LOCATION: MAIN STREET LANDING, IN THE LAKE LOBBY!

TIME: 5 PM!

We are having a gorgeous, participatory potluck seder with abundant food, song, and prayer for liberation! In downtown Burlington. Save the date!

Come in a fabulous costume for L’Chaim Collective’s first ever Purim Party!

Two of our teen leaders are co-writing and directing a Purim spiel to help us both enjoy AND wrestle with the holiday of Purim. (Love you Sela + Coco!)

There will be a costume parade! An epic hamantaschen-themed potluck &  tasting competition! Dancing! And it’s a Saturday night, so of course: there will be Havdallah! 

A few other details: We invite you to make savory or sweet hamantaschen (think outside the box: pizza hamantaschen? Spinach & feta hamantaschen? Chocolate caramel almond? Etc!) for our potluck and to enter in our hamantaschen tasting competition. If not inspired by this, bring anything else to share for our potluck.

In the tradition of Mishloach Manot, or sharing gifts of sweetness with community, our teens are planning a food & supplies collection for our neighbors in need, so bring along some dry goods or household items (new!) to share. We’ll have a table set-up to make donation kits.

Schedules of Events:

4:30 - Welcome!

5:00pm - Purim Spiel Performance

5:30pm - Costume Parade

5:45 - Havdalah & Singing

6:15 - Potluck

7:00 - Announcing Winners of Hamantaschen Food Competition

7:15 - Dancing & Mocktail/Cocktails

As always, we will provide masks for anyone who wants one, and will open doors/windows for air flow if weather allows. There will be many chairs set-up for seating options.

We host a monthly community sing at the Burlington Friends Meeting House on North Prospect St! Mark your calendars for first Wednesdays + spread the word.

For increased access, we are adding masked only singing hour, 6-7 pm before the whole sing begins at 7 pm (masks optional). We run 4 air purifiers in the space.

This is for anyone who wants to be together and tend to our collective spirits. We will sing songs of grief, resistance, mourning, hope, protest, even joy.

We always share desserts — please bring a sweet treat or something to drink for the crew, or just bring yourself! If you have an instrument feel free to bring it. BYOB/ BYO-tea.

All are welcome. Bring your grandma & your roommate & your boo! Most songs will be in English and taught in the round.

Location: Burlington Friends Meeting on North Prospect  (the white building called the Basset House, in front of the meeting house)

For this month’s Havdalah, join L’Chaim for a Havdalah honoring Tu B’Shvat, the celebration or new year of trees. Here in VT, Tu B’shevat often coincides with the flowing of the maple sap.

We’ll be holding a “potluck” service at 5:30, so please bring a poem, a song, or a prayer that speaks to cycles of renewal, growth, and nature. We’ll begin with the traditional Havdalah blessings, and then open up the circle for others to share.

This will be followed by an actual potluck dinner, so bring a delicious dish to share, as well .

Accessibility notes: Kids always welcome. Alcohol & N.A. drinks will be available. We will label food for allergies. Limited parking available, but street parking legal. Ramp access to the space. Air filters running.

Again, these havdallah events will be held monthly on the 3rd Saturday, rotating locations so mark your calendars!

We host a monthly community sing at the Burlington Friends Meeting House on North Prospect St! Mark your calendars for first Wednesdays + spread the word.

This is for anyone who wants to be together and tend to our collective spirits. We will sing songs of grief, resistance, mourning, hope, protest, even joy.

We always share desserts — please bring a sweet treat or something to drink for the crew, or just bring yourself! If you have an instrument feel free to bring it. BYOB/ BYO-tea.

All are welcome. Bring your grandma & your roommate & your boo! Most songs will be in English and taught in the round.

Join us for a friendly havdallah hosted at Grace’s house! Email grace.oedel@gmail.com for the address and to RSVP.

We will welcome new folks, sing songs + niggunim (wordless melodies) from 5-6 pm, do havdallah, and enjoy a potluck feast, hopefully with more singing to follow.

Please bring a dish/ drinks to share!

Accessibility notes: Kids always welcome. We don’t have animals. Alcohol & N.A. drinks will be available. We will label food for allergies. No limit on attendees— if we get full + cozy, so be it!

Again, these havdallahs will be held monthly on the 3rd Saturday, rotating locations so mark your calendars!

Community, joy, song are always the answer. Let’s get after it!

So many of you showed up at our first song circle, that we’re making it a regular thing. Mark your calendars for first Wednesdays at 7 pm + spread the word! We meet at the Burlington Friends Meeting House.

This song circle is for anyone who wants to be together and tend to our collective spirits. We will sing songs of grief, resistance, mourning, hope, protest, even joy.

We’ll share desserts — please bring a sweet treat or something to drink for the crew, or just bring yourself! If you have an instrument feel free to bring it.

All are welcome. Bring your grandma & your roommate & your boo!

Most songs will be in English and taught in the round.

5 pm at the Highland Lodge in Greensboro!

This is a really beautiful event hosted by community partners. It’s a place to celebrate and share stories about those you have lost. We’ll also be having a L’Chaim Collective havdallah celebration as part of the evening.

When two young American Jews raised to unconditionally love Israel witness the way Israel treats Palestinians, their lives take sharp left turns. Their stories reveal a deepening generational divide over modern Jewish identity.

Middlebury, VT

RSVP here for address.

$10 suggested donation at the door, no one turned away.

There will be popcorn, tea and of course Bundt cake (always shouting out to the Bund!) served!

Yom Kippur Break the Fast

Saturday, October 12th

5-9pm

Join us to end our high holidays together, with the praying of the traditional Viddui (confessional) prayer, and some additional song and prayer before we break the fast. Please bring a delicious item to add for our feast to break our fast. All ages welcome! The opening singing and prayer circle will not last more than 30 minutes. 

After time to connect and have a meal together, there will be additional singing and text study of the Viddui prayer, the classic prayer we recite at Yom Kippur for collective confession. This will be in a smaller group setting, led by core team member Jory Hearst. This will be a time for questioning and discussing the meaning behind this ancient text. Anyone who wants to stay for this portion of the evening, it will likely begin around 7:30pm. All, as always, are welcome!

Due to numbers expected, this event was moved from Jory's home to the Quaker Meetinghouse, where we hope to have enough space. It also is being pushed back to 5pm (not 5:30pm, as originally stated, to make time for some prayer ahead of our break fast meal.)

Join us for a tashlich ritual in the woods in Salisbury (Addison County). We’ll sing together, learn together, and do this holy atonement practice together by the water. Bring a shofar if you have one! All ages and levels of Jewish practice/knowledge welcome and encouraged.

Please fill out the RSVP form to receive the address. This is a fairly remote, wooded location that lacks facilities. There will be about a ¾ mile walk to water, where we’ll hold the ritual. Please fill out this form to RSVP and receive details.

This will be a joyful, community rich way to kick off the New Year. We will have an hour of services and song, followed by a massive feast for the Birthday of the world. This is for all ages. We will have learning geared to children (and snacks throughout) while also engaging adults in rich learning, reflection and song.

Bring a potluck dish and drink to share. This event will be in Burlington. Please fill out this form to RSVP and receive details. Friends always welcome.

Come join us for a very kid- friendly, creative/ crafty/ artsy adult morning— homemade bagels and coffee on offer as we decorate and beautify our High Holy Day songbook. Drop by for five minutes, hang out for the whole time. Babies welcome. Elders welcome. Crafty people a must.

Get in the mood for Elul by being woken up! Make art! Meet other rad people! Enjoy fresh homemade bagels!

This will be at Grace’s house in Burlington, please write lchaimvt@gmail.com if you need the address.

Join us for community building, nourishing potluck, song circle, and havdallah ritual. We rotate leadership and location of these events monthly, offering the opportunity for our community members (you!) to welcome the crew to their places, and to add their particular brilliance to how to grow community. Each one follows the same format but is unique to the month. Check us out— bring a dish or a drink, bring a song, bring a friend. All are (always) welcome.

Grief work is holy work. Grief work is required for processing trauma. “Grief is the medicine” per Malkia Devich Cyril (this podcast is highly recommended listening prior to coming together.) Jewish ritual has understood the profound power of, and need for, communal grief ritual. We will gather for some somatic, embodied processing as well as some Jewish prayer to help us communally tend the collective grief we are living through.

We ask for RSVPs for this event here to have enough space and materials to tend everyone well. Location: the Iyengar Yoga Center in Burlington.

Bring: a potluck dish, labeled, to share. Optional: songs/ instruments/ stories!

Join us for community building, nourishing potluck, song circle, and havdallah ritual. We rotate leadership and location of these events monthly, offering the opportunity for our community members (you!) to welcome the crew to their places, and to add their particular brilliance to how to grow community. Each one follows the same format but is unique to the month. Check us out— bring a dish or a drink, bring a song, bring a friend. All are (always) welcome.