Calendar & Activities

• Proof of vaccination.
• Wearing of masks.
• No drink or food consumption.
• Social distancing.
• Sign-in at door.

BIC Annual General Meeting

• Subject: Community Passover Seder registration
• Content:  Your name and other persons who might be attending

to receive the registration link and further information such as access to a Haggadah.

It won’t be the same as seeing each other in person, but we are nonetheless quite excited to embark on our third ever online Seder.

We ask that you register BY WEDNESDAY, April 13^th, (see registration link below) so we can ensure we have the capacity for all. We will also be ‘seating’ guests at ‘tables’ (virtual subgroups) so you will have times during the Seder when you can talk and interact with those at your table. The link to the Zoom call will be forwarded to you once we receive your registration. You may join by phone or internet.  

Please click the following link to register.  https://forms.gle/FAobpg5WLvuVP6hv6    

You are welcome to invite your friends and family. 

Hag Sameach!

Shabbat Hagadol Service 

Dear friends,

     The Shabbat before Pesach is known as “Shabbat Hagadol” (“the Great Shabbat”). It holds special significance in Jewish tradition, because it was the day, in the year of the Exodus (some four thousand years ago), that the Israelites were first commanded to prepare a lamb for the Passover sacrifice. Such an act would have upset their oppressors, the Egyptians, because the lamb was sacred in their pagan culture. The fact that the Egyptians did not rise up in anger against the Israelites, just before they were due to leave Egypt, is considered a miracle in Jewish tradition.

     On Shabbat Hagadol there is a custom to read a portion of the Haggadah, in preparation for the festival. We read from the “Magid” section of the Seder, beginning with the words “Avadim hayinu” (“We were slaves”) up to the words, “le-chaper al kol avonoteinu” (“to atone for all of our sins”). This section includes such famous rituals as the recitation of the Ten Plagues while we spill drops of wine, and the songs “Ve-hi She-amdah” and “Dayenu”. It also includes the biblical commandments to remember the Exodus and tell its story throughout our lives (Devarim 16:3).  This custom of reading the Haggadah reinforces the point that the miracle of redemption began on Shabbat Hagadol.

     In addition to our musical service, we will engage in a discussion by congregants, about their experience of miracles. There are times in our lives when we have experienced extraordinary things. Sometimes we end up attributing these to coincidence; at other times they fall within the sphere of the marvellous; still on other (unique) occasions, they may be attributed to divine intervention or the miraculous.

     To celebrate the miracle of redemption from slavery, and the formation of the Jewish nation at Pesach, we will invite congregants to share with us their experiences of the miraculous (whatever that may mean to them). I will also share with you a story of my own experience of the miraculous, which confirmed for me beyond doubt that there is a God, who listens to humankind.

I look forward to seeing you on 9 April at 10 am!

With love from Cantor Leon