Or Ami as an Ever-Expanding Group of Centers
- pjkip23
- Nov 17, 2011
- 2 min read
The traditional answer (in Talmud Bava Metzia 28b) is a synagogue is a (house of study), a (house of assembly), and a (house of prayer). Many synagogues today add a fourth, that it should also be a (house of social justice).
At Congregation Or Ami, we see our synagogue as a series of intersecting circles, a community of communities. Where the Talmud speaks about three (houses), we tend to talk about an ever-expanding group of Centers. Like the Kabbalistic sefirot which are interrelated, each Center addresses meta-concerns of overlapping communities within Or Ami and our surrounding Valleys.
At present, we have two formalized Centers:
our Or Ami Center for Jewish Parenting, which helps us - parents, teachers and other adults – to discover healthy ways to raise ethical, Jewishly connected young people and guides us as we become “parents” for our aging parents, and
our Or Ami Center for Tikkun Olam, recently inaugurated, which aims to nurture young people who are committed to and skilled at being Jewish social justice activists.
I dream of a third center, an Or Ami Center for Jewish Culture, which would bring Jewishly-relevant arts, music, drama and other media, to Congregation Or Ami to elevate our aesthetic sense of Judaism. While the creation of this third Center for Jewish Culture is still a way off, I invite you to join me this Sunday night (November 20th) from 5:00-7:00 pm at our Mureau Road sanctuary for a fantastic performance:
Actor and Playwright Tom Dugan will perform selected scenes from his critically acclaimed one-man play,
, followed by a question and answer period.
was written and is performed by Mr. Dugan. This one-man play is historical and provides a narrative of Wiesenthal's life as he transforms himself from a victim of the Nazis into the renowned hunter of Nazi war criminals.
has been nominated for three LA Theatre Ovation Awards.
. RSVP by
. To read glowing reviews of the play, Nazi Hunter,
and
. This event is open to adults of all ages. Come join us for an enjoyable evening.
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