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About our Services
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Recognizing that worship is an intensely personal
experience as well as a communal one, Beth Am offers a wide variety
of worship service experiences.
Our Friday night Kabbalat Shabbat (welcoming the Sabbath) service runs about one hour and includes lots of music with guitar and piano, singing, traditional and creative prayers and a short sermon or d'var torah. Twice a month our Kabbalat Shabbat service is held at 6:15 p.m. and twice a month at 8 p.m. Each month, one of our Kabbalat Shabbat services includes Tizmoret, our worship instrumental group. Tizmoret, which includes piano, drums, guitar, bass guitar and oboe, offers joyous and celebratory music which adds to the intensity of the worship experience. Special alternative programs for children are offered during the silent prayer and sermon time at our 6:15 p.m. services. In addition, we offer a weekly "Gates of Prayer" service at 5 p.m. that features a classical Reform worship style with piano music, responsive readings in English and a more formal, contemplative tone. In the summer, Kabbalat services are held outdoors and are primarily lay-led, including the D'var Torah (short sermon).
Saturday morning services are held at 10:30 a.m. in the sanctuary and include congregant participation as Torah readers and prayer leaders, in addition to the Bar or Bat Mitzvah. We also offer a lay-led minyan in the chapel at 10:30AM.
Once per month we offer an Early Riser’s minyan at 8:15AM in our chapel.
This minyan is a more informal worship experience, without a Torah
service, and is intended for those interested in learning the Shabbat
morning service.
We hope that by offering a variety of ways to worship,
everyone who wants to will be able to find a meaningful spiritual
pathway, bringing each person closer to the community and closer
to God. For more details on this month's observance schedule, see
our Congregational Calendar.
If you are a Beth Am member and would like an honor
in a Shabbat service, please contact the Worship Committee at worship@betham.org.
Your comments about services are also most welcome.
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Learn about the Service
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Are you interested in learning more about the prayers in the Shabbat services? Each month a different congregant will write a commentary about a prayer. These commentaries combine some text analysis with the personal views of the congregant who has written it.
People interpret and react to prayer in different ways. We hope that you find these commentaries interesting and enriching and encourage you to use this as a starting point to explore these prayers on your own to find your own meaning. If you have questions, thoughts or would like to write an upcoming commentary, please contact the Worship Committee at worship@betham.org
The Mourner's Kaddish
The two most well- known Jewish prayers, the Sh’ma and the Kaddish, both praise God and bless God’s name. However, while the Sh’ma is biblical in origin, the Kaddish is not. The Kaddish developed gradually over several hundred years. Its origins from the early Rabbinic period are reflected in the language in which it is written: Aramaic, then the common vernacular. While Aramaic is no longer the spoken language of our people, it is still the language of the Kaddish (except for the last sentence, which is in Hebrew).
The Kaddish , with its well known cadence, is usually familiar to even the most secular Jews. However, few understand the meaning of the words they are saying. While the Kaddish is associated with death and mourning, the content of the prayer has no connection with either. Rather than speaking of death, the Kaddish praises God and expresses our hope for life and peace. This powerful prayer recognizes that while mourning is legitimate, death is a part of God’s plan. Therefore we are called to “stand up to life” and praise Adonai whether or not we understand that plan, even in the face of the most profound loss. For liberal Jews today, saying the Kaddish can be deeply meaningful, as it connects us to those who came before us and helps us to create moving rituals around remembrance.
[Read more]
Previous Commentaries:
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