Gesher—A Bridge Home

Sunday, we were joined by fourteen people of all ages for a pre-Passover workshop! You might think, a rabbi, is always prepared for the holiday that comes, year in and year out. But, though it’s the same holiday, I’m not the same. And my desire is to connect creatively and uniquely every year. This year, a few things stuck in my craw: you won’t find anything that has more inflation for poorer quality than adding the words “Kosher for Passover”! I’d had enough. Ten dollars for a stick of cheddar that…just tastes awful did it. And so, this year, I resolved to make my own cheese. I took two gallons of whole milk and prepared to make Twarog Cheese, ala the Polish farmer’s recipe online. I’d done it before for blintzes and replicated my grandmother Honey’s recipe. But Twarog cheese while delectable is just too plain for Passover. So, I took the cheese blended it with vegetables: butternut squash, tomato and roasted yellow pepper, salt, pepper, and voila, a cheddar look with a Parmesan edge. I am excited to apply this to two unprecedented dishes for Passover: a cauliflower cheese pie with a potato, onion crust, and a mushroom-cabbage lasagna with a bechamel sauce. And boom, I’m signed onto celebrating and excited. Then, last week, we also kashered our Gesher Pizza Oven. We used a shop vac to clean it out and added oak firewood and brought it to over 1,000 degrees, and p**f: all of the vestiges of pizza making are incinerated and transformed for Passover. So, now, this Sunday, that pizza oven is the Gesher Matzah Oven, and I’m over the moon excited that Passover is coming…. It’s so important to add new things. Oh, don’t worry, there will still be salmon tilapia gefilte fish and matzah balls soup, but every year, the journey from Egypt needs to be reencountered and we need to approach it freshly. I can’t imagine we will make this journey, this year, without reflecting deeply on October 7th and its aftermath, and what it’s done to us Jews in Portland, in the interim. To say nothing of the threats to democracy that we experience in America, the evidence of stranger danger triumphing over genuine welcome, the impact of a culture of loneliness on each and everyone of us. So, if you’re interested in making matzah, come this coming Sunday (10am-2 pm) and if you’re interested in joining us for Seder, check out our website: ourjewishhome.org

Yom Kippur in our home: When our children were younger, the evening meal before Erev Yom Kippur glistened in our family home in preparation for services. We only shared this meal with our children, because we wanted it to be intensively personal and to prepare us as a family for the holiness of the day. Each of us parents wrote teshuvah letters to our children and conveyed them. In these letters we put our journey of our past year in view, our child’s journey of growth during the year, the changes, the growth steps, and we recalled the places where we each might have missed the mark, and asked for forgiveness. When our children were very young, we read these letters out loud. As they became older, we gave them to our children and they read them before the meal and thanked us in a loving manner. We each gave our forgiveness and it engendered a spiritual opportunity to really begin again. As a family, we were fortified with gratitude and well-being, and we prepared a meal that prepared us spiritually for the holiday. We lit yahrzeit candles, not the holiday candles, which we would light together later with the community. We served a meal: fish, soup, salad, and we always ended this meal with chocolate mousse.
This year, we are pondering Erev Yom Kippur in the context of both blessing and challenge in our world. We are savoring the experience of a community having come together on Rosh Hashanah. Though we put out the word barely a week before, our deck was filled with people joyous to be here, and we spent the evening, eating, reflecting, listening to music, looking up at the stars from beneath the trees, and praying. This year’s Rosh Hashanah, too, glistened.
So, now, we’ve added Yom Kippur: ourjewishhome.org

We definitely appreciated each and everyone one who joined us on Rosh Hashanah. We shared deeply about life’s journey and shared blessings. Now, we confront the weight of Yom Kippur and wonder if you would like to join us. Because of its intensity, it’s not for everyone. Especially Jews who don’t have nourishment and joy in their lives. After all, Yom Kippur is a fast day and it presents a demand spiritually that fits in the journey of the year, but isn’t really designed for the incidental traveler. On the other hand, if you’d like to join us for Yom Kippur, we are offering a spiritual meal before the fast, modeled on our family’s experience. No, you don’t have to be fasting to join in. It will have glimmers of our family meal, and the menu will be simple: Fresh Smoked Salmon, Salad, Soup, Kugel, Strudel, Tzimmes, and Chocolate Mousse. We will only do this if we have a minyan (ten) for services, but we’re pretty confident, at this point, that we will. We will have services on Monday with the same proviso, that we have a minimum of ten, so we are asking for commitments.
Yom Kippur is a special journey. The fast mixes with a yearning to confront our time on this Earth in a different light. There is confession, prayer, and the light of the day is more amber than white. The customary dress is white. And the journey of the day has a certain bleariness (from fasting and repeated confession) to the day that allows for a deeper reflection and a spiritual opportunity for true renewal and replenishment. As the day progresses and the body wearies, the bleariness increases and there is the opportunity to lapse into a deeper sense that this is our collective opportunity to be renewed. Please RSVP if you are coming:
ourjewishhome.org

Intimate and Inspiring Rosh Hashanah at Gesher

RSVP at ourjewishhome.org

High Holy Days are, in Hebrew, called the Days of fear/awe. There is no preparation really. Even those of us who hear the clarion call for the whole month of Elul that precedes Rosh Hashanah feel overwhelmed by the demand to face the spiritual opportunity presented by the intense Jewish season that begins on Rosh Hashanah. This year is no different. Especially for unaffiliated Jews, who may be more used to being Jewish in hiding (or more precisely, being hidden from Jewish offerings of spiritual opportunity) than celebrating. So, Gesher - A Bridge Home approaches this High Holy Day season with some careful attempt to provide an alternative to walking into services and feeling overwhelmed and estranged.

What Gesher offers is this – two intimate Rosh Hashanah experiences. Rabbi Laurie Rutenberg and Rabbi Gary Schoenberg extend an invitation to wine and dine, to explore traditional prayers at a pace that will allow for conversation of the heart, and the opportunity to be still with your soul in the forest.

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 5:30 PM - ROSH HASHANAH EVENING AND SHABBAT CELEBRATION

Where: Gesher, 10701 SW 25th Avenue in Portland

Gesher invites you to join Rabbi Laurie Rutenberg and Rabbi Gary Schoenberg at their home for an intimate heart-centered and delicious Rosh Hashanah dinner to enter into the Jewish New Year.

The Rosh Hashanah dinner and seder with candlelighting, song, prayer and the sharing of our blessings and our spiritual opportunities, will be Covid Safe, and will take place under the trees and stars, weather permitting.

RSVP is a must— [email protected] or 503 246-5070. Let Rabbi Laurie know if you would like to bring a vegetarian holiday dish to share. Donations are greatly appreciated. Gesher is at 10701 SW 25th Ave, Portland, OR.



SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 10 AM - ROSH HASHANAH MORNING SERVICE, LUNCH, AND TASHLICH

Where: Gesher, 10701 SW 25th Avenue in Portland | Marshall Park

Gesher invites you to join Rabbi Laurie Rutenberg and Rabbi Gary Schoenberg at their home for an outdoor, welcoming Jewish prayer experience that offers opportunities for sharing where we are in our soul-life as we enter the Jewish New Year with prayer, song, and Torah.

A festive vegetarian lunch and a walk to Marshall Park for Tashlich follow the service

We are winging our way to home. And we receive a text from Avital, telling us that she’s reformatted Gesher’s website. Beautiful! Thanks, Tali! So, as promised, an announcement of the schedule for Rosh Hashanah. A week early, no? RSVP a must.

GESHER High Holy Days are, in Hebrew, called the Days of fear/awe.  There is no preparation really.  Even those of us who hear the clarion call for the whole month of Elul that precedes Rosh Hashanah feel overwhelmed by the demand to face the spiritual opportunity presented by the intense Jewish season t...

Gesher is ready to welcome guests for Rosh Hashanah - Outdoors, Underneath the Trees, in an Intimate Setting. Especially welcoming to Jews and loved ones who are "Newish to Jewish." Let us know if you would like to join us - 503 246-5070 or at [email protected] on either Friday night, September 15th or Saturday morning, September 16th.

Rosh Hashanah Evening Festive Dinner/Seder and Shabbat Celebration
Friday night, September 15th at 5:30 pm

Gesher invites you to join Rabbi Laurie Rutenberg and Rabbi Gary Schoenberg at their home for an intimate heart-centered and delicious Rosh Hashanah dinner and prayer to enter into the Jewish New Year. With candlelighting, prayer, song and the sharing of our blessings and our spiritual challenges becoming opportunities, we will celebrate underneath the trees, weather permitting. Seating will be Covid Safe.
RSVP for Friday night is a must— at [email protected] or 503 246-5070. Let Rabbi Laurie know if you would like to bring a vegetarian holiday dish to share. Donations are greatly appreciated but not required. Gesher is located at 10701 SW 25th Ave, Portland, OR.
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Rosh Hashanah Morning Service, Lunch and Tashlich
Saturday, September 16th at 10:00 am

Gesher invites you to join Rabbi Laurie Rutenberg and Rabbi Gary Schoenberg at their home for an outdoor, welcoming Jewish prayer experience that offers opportunities for sharing where we are in our soul-life as we enter the Jewish New Year with prayer, song, and Torah. A festive vegetarian lunch and a walk to Marshall Park for Tashlich follow the service.
RSVP for Saturday morning is very helpful to us— at [email protected] or 503 246-5070. Please let Rabbi Laurie know if you would like to bring a vegetarian holiday dish to share. Donations are greatly appreciated but not required. Gesher is located at 10701 SW 25th Ave, Portland, OR.

Please note: These celebrations are particularly welcoming to people new-ish to Jewish life or High Holy Days.

This Passover is like no other Passover in our lives! Our seder RSVPs have filled early, with the most minimal outreach to fill our open air (heated with five(!) patio heaters and a sixth additiional blaster of heat). (Mystery of mysteries…). Yesterday, a first(!), we had a very fruitful work party that found us making charoset, gefilte fish, matza balls, homemade horse radish and (drum rolls…) having Asher, who is 6 going on 7, using the shop vac to clean out the chametz in the pizza oven, and making the fire to go up to 900 degrees, in order to Kasher the pizza oven for Passover, and make our own MATZAH for the first time in our lives. We were aided by, our friend, Lyle Stanley, owner of Gee Creek Farm, who gave us unmilled wheat, then taken by Jonathan Zingeser, and milled in our kosher for Passover Cuisinart and Vita Mix (ah, the necessities of modern Jewish life), adding water, salt, pepper, and honey (a recipe from the annals of the Spanish Inquisition! With thanks to our colleague, Rabbi Brian Mayer for inspiring us and pointing us in the direction of the recipe), and joined by the myriads (Renee Lam, Mihai Voivod and their son Gabriel, Sarah Borden, Carlos Fernandez, Gila Ormiston, Andy Jenkins, Netanyah Epstein and brother Mark Schoenberg) kneading the emergent dough and forming the thin patties that were placed on unused pizza stones in our very hot, new pizza oven, and with the use of our trusty ,propane gas fed flame thrower, braising them on top, making sweet, peppery, salted matzah, well…whoever said that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks? Happy Passover, everyone!

This Passover is like no other Passover in our lives! Our seders were filled early with the most minimal outreach to fill our open air (heated with five(!) patio heaters and a sixth additiional blaster of heat). (Mystery of mysteries…). Yesterday, a first(!), we had a very fruitful work party that found us making charoset, gefilte fish, matza balls, homemade horse radish and (drum rolls…) having Asher, who is 6 going on 7, using the shop vac to clean out the chametz in the pizza oven, and helping make the fire to go up to 900 degrees, in order to Kasher the pizza oven for Passover, and make own MATZAH for the first time in our lives. We were aided by, our friend, Lyle Stanley, owner of Gee Creek Farm, who gave us unmilled wheat, then taken by Jonathan Zingeser, and milled in our kosher for Passover Cuisinart and Vita Mix (ah, the necessities of modern Jewish life), adding water, salt, pepper, and honey (a recipe from the annals of the Spanish Inquisition! With thanks to our colleague, Rabbi Brian Mayer for inspiring us and pointing us in the direction of the recipe), and joined by the myriads (Renee Lam, Mihai Voivod and their son Gabriel, Sarah Borden, Carlos Fernandez, Gila Ormiston, Andy Jenkins, Netanyah Epstein and brother Mark) kneading the emergent dough and forming the thin patties that were placed on unused pizza stones in our very hot, new pizza oven, and with the use of our trusty ,propane gas fed flame thrower, braising them on top, making sweet, peppery, salted matzah, well…whoever said that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks? Happy Passover, everyone!

Moadim L'Simcha! Join Gesher outdoors in the sukkah for festive holiday gatherings under the stars. RSVP is required - email [email protected] to RSVP.

Oct 9, 2-6 PM: Sukkah building and decorating
Oct 9, 6 PM: Dinner in the sukkah
Oct 11, 6 PM: Dinner in the sukkah - young adults especially welcome
Oct 14, 5:30 PM: Shabbat dinner in the sukkah

The sukkah has been built! Many thanks to last weekend's wonderful builders! Come add the finishing touches and decorate from 2-6 PM this Sunday, and -- if you'd like -- stay for a festive Sukkot dinner in the sukkah! RSVP to [email protected] required for dinner and welcome for building (but for the building time, you're also welcome to just stop by)!

Join us this Sunday in building Gesher's unique Tree Limb and Jute-bound Sukkah with Master Sukkah Designer Scott McKinley! More details here:

GESHER Gesher invites you to join Master Sukkah Builder, Scott McKinley and Rabbi Laurie Rutenberg of Gesher, who was trained by Scott last year, in building Gesher's Unique Tree Limb and Jute Bound Sukkah. There will be no nails or screws, and no lumber. The tree limbs all come from Rabbi Gary’s and R...

Shana tova! The new year is upon us. Gesher—A Bridge Home invites you to outdoor, intimate (but physically-distanced!) new year celebrations with sumptuous food, engaging discussion, and time for meaningful prayer. Details and RSVP: www.ourjewishhome.org

It was a heartwarming Shabbat celebration at Gesher. Amy and Jeff, with their sharing of musical gifts and stories that stem from their passions made last Shabbat a treasured one. The conversations between our spread out tables, each filled with candlelight, warmed also by the patio heaters and the sharing between us was really beautiful. This photo has reminders of the Shabbat candles that were originally difficult to light because of the wind, but did stay lit once Rick figured out which direction the wind was coming from and modeled blocking the wind with the bottles of wine. The wine we drank for kiddush - the blessing to express our joy at the holiness of Shabbat - was our house made pinot noir Shikker Rebbe. The jar of grape juice is our house made Sober Rabbi. The persimmons were a gift harvested from Rick's and Catherine's tree. So many gifts of our lives were shared, and Shabbat evening was warm, cozy, and touching in so many ways.

Photo credit: Jeff Olenick

Rejoicing amid fragility is what Sukkot is really about. It's about sitting in this fragile structure and finding our homes within our souls, and sharing that fragile home with each other. It's about inviting guests, real and imaginary. And it's also about extending the glorious experience of eating outdoors (and sleeping outside also, if you choose) to relish the summer 's harvest before the continuous rains of autumn set in. Thank you so much to all our volunteers for your hard work and enthusiasm over the last week. This year the Gesher sukkah is constructed of only tree limbs and branches and tied together with jute. No lumber, no nails - amazing to me. We now have two walls fully packed with fir and cedar branches, and the roof filled with enough branches to experience more shade than sun, and yet, to be able to see the stars through the roof as we gaze upward. We will finish the third wall today, before Sukkot begins. Does anyone want to come help finish filling in the third wall? Give us a call at Gesher, and we'll arrange a time for you to come help - today, i.e, Monday, September 20th. Because of COVID, we unfortunately can welcome a very small number of guests to our Sukkah this year. Private message us at Gesher - A Bridge Home if you would like an invitation, and we'll do our best to arrange it.

We're really excited to have almost completed building an organic Sukkah this year at Gesher. We couldn't have done it without the help of a whole crew of spirited and hard working folks who came throughout the last week and a half, to work under the guidance of master organic Sukkah designer Scott McKinley. Thank you so much, Scott, and everyone else who came.

Gesher's Sukkah is on its way up! This year, for the first time, we are building our Sukkah under the guidance of master builder of Sukkot made from our natural world, Scott McKinley, who is helping us craft a Sukkah made entirely from tree limbs and branches, lashed together with jute. Last Sunday we built the first two walls. . We will continue to build the Sukkah this Sunday, September 19th, starting at 11am. We're still designing arched doorways and moon windows, and have the roof yet to design, as well as the s'chach covering of branches to create. It's a great way to use your muscles and your lashing skills, or to learn them.
We invite .you to join us. Private message us, so that we can arrange the best time for you. We are aiming to stay COVID safe by having only a small group working at the same time.

If you would like to have a meal in our Sukkah during Sukkot, private message us and we'll try to make space for you.

Wishing everyone an enjoyable Sukkot!

Here's a last minute opportunity:
Rabbi Gary and Rabbi Laurie are going to do a Passover Cooking Workshop THIS MORNING - NOT YOUR USUAL PASSOVER MENU
at 10am TODAY!
Home-made kosher for Passover:
Goat Milk Cheeses, Salmon Gefilte Fish, Chard Infused Matza Balls, Smoked Salmon - and Smoked Salmon and Cream Cheese Spread, Soups of all kinds, Charoset.
Join us by going onto the page of Gary Schoenberg for a Facebook Live demonstration . See you soon...

Let all who are hungry come and eat! Yes, we're on zoom again this year, but we are moving in the direction of freedom. Join us for Passover seders, for everyone the first night and for families with young children on the second! https://www.ourjewishhome.org

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