Congregation Beth Shalom in Bozeman invites you to celebrate Rabbi Mark Kula’s Installation with a weekend of special events, March 5-7

“Yearnings: Embracing the Sacred Messiness of Life” presented by Rabbi Irwin Kula
Thursday, March 5th at 7:00pm
Montana State University, Strand Union Building, Ballroom D

Our desires for love, happiness, truth, goodness, creativity, and self-awareness define our lives. These yearnings, never fully realized, drive us, disappoint us, push us, frustrate us, elevate us, distort us, damage us, propel us, energize us and inspire us. How can our yearnings become sources of wisdom to help us know ourselves better, live more fearlessly and joyfully, act more ethically and purposefully, and love more passionately and unconditionally?

Rabbi Irwin is a disruptive spiritual innovator and rogue thinker. A 7th generation rabbi, he is Co-President of CLAL, The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership, a do-tank committed to making Jewish a Public Good. Named one of the leaders shaping the American spiritual landscape, he received the 2008 Walter Cronkite Faith and Freedom Award for his work “toward equality, liberty and a truly inter–religious community” and has been listed in Newsweek for many years as one of America’s “most influential rabbis.” Learn more about Rabbi Irwin here.

Installation, Shabbat Service, and Purim Celebration
Friday, March 6th at 6:00pm
Congregation Beth Shalom, 2010 W Koch St.

Join us in a celebration of our new Rabbi, Rabbi Mark Kula, with a service officiated by Rabbi Irwin Kula, followed by a catered dinner hosted by Beth Shalom. “The Sanctuary” open bar with live music and Purim festivities kicks off at 8pm. Give a “l’chaim” toast to our Rabbi with a “Kula-tini”!

RSVP to amber@bethshalombozeman.org by Friday, February 28.

Torah Study led by Rabbis Mark and Irwin Kula
Saturday, March 7th at 9:30am
Congregation Beth Shalom, 2010 W Koch St.

Join us for great conversation and company. Bagels and coffee provided.

For more information, visit www.bethshalombozeman.org.

Rabbi Irwin Kula: Embracing the Sacred Messiness of Life
Rabbi Irwin Kula: Embracing the Sacred Messiness of Life
Editorial Review from Amazon
“This sagacious book will be a blessing to all who read its teachings on the value of spiritual yearning.”

“At a time when religion is too often associated with absolutism and extremism, Kula combines ancient Jewish teachings and contemporary insights to articulate a practical, spiritual path that embraces uncertainty, complexity and tolerance.”

“This wonderful book does what so many like it fail to do: it embraces the magic of day-to-day living, the spirituality that can be found in our questions, our mistakes, our passions and our doubts. Life is indeed messy, but as Rabbi Irwin Kula shows us, sorting through it is what transforms us to higher ground, and there is wisdom in how the heart approaches what it yearns”

“Provocative, engaging and transforming, Yearnings is a shofar blast of a book that will open your eyes and stir you, inspiring you to break free of inertia and move forward in your spiritual evolution.”

“Yearnings: Embracing the Sacred Messiness of Life” was selected by Spirituality and Health Magazine as one of the 10 Best Spiritual Books of 2006.

About The Book
The host of PBS’s Simple Wisdom and The Wisdom of Our Yearnings explores life’s most defining human experiences.

A perfect love, enduring happiness, discovering our purpose. Yearning for these experiences accompanies us through life, leading us to both joy and disappointment, and to a powerful vision of who we are, and who we can become. Far from being a burden, our yearnings can themselves become a path to blessing, prompting questions and insights, resulting in new ways of being and believing.

In Yearnings, renowned Rabbi Irwin Kula explores and celebrates seven of our deepest desires. He opens the spiritual toolbox of Jewish wisdom — it has much to teach about the ambiguities and uncertainties we all encounter — and takes us on an excursion into our age-old questions, merging ancient wisdom and stories with contemporary examples and insights. Whether it’s a woman struggling with a breach in her marriage, a child wondering about the tooth fairy, or Moses yearning for answers in the story of the burning bush, Yearnings offers a broader perspective to enrich our search for meaning.

The practices and insights in this book are based on teachings that have evolved for over three thousand years, as generations have wrestled with the messiness and complexities of the human experience. Rabbi Kula invites us to do the same, urging us to seek answers to our deepest questions, to search for spiritual and personal fulfillment while knowing we will never finally get there, and to celebrate the discoveries we’ll make along the way.

About the Author
Rabbi Irwin Kula has appeared on Oprah and Frontline and serves as a consultant to corporate and family foundations, as well as to federations, synagogues, and agencies on issues of leadership and change. Fast Company has named Rabbi Kula as one of the new leaders shaping the American spiritual landscape and he has been featured in national publications such as the Washington Post, the Philadelphia Inquirer, and the Chicago Tribune. He lives in New York City.

Rabbi Irwin Kula is an eighth-generation rabbi, nationally known speaker and teacher, and the president of the National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership. A repeat guest on Oprah, he is also the host of the public television broadcast called The Wisdom of Our Yearnings. Rabbi Kula lives with his wife and daughters in New York City.