Lay-led services at Adas Yoshuron have tended toward traditional conservative or reconstructionist with plenty of English readings. Past and visiting rabbis and cantors have brought a wide range of approaches that have been well received, including song circles, Torah study, tot Shabbats, and services centered around meditation and the outdoors. Our sanctuary holds about 150 comfortably, and it has been known to overflow on Kol Nidre and often fills on Bnei mitzvah celebrations.

We generally enjoy one or two Bnei mitzvot per year, though we did recently have four in one year. In years without a resident rabbi, we have held one or two Shabbat services per month.  Shabbat evening and morning attendance varies, as few as six – there is a core group of regular attendees – or as many as forty.  A call for a mourner’s minyan is invariably answered. One of the wonderful things about our synagogue is that we can have 3 or 30 people at a service (dressed in jeans or a sports coat and tie); regardless of size, we find kavanah.

This year at the High Holidays, most of the services followed the Conservative movement's Mahzor Lev Shalom, but on the first day of Rosh Hashanah we enjoyed a more interpretive Musaf, and Shacharit on the second day consisted of a discussion session. The services were held off site in a beautiful barn event venue with estimated attendances of 100 at Erev Rosh Hashanah and Kol Nidre, 80 at first day morning services of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, and 40 on the second day of Rosh Hashanah. Zoom attendance was as high as 30, with remote participants joining us from all over the United States.

Other holidays that are regularly celebrated by Adas Yoshuron include Sukkot with Sukkah building, Simchat Torah, Hanukkah and Purim parties, second night Passover seder, Shavuot and Tu B’shvat seder. We have many copies of Joseph Rosenstein's Eit Ratzon which features transliteration of every Hebrew word.  We also have about twenty copies of Siddur Lev Shalem and thirty Siddur Hadash. There are two Jewish cemeteries in the area and a Chevra Kaddisha that is independent of the synagogue but staffed by members.

<PREVIOUS NEXT>

If you’d prefer a printable version, you may download it here.