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REI - Re-creating, Exploring, and Inventing

09/22/2021 10:35:43 AM

Sep22

Houston didn’t need another reform synagogue.  While there were certainly exigent circumstances that led to its founding, the driving force that birthed CSK into existence was the desire and yearning for deep and personal expression of oneself and one’s community, utilizing Jewish tools. Our commitment to not owning or occupying a single building wasn’t first and foremost a financial decision, it was a spiritual one that insured the notion of portability.  It manifests the idea central to Jewish tradition, that everything changes.  The Jewish stories most commonly told from week to week are not those that revolve around a fixed temple structure in Jerusalem, but instead, the Israelites on the move for 40 years.  The Mishkan, the portable sacred structure the Israelites shlepped through the Sinai was built with this ease of movement in mind. Think REI, but instead of “Recreational Equipment Incorporated,” its, “Re-Creating, Exploring, and Inventing” the ways in which humans express the uniquely divine images in which each of us are created.

In that vein, since 2014, Journey, “The Jewish Discovery Project!”, has sought to reinvent and re-imagine what Jewish supplementary education on Sunday mornings can look, act and feel like.  In the past two years, we shifted from our in-person education at the Xavier Academy to on-line, virtual learning, and now, starting October 3, a new iteration in two significant ways:

  1. Journey will take place in the ground floor classrooms at the ERJCC, from *9:45 am to 12:00 pm (*Note new time frame.) AND
  2. With the Jewish tools of Hebrew, ritual and tradition, history and story, Journey’s new curriculum each week, will seek to awaken our students and their families to a Jewish value of the week. Hospitality, Openness to Learning from all others, Generosity, and Gratitude are the first headliners of the year.  In a day and age when cherished values seem to be unmoored from daily life, we are the ones who can re-root our lives once again.

Additionally, Journey has continued to be made possible by volunteers, whose time, talent and energy have helped make our students feel loved and inspired on their Jewish journey.  IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO CONSIDER VOLUNTEERING AT JOURNEY, EVERY SUNDAY OR JUST WHEN YOU CAN, please contact Rabbi Scott.  Whatever your background and experience is, be they steeped in Jewish knowledge or just enthusiasm for working with kids, you are welcome!  Just email me at Rabbishw@cskhouston.com.  I will be happy to answer any and all of your questions.

Thu, March 28 2024 18 Adar II 5784