Shabbat

Pilgrim Festivals (Shalosh Regalim)

High Holidays (Yamim Nora' im)

FRESH

Family Services

Family Corner

Shabbat

Kabbalat Shabbat

Our Friday night services are an informal, popular and relaxed segue from the working week into the calm of  Shabbat. As our B’nei Mitzvah students have classes immediately before the service, our Kabbalat Shabbat is attended by many families with children of all ages. Services are often led by the B’nei Mitzvah children themselves or other lay leaders, with rabbinic support. The music forms a lively accompaniment to the prayers with the strumming of guitars and even sometimes a violin. 

Shabbat Morning

Our Shacharit services vary enormously, ranging from vibrant Family services, formal services which often include a simcha and small study based services. The new draft siddur, Iyun Teffilah – Devotion in Prayer, is now used for all our services, giving us scope for variation in our prayer experience every week. This new siddur, together with our new rabbinic team, is adding a new impetus, dynamism and interest in our services at this exciting time in our development.

Although we have an organ and choir for some of our services, at others we just have one person leading the singing. Our services are very much formal but with an informal feeling and so inclusivity rather than decorum is certainly the key. To that end we have a family corner set out for all Shabbatot.

Our Torah services include a section from that week’s parasha, as determined by the calendar of readings from the Reform Movement and these are sometimes preceded by a D’var Torah. However, a sermon is also a feature of our services.

Fourth Shabbat of the Month

Starting from Friday 26th October we are experimenting with a different look to Shabbat services:

• Every fourth Friday evening one of the rabbis will co-lead the service with the very talented singer and musician Judith Silver.  Judith will lead us in prayer and song and will teach some new melodies to our dedicated volunteer musicians. Come and join Judith before the service from 6pm to get a head start on the learning.
• Every fourth Shabbat morning our service will be a Study Service.  We will conduct a Shabbat morning service, but with reduced liturgy.  This will leave us time to for a really good study session and discussion about the Torah portion of the week and its relevance to issues of our day.

Please join us!

Click here for more information on our B'nei Mitzvah services.

Pilgrim Festivals (Shalosh Regalim)

These services are very similar to our weekly Shabbat services, enhanced by the festival liturgy and also customs. We try and make every festival accessible to everyone of any age, through our services and celebrations for the particular festival.

Eg.

• Getting together on Shavuot to study during a Tikun leyl;
• Building and decorating the Succah together;
• Communal seder, where the community come together for a seder on the second night of Pesach;
• Flag making by the children on Simchat Torah

High Holidays (Yamim Nora'im)

Like most synagogues, the High Holidays have an atmosphere of their own, bringing in large numbers to our services and making it necessary to divide the community between service types and locations, in order to cater for all needs. Although, due to space and security issues, these services have to be by ticket only.

Should you wish to attend our High Holiday services, please contact the synagogue office frs@frsonline.org