Prepare Spiritually for Shavuot with Yiscah Smith - Thursday Evening at Beit Tikvah
2024-06-06 19:30 - 21:30 (America/New_York)
Prepare Spiritually for Shavuot with Yiscah Smith:
Teachings & Meditations from the Piaseczner Rebbe
Join co-sponsors East Bank Havurah, Congregation Beit Tikvah, and Chevrei Tzedek Congregation in welcoming Yiscah Smith as our scholar-in-residence to help us prepare for Shavuot.
Yiscah Smith is a thought leader, spiritual activist, and agent of change who addresses the spiritual practice of encountering the Divine spark within, the foundation of authentic living. Yiscah teaches Jewish contemplative practice and spiritual texts at the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies and at Applied Jewish Spirituality in Israel as well as through the Institute for Jewish Spirituality in the U.S.. Yiscah has earned a reputation as a sought-after inspiring international public speaker and a teacher of the Piaseczner Rebbe’s works.

The following free events are included in this program:

Thursday evening, June 6th, 7:30 pm, at Congregation Beit Tikvah
(In person and on Zoom)
‘Encountering the Divine Through Emotional Intelligence’
(Roland Park Community Center, 5802 Roland Ave, Baltimore, MD 21210)

Saturday afternoon, June 8th, 12:00 noon (approximately), at Chevrei Tzedek Congregation
(In person only)
‘The Emotive Aspects of Talmud Torah’
(Edward A. Myerberg Center, 3101 Fallstaff Rd, Baltimore, MD 21209)

Saturday evening, June 8th, 8:00 pm, at Congregation Beit Tikvah
(In person and on Zoom)
‘The Eternal’s Gift of Torah’
(Roland Park Community Center, 5802 Roland Ave, Baltimore, MD 21210)

Click here for more information about the program.

Registration is required in order to attend one or more of these free events, either in person or via Zoom.
REGISTRATION IS CLOSED. NO WALK-INS.

Prepare Spiritually for Shavuot with Yiscah Smith - Saturday Afternoon at Chevrei Tzedek Congregation
2024-06-08 12:00 - 15:00

Prepare Spiritually for Shavuot with Yiscah Smith - Saturday Evening at Beit Tikvah
2024-06-08 20:00 - 22:00

Beit Tikvah Community Meeting
2024-06-23 16:30 - 18:00
4:30 pm Beit Tikvah Community Meeting
Join us at the Roland Park Community Center on Sunday, June 23 at 4:30 pm for a conversation about future plans at Beit Tikvah.
Please RSVP to info@beittikvah.org by 12:00 Noon on Sunday, June 23rd to let us know if you wish to attend the meeting in person or on Zoom.

Rabbi-Led Shabbat Service
2024-06-29 10:00 - 13:00
10:00 am Rabbi-Led Shabbat Service
To Bigotry, No Sanction: Jewish Celebration of American Independence
Join Rabbi Doug Heifetz for this Shabbat morning service and a study session in the spirit of the 4th of July. We will read some of the writings of the earliest Jewish Americans in the era of independence. Their writings show a conviction and belief in our country and our government that Jews in other lands did not echo about their own countries of residence. Why did the early American Jews show such pride and conviction? What was special to them? Is it still special to us? What will help us to preserve and renew their convictions in our own lives?

Please bring a dairy, vegan, or vegetarian dish to share for the Community Kiddush/lunch.
Please RSVP to info@beittikvah.org.

Beit Tikvah Book Club
2024-07-08 19:00 - 21:00
7:00 pm on Zoom – Beit Tikvah Book Club
Join us at our next Book Club meeting led by Rabbi Doug Heifetz. The book is To the End of the Earth: A History of the Crypto-Jews of New Mexico, by Stanley Hordes. Here’s a description:
In 1981, while working as New Mexico State Historian, Stanley M. Hordes began to hear stories of Hispanos who lit candles on Friday night and abstained from eating pork. Puzzling over the matter, Hordes realized that these practices might very well have been passed down through the centuries from early crypto-Jewish settlers in New Spain. After extensive research and hundreds of interviews, Hordes concluded that there was, in New Mexico and the Southwest, a Sephardic legacy derived from the converso community of Spanish Jews.
In To the End of the Earth, Hordes explores the remarkable story of crypto-Jews and the tenuous preservation of Jewish rituals and traditions in Mexico and New Mexico over the past five hundred years. He follows the crypto-Jews from their Jewish origins in medieval Spain and Portugal to their efforts to escape persecution by migrating to the New World and settling in the far reaches of the northern Mexican frontier.
If you’d like to join us for this event, please contact us at info@beittikvah.org for more information and the Zoom link.

Potluck Dinner & Congregant-Led Service
2024-07-12 18:30 - 21:00
6:30 pm Potluck Dinner & Congregant-Led Service
Bring a friend to tonight’s service or maybe make new friends here. We’ll have a potluck dinner at 6:30 pm, followed by a short congregant-led service, then a discussion of this week’s Torah portion, Parshat Chukat.
Please bring a dairy, vegan, or vegetarian dish to share.
July 11 is National Blueberry Muffin Day.
July 12 is National French Fry Day and National Pecan Pie Day.
Let’s include Blueberry Muffins, French Fries and Pecan Pie in our potluck meal!
Please RSVP to info@beittikvah.org.

Rabbi-Led Shabbat Service
2024-07-20 10:00 - 13:00
10:00 am Rabbi Doug Heifetz Leads Shabbat Service
If Our Animals Could Talk
This week’s Torah portion, Parshat Balak, includes the only example in the Torah of an animal who speaks in human language. For a brief moment, a donkey speaks to the prophet Balaam. What does a speaking animal add to the story? What about for us? If our animals could speak, what would they have to say? What would it add to our stories?
Please bring a dairy, vegan, or vegetarian dish to share for the Community Kiddush/lunch.
Please RSVP to info@beittikvah.org.

Rabbi-Led Shabbat Service
2024-08-17 10:00 - 13:00
10:00 am Rabbi Doug Heifetz Leads Shabbat Service
The Cycle of Love, Grief, and Renewal
At this time of year, the Jewish holiday cycle leads us through a very mournful holiday, Tisha B’Av, followed immediately by the Tu B’Av holiday, a festival of romantic love. What are the historic roots of the holidays? More importantly, what do they mean for us? How can we take hope and renew joy through the cycle they represent?

Please bring a dairy, vegan, or vegetarian dish to share for the Community Kiddush/lunch.
Please RSVP to info@beittikvah.org.

Potluck Dinner & Congregant-Led Service
2024-09-06 18:30 - 21:00
6:30 pm Potluck Dinner & Congregant-Led Service
Join us for a Potluck Dinner and then a short service for Parsha Shoftim followed by a discussion of a core tenet of Judaism: Justice, Justice Shall You Pursue.
Torah exhorts us to judge with “righteous judgment.” We mere mortals do not have super-powers, like in the DC or Marvel Universe, but what problems do you tackle to make the world a better place?
Please bring a dairy, vegan, or vegetarian dish to share at the Potluck Dinner.
Please RSVP to info@beittikvah.org.

Beit Tikvah Book Club
2024-09-16 20:00 - 22:00
8:00 pm on Zoom – Beit Tikvah Book Club
Join Rabbi Doug Heifetz and others at the next Book Club meeting. The book we will discuss is Michael Chabon’s The Yiddish Policeman’s Union. Here’s the description:

For sixty years Jewish refugees and their descendants have prospered in the Federal District of Sitka, a “temporary” safe haven created in the wake of the Holocaust and the shocking 1948 collapse of the fledgling state of Israel. The Jews of the Sitka District have created their own little world in the Alaskan panhandle, a vibrant and complex frontier city that moves to the music of Yiddish. But now the District is set to revert to Alaskan control, and their dream is coming to an end.
Homicide detective Meyer Landsman of the District Police has enough problems without worrying about the upcoming Reversion. His life is a shambles, his marriage a wreck, his career a disaster. And in the cheap hotel where Landsman has washed up, someone has just committed a murder—right under his nose. When he begins to investigate the killing of his neighbor, a former chess prodigy, word comes down from on high that the case is to be dropped immediately, and Landsman finds himself contending with all the powerful forces of faith, obsession, evil, and salvation that are his heritage.
At once a gripping whodunit, a love story, and an exploration of the mysteries of exile and redemption, The Yiddish Policemen’s Union is a novel only Michael Chabon could have written.

RSVP to info@beittikvah.org to get the Zoom link.

Erev Rosh Hashanah
2024-10-02 19:00 - 21:00
7:00 pm Erev Rosh Hashanah Service
Please join us for an Apples & Honey Dessert Reception following the service.

Please send your Reservation Form to beittikvahoffice@gmail.com by Monday, September 30, 2024.
For forms and more information, see our High Holy Days 2024 webpage.

Rosh Hashanah 1st Day
2024-10-03 10:00 - 14:30
Rosh Hashanah 1st Day
10:00 am Rosh Hashanah Morning Service
12:30 pm Kiddush at Beit Tikvah
1:00 pm At Lake Roland:

Potluck Lunch – Vegan/vegetarian/dairy dishes only. (Please list ingredients)
Tashlich & Art Project – Tashlich involves the casting of bread or stones into a natural body of water in a participatory, communal ceremony on the Rosh Hashanah holiday. Through this act, each participant distances herself or himself from past sins and harmful patterns, for the sake of a fresh start to the new year. This year for Tashlich we will create individual eco-friendly art that we can both cast into the water as part of the communal gathering, and also bring home. Our creative process will help us step boldly into the new year, with more inspiration and fewer obstacles from the past.

Please send your Reservation Form to beittikvahoffice@gmail.com by Monday, September 30, 2024.
For forms and more information, see our High Holy Days 2024 webpage.

Rosh Hashanah 2nd Day
2024-10-04 12:00 - 14:00
Rosh Hashanah 2nd Day
12:00 pm noon – Discussion at The Charmery, 6807 York Road, Baltimore, MD 21212:

Reflections on the ‘Al Het’ Prayer – Wrongs and rights on a personal level and societal level.

Please RSVP separately for this event to beittikvahoffice@gmail.com by Monday, September 30, 2024.
For more information, see our High Holy Days 2024 webpage.

Yom Kippur - Kol Nidre
2024-10-11 18:00 - 20:30
Yom Kippur – Kol Nidre
6:00 pm Observance of Yom Kippur Begins

Individual lighting of memorial candles in the reception area.
Meditative music and private reflection in the sanctuary.

6:30 pm Kol Nidre Service

Please be in the sanctuary by 6:25 pm. Doors then will be closed and will reopen at the conclusion of the Kol Nidre prayer.

Please send your Reservation Form to beittikvahoffice@gmail.com by Monday, September 30, 2024.
For forms and more information, see our High Holy Days 2024 webpage.

Yom Kippur
2024-10-12 10:00 - 20:00
Yom Kippur
10:00 am – Morning Service
12:00 pm – Yizkor (Memorial) Service
2:00 pm – Discussion period
4:45 pm – Afternoon Service and Ne’ilah (Closing) Service (Includes personal prayer time at the Ark)
6:45 pm – Final sounding of the shofar
Break-the-Fast Meal following conclusion of services (Reservations required)

Please send your Reservation Form to beittikvahoffice@gmail.com by Monday, September 30, 2024.
For forms and more information, see our High Holy Days 2024 webpage.

Sukkot Celebration - "Pizza in the Hut"
2024-10-18 18:30 - 20:30
6:30 pm Sukkot Celebration – “Pizza in the Hut”
Join us for dinner in our Sukkah at the Roland Park Community Center, followed by a congregant-led short service in celebrating Sukkot, the biblically mandated Harvest Festival. Our ancestors, far more in tune with the seasons, learned to leverage Nature’s gifts. Shaking the lulav and etrog will be part of the celebration.
Pizza will be served in our “hut”! Please bring a dairy, vegan or vegetarian side dish or dessert to share.
Please RSVP to info@beittikvah.org (so we know how much pizza to order).

Beit Tikvah Annual Meeting
2024-10-27 17:00 - 19:00
5:00 pm Beit Tikvah Annual Meeting
Please join us for our annual meeting and pizza.
Get an update on our current status, next steps, and the future.
Please RSVP to info@beittikvah.org.

Rabbi-Led Shabbat Service
2024-11-09 10:00 - 13:00
10:00 am Rabbi-Led Shabbat Service
Rabbi Doug Heifetz leads this Shabbat morning service, Kiddush, and discussion.
Was Sarah a Priestess?
In our weekly Torah portion, Lech Lecha, we focus on the stories of Abraham and Sarah. While the Torah tells us a great deal about Sarah’s role in Abraham’s clan, it tells us little about her background. We will explore the scholarly theory that she was, in fact, a pagan priestess. What were her influences? What sort of power did she wield? How can she inspire us to draw strength and inspiration from unlikely sources?

Please bring a dairy, vegan, or vegetarian dish to share for the Community Kiddush/lunch.
Please RSVP to info@beittikvah.org.

Beit Tikvah Virtual Book Club
2024-11-18 19:00 - 21:00
7:00 pm on Zoom – Beit Tikvah Virtual Book Club
Join Rabbi Doug Heifetz and other book mavens at the next Virtual Book Club meeting. The book we will discuss is Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor by Yossi Klein Halevi. Here’s the description:

Attempting to break the agonizing impasse between Israelis and Palestinians, Yossi Klein Halevi, the Israeli commentator and award-winning author of Like Dreamers, directly addresses his Palestinian neighbors in this taut and provocative book, empathizing with Palestinian suffering and longing for reconciliation as he explores how the conflict looks through Israeli eyes.
Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor is one Israeli’s powerful attempt to reach beyond the wall that separates Israelis and Palestinians and into the hearts of “the enemy.” In a series of letters, Yossi Klein Halevi explains what motivated him to leave his native New York in his twenties and move to Israel to participate in the drama of the renewal of a Jewish homeland, which he is committed to see succeed as a morally responsible, democratic state in the Middle East.
This is the first attempt by an Israeli author to directly address his Palestinian neighbors and describe how the conflict appears through Israeli eyes. Halevi untangles the ideological and emotional knot that has defined the conflict for nearly a century. In lyrical, evocative language, he unravels the complex strands of faith, pride, anger and anguish he feels as a Jew living in Israel, using history and personal experience as his guide.
Halevi’s letters speak not only to his Palestinian neighbor, but to all concerned global citizens, helping us understand the painful choices confronting Israelis and Palestinians that will ultimately help determine the fate of the region.

RSVP to info@beittikvah.org to get the Zoom link for the discussion!

Potluck Dinner & Congregant-Led Service
2024-11-22 18:30 - 20:30
6:30 pm Potluck Dinner & Congregant-Led Service
Join us for a potluck dinner, congregant-led service, and discussion.
Why Jerusalem?
The first references to Jerusalem in Torah are when Abraham buys a grave for Sarah in this week’s Parasha — Chayei Sarah. What deal did Abraham make about Jerusalem? Who broke the deal? What has happened since then? Can we make a new deal? If so, to what end?
Please bring a dairy, vegan, or vegetarian dish to share at the potluck dinner.
Please RSVP to info@beittikvah.org.

Rabbi-Led Shabbat Service
2024-12-14 10:00 - 13:00
10:00 am Rabbi-Led Shabbat Service
Rabbi Doug Heifetz will lead this Shabbat morning service, Kiddush, and discussion.
We Read a Scroll on Purim. Why Not on Chanukah?
The Chanukah holiday is just around the corner. Did you know that Jewish communities used to publicly read a scroll about Chanukah, similar to the Megillah that Jewish communities read on Purim? Let’s learn more about this ancient text, The Scroll of Antiochus. If we were to create a Chanukah scroll to be read today, what would it say? What are the key narrative details of the holiday and its meaning for us now?

Please bring a dairy, vegan, or vegetarian dish to share for the Community Kiddush/lunch.
Please RSVP to info@beittikvah.org.

Chanukah Party!
2024-12-27 18:30 - 21:00
6:30 pm Chanukah Party!
Come join us for a Chanukah party! We’ll have an evening of singing, menorah lighting, food, and fun. Bring your Chanukiah/menorah and candles for lighting, food for sharing, and dreidels for spinning.
Please RSVP to info@beittikvah.org.

Potluck Dinner & Congregant-Led Service
2025-01-03 18:30 - 20:30
6:30 pm Potluck Dinner & Congregant-Led Service
Join us for a potluck dinner, congregant-led service, and discussion.
The Art of Reconciliation
Joseph welcomes the brothers who sold him into slavery, an act of reconciliation far beyond what many of us can conceive in our own lives. Is the lesson really calling us to mend an awesome rift without an act of reciprocity? This, from a God with a long memory of slights and failures? At the start of this new year, we look at how our lives may improve when there is a path to reconnection.
Please bring a dairy, vegan, or vegetarian dish to share at the potluck dinner.
Please RSVP to info@beittikvah.org.

Beit Tikvah Virtual Book Club
2025-01-13 19:00 - 20:00
7:00 pm on Zoom – Beit Tikvah Virtual Book Club
Join Rabbi Doug Heifetz and other book mavens at the next Virtual Book Club meeting. The book we will discuss is The Wolf Hunt by Ayelet Gundar-Goshen. Here’s the description:
Lilach has it all: a beautiful home in the heart of Silicon Valley, a successful husband and stable marriage, and a teenage son, Adam, with whom she has always felt a particular closeness. Israeli immigrants, the family has now lived in the U.S. long enough that they consider it home. But after a brutal attack on a local synagogue shakes their sense of safety, Adam enrolls in a self-defense class taught by a former Israeli Special Forces officer. There, for the first time, he finds a sense of confidence and belonging.
Then, tragedy strikes again when an African American boy dies at a house party, apparently from a drug overdose. Though he was a high school classmate, Adam claims not to know him. Yet rumors begin to circulate that the death was not accidental, and that Adam and his new friends had a history with Jamal. As more details surface and racial tensions in the community are ignited, Lilach begins to question everything she thought she knew about her son. Could her worst fears be possible? Could her quiet, reclusive child have had something to do with Jamal’s death?
Praised for “instilling emotional depth into a thriller plot” (New York Times Book Review on Waking Lions), Ayelet Gundar-Goshen once again brings together taut, page-turning suspense, superb writing, and razor-sharp insight into the fault lines of race, identity, and privilege and the dark secrets we hide from those we love most.
Zoom link: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/84890769767

Shabbat Service for Parshat Shemot led by Rabbi Doug
2025-01-18 10:00 - 12:00
10 AM service and Discussion on “Fear and it’s management”, kiddush ( dairy/ vegetarian/ vegan)
In this week’s Torah portion, we read the opening chapters of the Book of Exodus. We will study and discuss why the Egyptians feared the Israelites in Egypt, and how their fear led to an ever-widening persecution that backfired on the Egyptians themselves. How does fear lead to injustice nowadays? How can we counter it?
RSVP : Treasurer@beittikvah.org

Rabbi Led Shabbat Service
2025-02-01 10:00 - 13:00
10 AM Rabbi Douglas Heifetz Led-Service, 11:15 AM Kiddush (dairy, vegetarian or vegan), 12 PM Discussion “Progress Report: ‘He’s Got Potential’ How Does Moses’ Leadership Grow After a Shaky Start?”
This week we read the weekly Torah portion of Bo, in the middle of the Exodus narrative. Over time, we see Moses grow as a towering figure of leadership, but he doesn’t start off that way. What’s holding him back at first? Why does he eventually step up? How does he overcome his jitters (and other major challenges)? What sorts of support does he receive? How can his story inspire us in our journey, including difficult steps in our lives and helping others face their challenges?
RSVP : Treasurer@beittikvah.org

Congregant Led Service and Pot-Luck
2025-02-14 18:30 - 21:00
6:30 PM Pot-Luck ( dairy/ vegetarian/ vegan) and 7:30 PM Congregant Led Service focusing on Reproductive Shabbat
This Valentine’s Day let’s make sure no one is penalized for who they love due to lack of bodily autonomy.
We also review the intersection of Tu B’Shvat and Reproductive Freedom.
RSVP : Treasurer@beittikvah.org

Rabbi Led Service
2025-03-01 10:00 - 13:00
10 AM Rabbi Douglas Heifetz Led-Service, 11:15 AM Community Kiddush – please bring a healthy nosh to share (dairy, vegetarian or vegan), 12 PM Discussion “Fantastic Creatures & Where to Find Them (on the Ark of the Tablets, that is)”
Our weekly Torah portion, Terumah, focuses on the details of the mishkan (portable shrine) which our Israelite ancestors were to construct. At the center of the mishkan was the Ark containing the tablets of law. On the cover of the Ark stood statues of two Cherubim, mythical winged creatures, facing each other. God would speak to the Israelites from between the Cherubim. What was the origin of these two creatures, and why were they so central for Israel and humanity? In contrast with the Cherubim, who faced each other, the Roman god Janus had two faces that faced away from each other. What’s the connection between the Israelite Cherubim and the Roman god, if any? What lessons do all of these mythological beings hold for us today?
RSVP : Treasurer@beittikvah.org

Purim celebration and Pot-Luck
2025-03-15 18:30 - 21:00
6:30 pm Community Potluck – please bring a healthy nosh to share (dairy, vegetarian or vegan), Megillah Reading, and Purim celebration with a focus on Esther – the Power of One Speaking Truth to Power
https://www.meetup.com/congregation-beit-tikvah/events/306528223/
Please RSVP to treasurer@beittikvah.org
