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Community Shabbat Welcome 4
Candlelighting
Sharing:
(Personal messages, remarks, life cycle events)
Song:
Shabbat Shalom
Leader:
The minutes of our days rush by and become hours,
which, in turn, become days, which become weeks, then years.
It is almost easy to forget to stop.
When we celebrate Shabbat, within ourselves,
We create Shabbat, a time for us, a period, a pause.
All:
An artist cannot be continually wielding her brush. He must stop at times
in painting to freshen his vision of the object, the meaning of which he wishes
to express on the canvas.
Reader l:
Living is also an art. We dare not become absorbed in its technical
processes and lose our consciousness of its general plan.
All:
The Sabbath represents those moments when we pause in our brushwork to
renew our vision of this object. Having done so we take ourselves to our
painting with clarified vision and renewed energy. This applies to the
individual and to the community alike.
Mordecai M. Kaplan
Candlelighting
Responsively:
Leader:
In every beginning there is darkness. Darkness and chaos threaten light
and life. Yet form emerges, light and life dawn.
The Shabbat candles celebrate the power that makes for light and life.
All:
Blessed is the light in the world and in each of us.
Blessed is the light of Shabbat.
May we be blessed with the light of dignity, creation and freedom.
May we be blessed with a life of joy and peace.
Song: Na-a-seh Shalom
ba-o-larn
Na-a-seh shalom
Na-a-seh Shalom a-ley-nu
Na-a-seh shalom
Val-kol ha-o-larn
Shalom aley-nu
V-im-ru, Im-ru shalom.
Val-kol ha-o-lam. (Repeat this verse)
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Reader 2:
There are many advantages which Jews may derive from the knowledge and
love of
Judaism. It can give them a high, clear religious faith. It can supply them with
a system of ethical values: personal and social, idealistic and practical at the
same time.
It can grace their lives with poetic observances
and with the treasures of an ancient tradition.
It can make them, in sum, nobler, stronger, better human beings and more
valuable citizens.
Reader 3:
But one service Judaism performs for Jews which is often overlooked: It
is the first function of a human being to respect oneself-to injure none, to
help all, but to allow none to injure oneself - to be, in sum, a mensch.
This is the last and climactic contribution of a living Judaism to the Jew - it
delivers one from being a worm; it guarantees that one will be a person.
Milton Steinberg
Torah portion or sharing of other significant readings
Conclusion
All:
Be meek before the heavens
The wind-whipped sea.
The majesty of mountains;
Sand in awe with me.
Give thanks;
Give thanks for every breath,
Give thanks on trembling harp,
Give thanks in joyous song
With a ten-stringed lute.
Let goodness fill the earth;
Love righteousness; be just.
Stand in awe with me;
Learn humility.
Emil Weitzner, From Psalm 33
Leader:
May you live to see your world fulfilled
May your destiny be for things still to come
And may you trust in generations past and those yet to be.
May your heart be filled with intuition and your words be filled with
insight.
May songs of praise ever be upon your tongue and your vision be on a
straight path
before you
All:
May you live to see your world fulfilled
May your destiny be for things still to come
And may you trust in generations past and those yet to be.
Rabbi Stacie Fine, after Talmud B'rachot
Song:
Hiney Matov or He-vey-nu Shalom A-ley-chem (or both!)
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