The Murray Blackman Memorial Weekend held annually at Temple Sinai in honor of its previous rabbi emeritus of blessed memory gets underway tonight with scholar-in-residence Rabbi Sheldon Zimmerman.
Zimmerman is a past president of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, the rabbinic arm of the Union for Reform Judaism (the URJ, formerly the United American Hebrew Congregations, or UAHC) and a past president of the Hebrew Union College- Jewish Institute of Religion, the URJ’s major seminary. He is a longtime leader of both the URJ and the CCAR and was chosen to speak on a number of topics throughout the weekend. Zimmerman has chosen the provocative title “Torah! Torah! Torah!” as the theme for the entire weekend.
Beginning tonight Zimmerman will be working with Rabbi Ed Paul Cohn in coordination of the theme. The regular Shabbat evening worship services that begin at 6:15 p.m. will feature Zimmerman’s opening lecture “Coffee or Kindness? The Search for Social Texture in Our Lives.”
Tomorrow’s lecture is titled “What is the Most Important Verse in the Torah?” and will occur during the worship services that begin at 10:15 a.m. A Kiddush luncheon will follow the talk.
Later in the day Zimmerman will be welcomed to the home of Joan and Julian Feibelman where he will deliver his next talk titled “The Two Happiest Days in Judaism – What are they? A Taste of Talmud” at 6:30 p.m. Guests were invited to have notified the synagogue of their arrival with RSVPs.
Finally, on Sunday, November 24, at 9:00 am, Zimmerman will have an interactive session with Temple Sinai Religious School members. The title of his final lecture will be “Law or Love? What Are We All About?”
