As we draw near to the Holiday of Shavuot, the time of the giving of the Torah, we are pleased to welcome a number of guest students and teachers of Torah, who will be sharing some of their own teachings with our community during their visit to our community.

On Shavuot (June 3-5), our community will welcome Victoria Sutton, a 4th year student at Yeshivat Maharat, who will be leading a number of sessions for both adults and teens at the Community-Wide Tikkun Leil Shavuot. Victoria will also be sharing a Dvar Torah and lead an additional text-study with our CBI Family on the second day of Shavuot. A graduate of Barnard College, with a BA in Biological Sciences, she also holds a Grand Diploma in Pastry Arts from the French Culinary Institute in Manhattan. She is currently the rabbinic fellow for synagogue initiatives at the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America, and is completing her second year as the intern for synagogue education at Ohav Sholom, a Modern Orthodox synagogue in Merrick, NY. She will be visiting our community with her husband Adam Brelow.

Tikkun Leil Shavuot @JCC

First session for adults 10:40-11:40 pm
Topic: “Do You Believe in Magic: Biblical and Rabbinic Understandings of Magic”

Second Session for youth 1:00 am – 2:00 am
Topic: Mythbusters: Jews and Tattoos

Third Session for adults 3:20-4:20 am
Topic: Staying up All Night – Kohen Gadol to King David

Second Day Shavuot @CBI

Thursday, June 5, 7:00 p.m.
Topic: Why ask Why – The Tradition of Taamei Hamitzvot

On Shabbat Behaalotchah (June 6-7), we will welcome Abe Schacter-Gampel, a 1st year student at YCT Rabbinical School. Abe has visited CBI on several other occasions in the past as a Kevah Teaching Fellow and was deeply taken by our community’s welcoming spirit and love of Torah. This summer, he will serve as a community educator at the Genesis program at Brandeis University. He will be offering a class on Shabbat afternoon as well as on Tuesday night.

Shabbat Behaalotcha, June 7, 7:00 p.m.
Topic: What did Bnei Yisrael hear at Mt. Sinai?

Tuesday night, June 10, 8:00 p.m.
Topic: Ashrei – Understanding Psalm 145 and Its Literary Structure

On Shabbat Chukat (June 27-28), we will welcome R. Michael Hattin as our Shabbat Shalem Scholar-in-Residence. R. Hattin is a master teacher of Tanakh at the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem and serves as the Director of the Beit Midrash for the Pardes Center for Jewish Educators. R. Hattin is the author of “Passages: Text and Transformation in the Parasha”, published by Urim Publications in 2012 and the forthcoming “Joshua: The Challenge of the Promised Land” to be published by Koren Publishers in 2014. He has served as scholar-in-residence in many communities in North America and Europe and lives in Alon Shevut with his Rivka and their five children. A schedule of topics will be included in forthcoming Summer edition of Chailights.

Topics:
“Seasons of the Soul” * “Falling-Water” * “Excavating the Temple Ideal”

Finally, on Shabbat Pinchas (July 11-12), we will welcome back R. Aaron Leibowitz. During his childhood as the “Rabbi’s Son” in Beth Israel, Aaron Leibowitz would have sworn the one thing he would never be was a Rabbi. Today he is not only a Rabbi, but trains and nurtures new Rabbis as the founder and head of “Sulam Yaakov Threshold”, a leadership training program coupled with a co-working space and accelerator for entrepreneurship in Jewish Education. He is currently running an alternative community based Kashrut initiative which has been featured in Israeli and international press, and he is the secretary general of the Yerushalmim party in city council which he is slated to represent as a Jerusalem City Councilman in 2016. Rabbi Aaron lives in Nachlaot with his wife, Miriam, and their five children, who will be joining him on this visit. A schedule of topics will be included in forthcoming Summer edition of Chailights.

We hope that each of us will take as many opportunities as possible to join these students and teachers of Torah, as we embark anew on the journey to Sinai and from Sinai.