Chanukah, Purim, and More

Chanukah

Purim

Simchat Torah

Tu B'Shevat

Yom haShoah

Tisha b'Av

Chanukah (The Dedication)

Amongst the best known of Jewish holidays, this eight-day feast of lights is always an opportunity for community gathering and celebration. Young and old, we come together to light our chanukiahs (or eight-branched menorahs), eat donuts and latkes, and throw a big party. At this season we also focus on the mystical meanings of light in the darkness. For more information regarding upcoming celebrations, join our weekly e-news mailing list.  Come join the fun!

In 2015 our Chanukah party was especially exciting - A latke and falafel dinner, followed by music and dance performances, and a DJ dance at the end!

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Purim (Fate and Chance)

The ancient rabbis taught that in a perfected world, only two holidays will remain: Yom Kippur - the Day of At-One-Ment, and Purim - the Jewish feast of misrule. Characterized by costume, drunkenness, hidden identities and social leveling, Purim is a time to experience the world as it really is: up-side-down. Collaborating with other local Jewish organizations, Nevei Kodesh has thrown parties in both a downtown venue and at the shul, with a public reading of the Book of Esther (megillah) and its tale of the Jewish community’s rescue from annihilation in ancient Persia, DJs, and food and drink. Give to charity, wear a costume, and come prepared for FUN.

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Simchat Torah (Rejoicing the Torah)

As we complete the yearly cycle of reading the Torah, or Five Books of Moses, each fall, and prepare to begin it afresh, we gather for a night of live music, dancing, celebration and our annual Torah-Oracle ritual. In this unforgettable ceremony, we unroll the entire parchment scroll of the Torah, and hold it together in a giant circle.  Skilled Torah-readers stand in the middle of the circle, and give each person in the circle a blessing pertaining to the verses of Torah they are standing directly behind. The visual impact of seeing the breadth of the Torah before your eyes, reading from the final passage and beginning again on the first passage, all while supporting it with our hands, serves as a profound reminder of the living importance of this document in our heritage. Join us this year to experience the prophecy!

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Tu b'Shevat (The New Year of the Trees)

This once-obscure holiday has become a focus for mystics and environmentalists alike, as we take a journey through the realms of reality which are united by the Tree of Life. In collaboration with other local synagogues and Jewish environmental thought-leader Hazon, our Tu b'Shvat celebrations are communal, inter-disciplinary, and inter-generational, focused on the reality of the food-world and environment we share. First time celebrants are always welcome!

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Yom haShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day)

Gathering with the wider Boulder Jewish community, this solemn day during May each year serves as a commemoration of the 6,000,000 Jews whose lives were taken during the Nazi Holocaust. WIth in-person testimonies from survivors and their descendants, this program is always profoundly moving.  

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Tisha b'Av (The Day of Destruction)

The late summer holds the darkest day of the Jewish calendar - the 9th day of Av, commemorating the sack of Jerusalem and the many other tragedies in Jewish history. Through poetry workshops, contemplation, and the practice of fasting - at least from comforts - we allow our attention to dwell on that which is broken and ruptured in our world, a practice which is indispensable for its healing.

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