shabbat days are centered around havdalah and run in the afternoons. In addition to this, we now offer once a month First Fridays, where local singer-songwriter Bernice Lewis leads musical services with Rabbi Boettiger for children (6:00-6:45pm), and adults (7:30-8:15pm) with a community wide potluck shabbat dinner in between. Rabbis Vanessa and Joshua Boettiger have been teaching an Intro to Judaism class called “Yesodot/Foundations: Judaism 101 for the Serious Seeker” this year, and Beth El will be expanding it’s Green Mountain Shabbat energies into the three pilgrimage holidays of Sukkot, Passover, and Shavuot beginning in the Fall of 2009.

 

Photos of the Green Mountain 'Go Neutral' Shabbat:

 

 

(From left to right: Torah Yoga, the Oy of Knitting, a Jewdaism class)

 

 

(Children services and Torah Study)

 

 

 

(Kiddush blessings)