Rosh Hashanah is on 1st Tishri.  On the Shabbat nearest this date, we hold an Selichot Service, which traditionally should start late.  We, as with other communities, tend to start earlier, about 9pm.  At this service we change the Torah mantles from their usual coloured ones to white.  The Selichot Service is also a choral […]

Ten days after Rosh Hashanah is the Holiest day of the year, Yom Kippur.  Kol Nidrei, the evening service, is one of the most spiritual of the year and sets the scene for a long day of fasting and prayer. As with Rosh Hashanah, we offer mitzvot to involved members of our community.  Our morning […]

Sukkot is the final of the 3 harvest festivals and is celebrated by the building of a sukkah.  Our sukkah is a permanent wooden structure, open to the skies, so one can see the stars.  It is covered with laurel leaves, many of which are taken from our own garden and were planted for that […]

At Simchat Torah we offer the special mitzvah of finishing reading the Torah, which ends with the death of Moses, to either a Chatan (bridegroom) or Kallah (bride) of the Torah and immediately we start reading from the beginning of the Torah, with the birth of creation, again offering the mitzvah to either a Chatan […]

The kabbalists, a group of Jewish mystics living in Israel in the 16th century, created a Seder for Tu Bishvat (New Year for trees).  They gathered in the evening around a beautiful table decorated with sweet-smelling flowers and lovely candles and long into the night they sang, talked and ate. At SPS we reciprocate this […]

Purim is a joyous festival, commemorating the survival of the Jews who, as narrated in the biblical Book of Esther, had been doomed to annihilation in Persia in the 5th century BCE. The holiday occurs on the 14th of Adar in the Jewish calendar, falling in February or March on the Gregorian calendar. Of the […]