Shabbat Joy!

6:45 Shmooze; 7:00 Start
Led by Rabbis Chaya Gusfield and Eli Cohen, with the Good Shabbos Band

Welcome Reb Irwin's dear friends, Rabbi Chaya Gusfield and Rabbi Eli Cohen, to lead us in a soulful and uplifting Shabbat, filled with music and laughter.

Rabbi Chaya Gusfield, ordained in the Jewish Renewal Movement in 2006, has a long association with many Bay Area synagogues. She currently serves as a Palliative Care interfaith chaplain at Kaiser Oakland/Richmond. She has a private Spiritual Direction practice serving individuals and groups seeking to lower their resistance to their spiritual life. Rabbi Chaya works closely with Buddhist teacher Eve Decker in offering rituals, workshops and worship services with a Buddhist and a Jewish focus that heal the spirit. She also now lives part time in Bodega Bay.

Rabbi Eli Cohen serves as spiritual leader of Chadeish Yameinu, the Jewish Renewal Community of Santa Cruz.  He grew up in a Conservative Jewish home infused with Yiddish language and culture, attended a Jewish day school and has always been actively involved in synagogue life. Rabbi Eli holds a BA in Psychology from SUNY Binghamton and a JD from Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco. He received smicha (ordination) from Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi and the Aleph Rabbinic Program in Boulder, Colorado in January 2005. In the lineage of his teachers, Rabbi Eli brings a strong commitment to bridge religious and progressive values, and to carry the depth and joy of Jewish spirituality and practice into the emerging paradigm.