Holidays

High Holidays

Join us at Beth El for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. We begin each erev Rosh Hashanah with the traveler’s prayer, tefilat ha’derech – a recognition that over these ten days of awe we will be taking a journey together, and that our paths are bound up in one another’s. The journey ends with the last shofar blast at the end of neilah ten days later-- but of course, it doesn’t really end but continues on into the mysteries of our lives before us. Throughout the powerful services of the yamim nora’im, we pray together in the plural voice, singing, listening, and hearing words to take with us into the new year.

Shalosh Regalim (Major Festivals)

Sukkot -- Sukkot is a very special celebration in Bennington,Vermont. We mark this ancient pilgrimage holiday, celebrating shelter, demonstrating both the fragility and joy of our lives, by dwelling in a unique timber-frame sukkah, built by Beth El members at a sukkah building workshop led by Micah Whitman. The sukkah is located at the Bennington Museum where many of our Sukkot events are held, though we still shake lulav and etrog in the synagogue (and even whack our willow bundles on the bima on Hoshanna Rabba to pray for rain). In past years we have held workshops showing congregants the proper techniques of lulav shaking, and last year we held an “Iron Sukkah” contest in which different teams were challenged to build a creative, kosher sukkah in 15 minutes using surprise mystery materials.

Pesach -- In the Haggadah (the guide we use at our Passover seder) it says: In every generation, each person should feel as though she or he were redeemed from Egypt…For the Holy One redeemed not only our ancestors, He redeemed us with them.

What could this possibly mean? It reminds us of another famous midrash that teaches that all of us were present at Mount Sinai when the Torah was given: all souls past, present, and future. In the Book of Deuteronomy the same point is made when God says, “I make this covenant…not with you alone, but both with those who are standing here with us this day before the Lord our God, and with those who are not with us here this day.” (29:13) Passover is not merely something that happened way back when that we commemorate at our seder tables. Each year, we are commanded to tell the story of the exodus to help remind us that we are still coming out of Egypt. By commanding us to re-tell the story, the tradition is asking us to re-live the story. Michael Strassfeld writes, “Jewish history is also a timeless present…We are meant to reexperience the slavery and the redemption that occurs in each day of our lives. It is our own story, not just some ancient history that we retell at Passover.” Passover is a holiday for both family and community; we offer guidance to congregants on holding seders in their homes, and host a community seder the second night.

Passover and Shavuot are connected through the 49 days of counting the Omer. In recent years, we have offered a special seven week adult class on the Omer, which has explored Hasidic/kabbalistic and artistic traditions connected to this time. It has also been a place where participants can track their own inner journeys during the Omer period.

Shavuot -- Shavuot is the harvest holiday that commemorates receiving the Torah at Mount Sinai. Each year, Beth El partners with Congregation Beth Israel in North Adams and Williams College for an all night Torah learning gathering – the tikkun leyl Shavuot. Rabbis and community members take turns teaching, and we serve espresso milkshakes. This past year, we also had a family event for Shavuot where we were visited by Rabbi/Scribe Kevin Hale, who taught about creating and fixing Torahs.

Simchat Torah

Simchat Torah means rejoicing with the Torah. The Torah is compared to the Earth, to the Land. At every bar or bat mitzvah, each child is given a piece of the Torah, of the land, to care for. Diana Wolkstein compares this to Aboriginal people in Australia, whose lives are bound to the guardianship of the land. They are instructed at birth to return to and care for their birthplace by singing its songs. They do this for themselves and the community. It is their belief that if each person is given a part of the land to look after, the entire land will be cared for. Our land is the Torah – each of us has a piece of the Torah that is ours to caretake. And on Simchat Torah, we dance. We take out all the Torahs and we dance with them, since this is the most time-honored way of bringing stories to life. At Congregation Beth El, we celebrate with drum and chant, as well as with traditional niggunim. The evening service culminates with the unwrapping of the entire Torah by the community.

Social Justice is central to our celebrations of the shalosh regalim and all holidays, from meals for those who are hungry in the larger community to specific tzedakah projects. Judaism is a full-contact sport. If we see our holidays not simply as ways to remember and honor what has already happened, but as guides that can illuminate our lives today, season by season, then the tradition comes to life as well.

Hannukah

Hannukah celebrates the light that emerges in the time of deepest darkness, and our capacity to learn how to kindle that light. The Beth El Hannukah party, with live klezmer music and freshly-fried latkes is a tradition in southern Vermont. The real miracle is not that the oil lasted so long for the Maccabees long ago, but that we don’t burn the synagogue down with our massive latke-frying operation, the odor of which lingers far longer than eight days.

Tu B’Shvat

Tu B’Shvat (the fifteenth day of the Hebrew month of Shvat) is known as the New Year for the Trees. It is an ancient holiday that celebrates the trees, that celebrates our land, and that celebrates our relationship to that land. It is a holiday that now more than ever raises our awareness about how we can repair that relationship, and again learn to work with the earth. At Beth El, we host a popular Tu b’Shavat family seder, where participants travel from world to world, eating the delicious fruits that grow there and raising environmental awareness along the way.

Purim

The Beth El Purim party--nearly as central to our community as the high holidays--is a descent into the place of Lo Yada: not knowing whether we are cursing Haman or blessing Mordechai. We begin with a kids’ Purim carnival, and continue with a community meal, megillah reading (last year’s theme was Gilligan’s Island), and the ever-popular Sermon-off.