Passover VIII and Meymuna next week!

Friday Night Shabbat Services are at 7 PM.
Candle lighting in Austin is at 7:50 PM

Shabbat morning services are THIS SATURDAY morning – Pesach VIII, Saturday, April 30, at 9 AM. Please join us for this lay led shabbat service. The kosher for Passover kidish has been generously sponsored by Javis Howeth in memory of her beloved mother, Ruby Lee Campbell Howeth, a.k.a. “Judy” of blessed memory. There will be a Yizkor service.

Meimuna, THIS SUNDAY, May 1st, at 4 PM – a joyful celebration to mark the end of Passover.
Bring yourselves, your friends and community. Shiry, Claudia, Mary, Genevieve, Idit, and others, have been working tirelessly to make the delicious pastries and mufleta. Come and enjoy. You may bring dried fruits and nuts, cold drinks (kosher please), fresh fruit or paper goods if you like.

The Passover seder was truly one incredible evening. We had a full house of over a hundred people and I know people enjoyed it immensely. We will also always treasure the memories of that special evening with the Chazzan and his lovely family, including his father Milton, z’l.
Here is just one quote from Herschel that pretty much sums it up:
“We really enjoyed the Seder. It was one of the best we have ever attended. You did a fantastic job. You and the Cantor, should put this on a road show. We also feel lucky to have all of you as part of our family.”

WE HAVE SUNDAY SCHOOL THIS SUNDAY, MAY 1ST, 10 AM!

Thank you to all our Passover helpers!!! Many many folks helped us. Jared, Gracie, Mary, Sarah, Genevieve, Rachel, Larry, Elaine, Doris, Yosef, Kevin, Iris, Sara, Bob, Yesenia, Carmen, Scott, Art, Rinat, Claudia, Javis, Tamar, Anat, Lori and David. Many others helped on the night and please forgive if your name is not on the list – everyone really did lend a hand.

Dvar Torah from Rabbi Peter Tarlow of the Center for Jewish Hispanice relations:
This weekend marks the end of the Passover holiday and the return to eating chametz. During the last week, we were to think about the meaning of freedom and when we lacked both national freedom and also personal freedom. One of this holiday’s aspects that makes Passover so unique is that it is a time when we are “chametz-free”.
The term chametz is not easy to translate. We often translate it as “leavening”, or something that makes food rise. Thus, Jews around the world refrain from eating most bread products and beers throughout the holiday. Can we see Passover as the first “gluten-free holiday”?
In reality, as almost every Jewish person knows, translating the word chametz for someone outside of Jewish culture is not an easy. The word conveys a sense of “puffed-up” and of “self-importance”. Thus, it has booth a food-science meaning and a spiritual and national meaning. Chametz reminds us that we are free but only within the confines of society. The term also reminds us that each of us is just one small dot in the scheme of history, that to rid oneself of self-importance is another way to rid oneself of perpetual slavery.
The word “chametz” is not only used, however, with the holiday of Passover. Thus, in chapter 2 of Leviticus we read: “No meal offering that you offer to the Lord shall be with leaven (chametz), for you shall burn no leaven (se’or) or honey in any fire offering to the Lord.” (2:11)
And again in chapter 6 of Leviticus we read: “… its remainder (of the meal offering) shall be eaten by Aaron and his sons; it shall be eaten as unleavened cake (matzot) in the sacred precinct … It shall not be baked with leaven …” (6:9-10). Does being chametz-free here symbolize the unfinished, the work that has yet to be done to complete a task?
As we finish the holiday of Passover we remember that the search for freedom and human dignity is also an unfinished business. To be chametz free then represents the beginning of a yet-unfulfilled process. Now that we are about to end the Passover holidays and enter the comforts of the chametz world, it is our responsibility to remember that our journey to collective and personal freedom is not yet complete, that all too many of us have become spoiled and at times selfish. How do each of us remember the lessons of Passover and the meaning of freedom throughout the rest of the year? What do you think?