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Virtual Shabbat Box
Your Virtual Shabbat Box holds many ways to celebrate the day. Choose what nurtures you: listen, watch or read. Looking for Shabbat services? Check out Recon Connect for virtual Shabbat services and other live, online programs throughout the week.
April 9-10, 2021
Read: A Prayer for ‘Yom Hashoah’
With Rabbi David Katz’s prayer, we mark Holocaust Remembrance Day (April 8) and remember all who perished in the Shoah. Sourced from Ritualwell
Watch: Unlock the Gates of Prosperity: Key-Shaped Challah
Adva Chattler shares how and why tradition invites us to make a key-shaped challah for the first Shabbat after Passover. Sourced from Ritualwell
Watch: Shiviti Meditation for ‘Rosh Hodesh’
Rosh Hodesh Iyar falls on April 12-13. Celebrate the new month with Batya Diamond’s meditation. Sourced from Ritualwell
Read: Counting the Omer: A Mindfulness Practice
Each of the seven weeks and each of the 49 days has its own spiritual quality. Rabbi Yael Levy offers intentions and suggestion for practices to help focus your attention each week. Sourced from Ritualwell
Watch: Reflections on Freedom: Mordecai Kaplan and Horace Kallen
What is the relationship between freedom, democracy and religion? This question preoccupied these two major Jewish thinkers in the mid-20th century. Rabbi Matthew Kaufman explores the answers they provide, which are newly thought-provoking in our currently overheated political climate. Sourced from Recon Connect Beit Midrash
Listen: Confronting Antisemitism and Racism
Confronting demonstrators at the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Va., and hearing the chants of “the Jews will not replace us,” Rabbi Mordechai Liebling came face-to-face with white supremacy and antisemitism. As a child of Holocaust survivors and a veteran activist, Liebling describes his experiences in Charlottesville: what brought him there and what he learned about hate in America. Sourced from Evolve: Groundbreaking Jewish Conversations
April 2-3, 2021
As Passover concludes this weekend, we invite you to explore our Virtual Passover Box. In addition, we bring you these resources for this Shabbat Pesakh.
Read: For the U.S. Asian Community
Alden Solovy’s poem cries out for justice, this time for people of Asian heritage, among those who are oppressed and victims of hatred. Sourced from Ritualwell
Listen: ‘The Omer Song’
A fun, spirited song to get you in the mood to count the Omer by Juliet I. Spitzer. Sourced from Ritualwell
Watch: Ensuring the Liberation of All People
Rabbi Deborah Waxman, president of Reconstructing Judaism, gives her message for Passover 5781/2021. Sourced from ReconstructingJudaism.org
Read: Allegorical Interpretation of the ‘Song of Songs’
Rabbi Leah Richman teaches about why we read the “Song of Songs” during Passover, and the message of love and hope it continues to offer us. Sourced from ReconstructingJudaism.org
Watch: Go Outside and Pray: Jewish Practices for Connecting with Nature
As spring begins, Rabbi Josh Snyder shares a few stories and practices that give us Jewish language for the overpowering feelings of gratitude, amazement, curiosity and possibility felt by generations as we connect with nature. Sourced from Recon Connect Beit Midrash
These resources were drawn from:
- Evolve: Groundbreaking Jewish Conversations
- Hashivenu: Jewish Teachings on Resilience
- Recon Connect Beit Midrash
- Reset: Providing Jewish activists with accessible spiritual practice and teachings
- Ritualwell
- The Center for Jewish Ethics
Previous Virtual Shabbat Boxes by month:
- March 2021
- February 2021
- January 2021
- December 2020
- November 2020
- October 2020
- September 2020
- August 2020
- July 2020
- June 2020
- May 2020
- April 2020
- March 2020
