The Charlotte Jewish News - August 2015 - Page 6
Annual Wildacres Retreat Over Labor
Day Weekend
Larry Horowitz, CLU, ChFC
Financial
5950 Fairview Road, Suite 608
Charlotte, NC 28210
(704) 556-9982, Fax (704) 369-2918
WWW. L2financial. com
Helping in the CREATION, PRESERVATION &
DISTRIBUTION of your Estate
Securities and Investment Advisory Services
offered through H. Beck, Inc.
Member FINRA, SIPC.
H. Beck, Inc. and U Financial are not affiliated.
Your Connection To The
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Group
REAITOR"
^oa/ss, Jtkc€r
Jeremy Ordan Matti Ordan Reider
704.609.9300 704.904.7250
Jeremy.Ordan@AllenTate.com
Matti.Ordan@AlIenTate.com
TheOrdanReiderGroup.com
It is not too early to start plan
ning your Labor Day weekend trip
to Wildaeres for Temple Beth El’s
Annual Retreat. Eaeh year we es-
eape to the mountains, where we
eat, drink, learn, play, pray, and
eat some more.
* Meaningful and engaging
Shabbat and Havdalah with tree
eanopy as our synagogue
* Speeial aetivities for kids,
adults, and families together
* Lingering afternoons ehatting
over a glass of wine gazing at the
Blue Ridge Mountains
* S’mores over the eampfire
with stories and songs
* Lots and lots and lots of eon-
versations, food, and drink
There is always plenty of time
for relaxation, spending time with
family, kibitzing with friends,
making new eonneetions, and ex
ploring the beauty of the moun
tains and the beauty of our
eommunity.
Register early and be part of the
planning.
What and where is Wildaeres?
Nestled atop Pompey’s Knob in
the Blue Ridge Mountains,
Wildaeres is loeated 112 miles
from Shalom Park. Wildaeres was
dedieated by I.D. and Madolyn
Blumenthal to the betterment of
human relations and interfaith di
alogue. It is our tradition at Tem
ple Beth El to gather as a family -
young and old - singles and fam
ilies - Jewish and interfaith -
TEMPLE
BETH EL
friends we’ve known forever and
friends we haven’t yet met - eaeh
Labor Day weekend to eelebrate
eommunity together. We hope
you’ll join us. Visit the Temple
Beth El website at www.temple-
bethel.org and view the Calendar
for registration details. Questions?
Contaet the Temple offiee at 704-
366-1948. ^
Celebrate Charlotte Pride 2015 with
Temple Beth El
Temple Beth El is proud to sup
port our LGBTQ eommunity and
partieipate in the largest Pride
event in the Carolinas.
We invite the entire Jewish
eommunity to join us for two spe
eial Pride events:
- Charlotte Pride Interfaith
Serviee Sunday, August 9, 4 PM
at Caldwell Memorial Presbyte
rian Chureh, 1609 E. Fifth Street,
where we will eelebrate the dig
nity, worth, and value of all peo
ple.
- Shabbat Outdoor Morning
Serviee, Saturday August 15, 9
AM at Charlotte Pride on S. Tyron
Street in Uptown, where we will
eelebrate friendship, inelusion,
eommunity, and Shabbat.
Contaet Temple Beth El at 704-
366-1948 for additional informa
tion. ^
TEMPLE
BETH EL
Out of the Shul, into the World
This summer, the members of
Temple Or Olam have taken some
time to refleet on our eommu-
nity’s purpose; to reeonsider what
our intentions are. Polling the
membership, organizing eommu
nity meetings, brainstorming what
Insurance for Home, Auto, Business and Life,
“My father, Harry, founded Swimmer Insurance Agency over 60 years ago offering
security to the community and helping families through times of trouble. Today, we con
tinue that tradition of service with everything we do. We will be there for every mile
stone, every hardship and every transition your family or business experiences.”
- DAVID SWIMMER
Swimmer
Insurance
Agency
725 Providence Rd
Charlotte. NC 28207
704.333.6694
WWW.swimmerinsurance.com
we want and need was instrumen
tal to that proeess.
The results have been interest
ing.
Members spoke about their
spiritual lives at shul; how impor
tant it was to feel that everyone
walked into serviees earrying true
Shabbat joy into the room, ready
to engage in prayer as only a
hopeful and positively-minded
eommunity ean. But they also
spoke a great deal about the need
to have a eommunal life outside
the shul spaee, in the world.
Mueh attention was given to the
issue of how the eommunity de
fined itself - not by a partieular set
of four walls, and not about its
size.
“It needs to be about what we
do,” one member said. “About
who we are, not where we meet.”
And another, who is married to
a transgender individual said:
“This is the first plaee we’ve gone
where we don’t need to hide who
we are.”
So what did our members
want?
There was a deep attention to
maximizing our tikkun olam ef
forts and minimizing fundraising.
All sorts of potential projeets
emerged, from sup
porting an interfaith
eommunity garden S
projeet that hopes to ^
supply food deserts ^
with organie produee ^
to spending our Pe-
saeh paeking and '
paekaging food for
distressed and hungry
populations world
wide. We talked
about making a deter
mined effort to help with the
maintenanee of our host ehureh
and building and eontributing
birdhouses to a wildlife refuge
one of our members has been in
volved in maintaining.
Edueation also leapt out of the
surveys and group eonversations;
our members want to study, to
learn. Topies ranged from mysti-
eism in Judaism to the building a
model of the Tabemaele and
studying the texts that deseribe
our first, and mobile sanetuary.
Afterlife is not just Christian and
reinearnation is not just Eastern:
What happens when we explore
Jewish views of life after death?
What other ways eould we get
into the world? On Rosh
Hashanah, a walk in a nearby park
will be part of our prayerful eele-
bration of the New Year and the
birth of all ereation. At Sukkot,
we plan a retreat on a lake. Mem
bers will eamp under the stars and
study Torah.
Many of our edueation pro
grams may be taking plaee in peo
ple’s living rooms, outside on the
poreh, and in green spaees and
plaees. We learned that we all
need our Jewish praetiee to extend
itself into our homes, into our
parks, into our real
world.
It’s good to listen
to eaeh other and
learn. Summer was a
good time to do that.
Now, we will begin
our planning for a
new year. While we
will meet in shul, we
will leave it, too, to
go out into the world
- Jewishly. ^
o
o
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