Community Shavuot
Annual Community-Wide All Night Shavuot Program - A Kansas City Tradition
Tuesday, June 7, 2010
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The Jewish community will join together for an evening of prayer, study and celebration at the annual all-night Shavuot program on Tuesday, June 7 at Kehilath Israel Synagogue, 10501 Conser. The evening begins at 8:30 p.m. with two Mincha services including a traditional service led by Rabbi Herbert Mandl and a Learner’s service led by Rabbi Scott White. The celebration will include a catered dairy buffet dinner, followed by a keynote featuring noted scholar, author and internationally acclaimed speaker, Rabbi Lawrence A. Hoffman, Professor of Liturgy, Worship and Ritual at Hebrew Union College - Jewish Institute of Religion, New York. His topic: “The Many Paths to Jewish Spirituality.” Yes, there is such a thing as Jewish spirituality, and it takes many forms. This Shavuot, commit yourself to a deeper understanding of Judaism, God, and the cosmos. How have Jews practiced the spiritual? How was this lost to us for so long? And how are we recapturing it as our Jewish project of the twenty-first century?
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Dr. Lawrence A. Hoffman was ordained as a rabbi in 1969, received his Ph.D. in 1973, and has taught since then at the HUC-JIR, New York. In 2003, he was named the first Barbara and Stephen Friedman Professor of Liturgy, Worship and Ritual. He currently teaches classes in liturgy, ritual, theology and synagogue leadership.
For thirty years, he has combined research, classroom teaching, and a passion for the spiritual renewal of North American Judaism; and is known internationally for his lectures to popular audiences.
Rabbi Hoffman has written or edited over thirty books, including My People’s Prayer Book(Jewish Lights Publishing), a ten-volume edition of the Siddur with modern commentaries, which was named a National Jewish Book Award winner for 2007; and the follow-up My People’s Passover Haggadah that appeared in February 2008. His Rethinking Synagogues: A New Vocabulary for Congregational Life (2007) is widely used by congregations of all denominations engaged in transformational synagogue change; and his Art of Public Prayer (Skylight Paths, 1999) by synagogues of all sorts as a guide to liturgical renewal.
His articles, both popular and scholarly, have appeared in eight languages and four continents, and include contributions to various encyclopedias and journals, including such places as The Macmillan Encyclopedia of Religion, The Oxford Dictionary of Religion, and The Encyclopedia of Judaism. He syndicates a regular column which appears, among other places, in The Jewish Week, and The Jewish Times and The Philadelphia Jewish Exponent.
In 1990, Dr. Hoffman was selected by the United States Navy as a member of a three-person design team, charged with developing a continuing education course on worship for Navy chaplains. In 1994, he co-founded "Synagogue 2000" (now Synagogue 3000), a trans-denominational project to envision and implement the ideal synagogue "as moral and spiritual center" for the 21st century. He is a past-president of the North American Academy of Liturgy, the professional and academic organization for liturgists, and in January 2004, received that organization’s annual Berakhah Award, for outstanding lifetime contributions to his field.
A panel discussion moderated by Rabbi Hoffman will follow the keynote and includes Rabbis Mark Levin, Daniel Rockoff and Robert Tobin. Informal study sessions will be offered all night with sessions led by: Rabbi Hoffman, Rabbi Ben-Zion Friedman, Rabbi Herbert Mandl, Rav/Hazzan Jeffrey Shron, and Rabbi Elchanan Schulgasser - Kansas City Kollel. A sunrise service and breakfast will conclude this holiday celebration. Stay for a few hours or remain until dawn and engage in ruach and stimulating study opportunities. Snacks and coffee will be served.
Special youth programs facilitated by our area’s informal youth educators will be offered throughout the night including informal study, sports and games. Permission forms for all students are required.
Shavuot comes fifty days after the first day of Pesach, after the counting of the Omer has been completed and celebrates God’s giving of the Torah to the Jewish people at Mt. Sinai. Learning is an integral part of Judaism and therefore, it is befitting for the community to come together at this time to study. Shavuot also celebrates the harvest season. It is a custom to read the Book of Ruth, the story of a woman who voluntarily converts to Judaism as well as to stay up on the first night of Shavuot to study Torah and then to say the morning prayers at sunrise. The Kansas City Jewish Community has celebrated this Shavuot tradition for over 30 years.
A lavish and delicious catered dairy buffet dinner featuring a favorite selection of Shavout delicacies including blintzes and cheesecake will be served at 9:30 p.m. The cost is $14.00 per adult and $10 per student (age 21 and under). Mandatory advance reservations are required by Wednesday, June 1 and should be sent (make checks payable to Rabbinical Association) to Rabbinical Association, 5801 W. 115, Suite 113, Overland Park, KS 66211. There will be an additional cost for reservations received after June 1. There is no charge to the community to attend the study programs only, which begin at 10:30.
This program is sponsored by The Rabbinical Association of Greater KC and area congregations and funded by the Frank Morgan Fund and Goldie Chalet Fund of Kehilath Israel Synagogue.
For additional information or if planning to attend the study program only, contact Annette Fish, Administrator/Program Director for the Rabbinical Association,afprogram@aol.comor 913-327-4622 or visit www.kcrabbis.org.
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