Mah Nishtanah haLaylah haZeh, “What’s different about this night?”

• On this night, we all participate in setting the table.
This year, rather than hire a caterer and worry about pricing some of us out of our communal celebration, our Congregational Seder will be a coordinated potluck! There are 4 ways that you can participate:

1. Cook one of the dinner or dessert dishes that we will enjoy together. Consult the website for the list of foods you can choose to bring, and please use the recipe provided!
2. Can’t cook, or don’t have time? call Rabbi at the Shir Tikvah office to talk about what you can do.
3. BYOB: everyone will bring their own wine or grape juice.
4. Help to set up and clean up our room.

• On all other nights, we eat all kinds of food. On this night, we enjoy vegetarian Sephardi Jewish cuisine we’ve prepared ourselves. Just wait until you see these recipes…

• On all nights, all ages are welcome; on this night, we’re way prepared for young children.
Michael Martin will welcome all, including families with young children, who want to come early to Bridgeport at 5.30pm for a pre-Pesakh snack and playtime. Parents are invited to join the set up party in progress! There will be a video during the Seder for little ones.

• On this night, there is no charge. Tzedakah: $3 per person for Mazon.
The economic situation weighs heavily upon us all; this year we’ll all share the cost together, by offering the gift of our hearts and hands, in making the food or fetching it, sharing the Seder and the meal, and setting and cleaning up the room. We will collect our customary Pesakh tzedakah for Mazon (a Jewish hunger organization.)

Haggadah: A Different Night, by Noam Zion and David Dishon. We have a few for sale at $7 each until they run out. Contact Rachel to buy yours or get it at: http://www.haggadahsrus.com/PesachHomeCompact.htm

Check out the Pesakh recipes by clicking here (link), then RSVP and let us know what you’ll bring: admin@shir-tikvah.net or call the Shir Tikvah office at 503.473.8227.

How shall we best celebrate a simkha, or express our appreciation for someone else’s graceful presence in our lives? How mark our sense of time since a loved one’s passing, or take a meaningful stand for our values?

Jewish tradition responds with one word: tzedakah, “justice”, the Jewish concept for a donation to a good cause. It is true that tzedakah means helping after an earthquake, or supporting micro-loans to ease poverty. But tzedakah is also about spreading the joy and gratitude we experience in our everyday lives. The best tzedakah translates our feelings into healing moments that resonate in the world.

 In shuls in our own day, our joy blesses others through our Tribute Funds:
• To pay tribute to a young girl’s work to be called to the Torah as a bat mitzvah, one might send tzedakah to Shir Tikvah’s Torah fund.
• To commemorate a loved one’s yahrzeit (anniversary of a death), tzedakah could be donated to any one of Shir Tikvah’s funds that best expresses that person’s life and values: Life Long Learning, Children’s Activities, Prayer Book, Festival celebrations, Music, Judaica…
• To help your fellow Jews quietly and effectively, send tzedakah to the Rabbi’s Discretionary Fund. Rabbi administers that fund herself for the benefit of those who need help among our congregational family and beyond.
• To express your commitment to building a strong community, you can honor a simkha or commemorate a loved one by sending tzedakah to the Kiruv Fund, which supplements dues for those who are temporarily unable to pay, or the Cemetery fund, to help us do the mitzvah of caring for those who can no longer care for themselves.

In Jewish tradition, tzedakah tatzil mimavet, “tzedakah saves from death” (Proverbs 10.2). The giving of tzedakah will not keep someone from dying, no; but the act of tzedakah given in someone’s honor causes that person’s existence to make a difference for good in the world. Tzedakah, then, saves from the death which is the absence of the creation of good, of caring, and of justice.

Our community is as good, caring and just as the support each of us gives it. Please consider Shir Tikvah’s Tribute Funds when you want to give tzedakah.

Ten strong things were created in this world –
a mountain is strong, but iron cuts through it.
Iron is strong, but fire causes it to bubble.
Fire is strong, but water extinguishes it.
Water is strong, but clouds contain it.
Clouds are strong, but the wind (ruakh) scatters them.
Breath (ruakh) is strong, but the body holds it in.
The body is strong, but fear breaks it.
Fear is strong, but wine dissipates its effects.
Wine is strong, but sleep overcomes its power.
Death is harder than any of them.
But tzedakah saves from death, as it is written:
“Tzedakah saves from death”.                                                         Babylonian Talmud, Bava Batra 10a

Over 100 Shir Tikvah-ites and guests of all ages filled our sanctuary for the celebration of Purim! Glen Michtom was our fearless Purimshpiel leader, and Leora Troper and Philippa Kaplan planned, prepared, and supervised games, crafts, singing, and a fantastic potluck. Mazal Tov to all the 5770 Hamantaschen bake-off contest winners - the biggest was REALLY big, the weirdest was REALLY weird! The adult ADLOYADA (”until you don’t know”) was just as amazing. A special shout out to Julie Poust, the Queen Bee who directed the kitchen operations (and so much more), and to our entire HEVRA, who help with everything (and did a great battle scene between Persians and Jews in the Shpiel)!

Hag Purim Sameakh - until next year……

You are invited to attend an adults-only Purim megillah reading at Bridgeport on Shabbat evening February 27 beginning at 7.30pm. Please bring your favorite alcohol and/or cheese, crackers, or other favorite nosh (vegetarian please!). Also bring your own copy of the Book of Esther if you have it (we will provide whatever photocopies we have). Please RSVP to rabbi@shir-tikvah.net.

PURIM IS COMING! There are four mitzvot associated with Purim: hearing the reading of the Megillah, celebrating raucously, matanot l’evyonim, and mishloakh manot. You can fulfill all four with us on Shabbat afternoon, February 27 2010, 4.30-7.30 pm at Bridgeport UCC.

At Shir Tikvah we observe a fifth mitzvah on Purim, the mitzvah of the ANNUAL HAMANTASCHEN CONTEST. Once again this year we invite you to bake your own 3-sided Purim cookies (also known as hamantaschen) and bring them for the contest; they will be displayed at the Shabbaton and admired, and after we judge them we will eat them (the edible ones!).

Contest rules:
1. you have to bake them yourself; no Costco hamantaschen!
2. bring them downstairs for display when you arrive to be judged
3. the hiring of former or current Presidential campaign aides to lobby the judges is not allowed!
4. the winners will be announced after the Purimshpiel

Prizes will include:
1. MOST UNUSUAL FILLING, 2. BEST ISOSCELES SHAPE, 3. BEST RIGHT ANGLE TRIANGLE SHAPE 4. BEST NON-TRIANGULAR, 5. BIGGEST, 6. MOST TRADITIONALLY OLD-FASHIONED, 7. SMALLEST, 8. MOST PRONOUNCED PERSIAN INFLUENCE, and 9. MOST DR. SEUSS-LIKE.