| Pardes Levavot |  |
Pardes Levavot, “Orchard of Hearts,” was formed in the spirit of creating conscious holy community. Our name expresses the spiritual blossoming of each individual heart within an inspiring and nurturing orchard.
For information on our congregation please call (303) 563-2110 and leave a message or send email to info@pardeslevavot.org. To join our congregation, please print a copy of our membership form, fill it out, and send it to our Synagogue.
Pardes Levavot gratefully acknowledges Allied
Jewish Federation of Colorado for their support of
our Circle of Family Education program. Thank you!
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Rabbi Debra Kolodny, Executive Director, ALEPH: Alliance for Jewish Renewal DATE: September 27, 2011 Phone: 503-841-5449 Email: DebraRuth@mac.com Web site: www.aleph.org Dear All: Below is the September 2011 ALEPH News Service. We hope you run the following articles and look forward to hearing from you if you do. This release contains: 1. Embodying Spirit, En~spiriting Body to launch in December, 2011 2. ALEPH member and long time Board Counsel, Rabbi Stan Levy awarded The American Lawyer’s Lifetime Achievement Award 3. ALEPH Signs on to COEJL’s Jewish Energy Covenant Campaign 4. ALEPH Member Joan Burstyn publishes Searching for God: Study Partners Explore Contemporary Jewish Texts 5. Reb Zalman and Eve Ilsen in Ashland, Oregon in April 2012 L’Shana tova umetuka. May you be inscribed and sealed for a year of blessing, goodness, abundance and growth, Deb Embodying Spirit, En~spiriting Body to launch in December, 2011 The first session of the pioneering Jewish embodiment leadership training, Embodying Spirit, En-spiriting Body, will take place this coming December 5 - 11 at the Bosch Bahá’i Retreat Center in the Santa Cruz mountains. Taught by Rabbi Diane Elliot and Latifa Berry Kropf, the first week-long session will focus on “Embodying Prayer.” Students from as far away as the Netherlands and as close at hand as Santa Cruz, California, will come together to deepen their access to the “felt” body (soma) and to apply the body’s wisdom to the practice and study of Jewish prayer, sacred text, and mysticism. A few spaces remain so if this work speaks to your body and soul, please visit the Ruach HaAretz website now http://www.ruachhaaretz.org/EmbodyingSpirit.html <http://www.ruachhaaretz.org/EmbodyingSpirit.html> for more information and to register. Embodying Spirit, En~spiriting Body is a project of the ALEPH Alliance for Jewish Renewal and Ruach HaAretz. ALEPH member and long time Board Counsel, Rabbi Stan Levy awarded The American Lawyer’s Lifetime Achievement Award Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP, senior counsel Stanley W. Levy has been awarded The American Lawyer’s Lifetime Achievement Award for 2011. Levy was recognized for his significant legal practice and decades of innovation and leadership in the provision of pro bono legal services. The prestigious annual award recognizes those who have gone beyond professional success and made exceptional contributions for the betterment of society. This year’s recipients were announced in the publication’s September 2011 issue. While building an impressive practice that encompasses complex business litigation and transactions, Levy has had an extraordinary impact for more than 40 years providing at-risk citizens with access to justice. He was the founding executive director of Public Counsel Law Center, the largest public interest services provider in the nation, and served as executive director of the Western Center on Law and Poverty. He cofounded Bet Tzedek Legal Services, another of the country’s premier legal services providers. All told, Levy’s commitment to free legal services has helped hundreds of thousands in need. “I am deeply touched to receive this honor,” said Levy. “That The American Lawyer would choose to recognize my lifetime passion for pro bono legal services alongside the caliber of lawyers who have received this award over the years reaffirms what I’ve always found to be true – the legal profession values service to the most vulnerable in our communities above all else. If I’ve achieved anything in this life, it has been working shoulder to shoulder with incredible lawyers dedicated to making a positive difference. I share this award with my firm, which makes so much of this possible, and my fellow pro bono lawyers across the country.” One of Levy’s most recent triumphs was as the founding national director of the groundbreaking Holocaust Survivors Justice Network. The Justice Network, launched in 2008, is the single largest coordinated pro bono legal effort in U.S. history, providing free legal services to thousands of Holocaust survivors seeking German “Ghetto Work” reparations. Legal assistance is essential, as the German applications and declarations are complex. More than 120 law firms and corporate legal departments deliver legal services to thousands of survivors through the network’s unique pro bono legal clinic model, with clinics operating in 30 cities across the nation. In 2009, the Justice Network received the American Bar Association’s Pro Bono Publico Award, the nation’s highest pro bono honor. Also that year, Levy received a California Lawyer Attorney of the Year Award. “Stan’s achievements extend far beyond the practice of law and into the very heart of the community,” said Manatt Chief Executive Officer and Managing Partner William T. Quicksilver. “We are proud to have Stan as our colleague, thank him for setting such high standards, and celebrate this outstanding achievement. We are gratified that The American Lawyer has chosen to honor him in this manner.” Levy's significant pro bono accomplishments are set against the backdrop of a high-profile practice that includes banking, securities, accounting, entertainment and employment law. A black-tie gala will be held October 26, 2011, in New York City to recognize this year’s honorees, including former Vice President Walter Mondale. Previous honorees have included Sargent Shriver, Warren Christopher, Howard Baker, and William Webster. ALEPH Signs on to COEJL’s Jewish Energy Covenant Campaign ALEPH joined a diverse group of Jewish leaders led by COEJL in support of the Jewish Energy Covenant Campaign. The campaign intends to galvanize the Jewish American community to act in greater support of sustainable environmental responsibility in Jewish homes, communities and institutions. This campaign differs from past Jewish environmental initiatives in that it commits the community’s leadership and institutions to take action to lower its emissions of greenhouse gases and help the nation work toward energy security. In signing the Jewish Environmental and Energy Imperative Declaration, leaders are committing to: § Set a personal goal of reducing emissions by 14% by September 2014, which is Judaism’s next sabbatical year. § Set the community-wide intention of reducing greenhouse gases by 83% of 2005 levels by 2050 (a goal set by the US government), with a community-wide approach to greening homes and buildings. § Reduce the carbon footprint of agencies and institutions by creating and implementing sustainability plans and appointing a sustainability officer. § Educate membership about the Jewish environmental and energy imperative. § Seek to build a sustainable and resilient response to climate change. § Establish a unified framework to advocate for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, the increase of energy independence, and the awareness of climate justice, especially in vulnerable developing nations. COEJL is providing extensive support to enable signatories in fulfilling their goals through three over-arching tools: its website, a comprehensive program guide and by hosting regular meetings among signatories’ sustainability officers. For more information contact: Sybil Sanchez, Director; Tel. (212) 684-2513; ssanchez@coejl.org ALEPH Member Joan Burstyn publishes Searching for God: Study Partners Explore Contemporary Jewish Texts When your work schedule is so full that you have little time for taking classes, or attending lectures, yet you are seeking a spiritual path of your own, where can you turn for help? Joan Burstyn and Gershon Vincow’s new book, Searching for God: Study Partners Explore Contemporary Jewish Texts (August 2011) describes a novel partnership, a self-directed hevruta, where study partners choose their own times to meet, and their own texts to study. “This book successfully probes the most basic questions anyone should ask: What do I mean when I use the word ‘God’? And how does the answer affect the way I live?” writes Edward D. Zinbarg, author of Faith, Morals and Money: What the World’s Religions Tell Us about Ethics in the Marketplace. Unlike a conventional hevruta, guided by a teacher, Burstyn and Vincow, both lay people, drew on their own interests to select their study choices which range from mystical and rational theology to revelation at Sinai and non-traditional Judaism. Burstyn is a member of Aleph, and also of a Conservative and a Reform shul. Her understanding of Jewish practice was revolutionized, she says, by a weekend at Fellowship Farm where Reb Zalman led everyone, including herself, in dancing around the Torah. “It was there that I learned that I could connect my body with my Jewish practice,” she says. Among the texts discussed by Burstyn and Vincow are Arthur Green’s Seek My Face: A Jewish Mystical Theology, and Alan Morinis’ exploration of Mussar, Climbing Jacob’s Ladder. Sylvia Boorstein, author of Happiness is an Inside Job: Practicing for a Joyful Life, writes “This touching and inspiring account of the commitment of two friends to study texts and share their insights with each other on behalf of their own, and each other’s connection to holiness could well be titled Thinking as a Spiritual Path. Celebrating intellect as an instrument of prayer, this book will serve as a template for seekers across religious traditions who long for a spiritual practice that satisfies their minds as it gladdens their hearts.” The book is bound to capture the interest of Aleph members, as the authors plumb the depths of the emotional and intellectual content of Jewish theology. Reb Zalman and Eve Ilsen in Ashland, Oregon Hold the date: Reb Zalman and Eve Ilsen will visit ALEPH affiliate Havurah Shir Hadash in Ashland, Oregon for a shabbaton centering on the theme of the Omer. The weekend will be April 20-22, 2012. Details will be released after the high holidays about the fees and housing. Ashland, as some of you may know, is a destination vacation village that hosts the finest Shakespeare Festivals in the nation. Some plan on coming a few days early and staying a few days afterwards to enjoy this wonderful small city just over the California border. |