We have published three blogposts (available here and here and here) that featured great programming brochures so that your shul or community kollel could be aware of wonderful ideas from around the globe! As we now enter the season of spring and summer, you may be on the look out for ways to still draw people—especially families—into your events, so that they feel connected to your organization throughout the year.

After all, bringing people into shul or a community center is a lot easier during the High Holidays, than during the time of year when people are vacationing or would rather be at the beach. And so, we wanted to highlight, not a brochure, but a fresh new programming idea coming out of the Boca Raton Synagogue (BRS).

BRS recently hosted what they dubbed as a “Biblical and Talmudic Botany Tour.” The event took place at a local botanical garden and the guest speaker was Biblical ethnobotanist, Dr. Jon Greenberg. You can read more about him on his website: TorahFlora.org. At the BRS event, Greenberg guided young and old alike, and exposed the audience to Torah and Jewish history, as revealed in the beautiful collections of the Mounts Botanical Garden in Palm Beach.

To learn more about Dr. Jon Greenberg, you can watch an interview with him below:

 

Truth be told, much of the impact of this sort of event can be achieved even if bringing a guest speaker isn’t in your budget. First, find a botanical garden in your city that you and your congregants can enjoy on a sunny Sunday morning. Next, scope out the location to see what plants, flowers, and more they offer, so that you can read up on some of the vegetation in the botantical garden, and talk about the Jewish connection(s) when you make your formal visit.

Depending on your audience, you can enhance the trip by printing out Hebrew and English sources to accompany your tour, and by extension, connect the shul outing to the timeless words of the Torah! The event can then conclude with a nice picnic on the lawn of the botanical garden that will give all the families an additional opportunity to bond.

Below is the flyer from Boca Raton Synagogue in its entirety:

Three Amazing Opportunites

 

 

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