In This Issue:

1. MAN OF THE YEAR DINNER – SA 3/8 – SHOW UP FOR HOWARD MILLER*
2. FEBRUARY MOTAS MEMBERSHIP MEETING – SU 2/9
3. DINING OUT AT RED ROBIN – TU 2/18
4. POKER TOURNAMENT – SUN 3/9
5. L’DOUGH ‘DOUGH – SUN 3/16
6. SUPERBOWL SQUARES SALES FINAL CALL*
7. MOTAS/MOTBH SEDER: CHAROSIS/GEFILTE FISH COOK OFF – SU 3/30*
8. IN CLOSING

(* indicates updated items)

From the Editor: The goal of the Weekly is to get MoTAS members the information they need on upcoming activities, and then get out of the way. If you have any information on MoTAS activities you need to get out to the membership, please contact the Weekly Editor at cybermaven@tasnorthridge-motas.org.

1. MAN OF THE YEAR DINNER – SA 3/8 – SHOW UP FOR HOWARD MILLER

At the MoTAS Shabbat on January 31, Howard Miller was announced as the MoTAS Man of the Year. Congratulations to Howard on a well-deserved reward. Howard was last man of the year way back in 2001! Let’s all show up and show our support for Howard at the MRJ Man of the Year Dinner, where our honoree will be feted, together with the honorees from other MRJ congregations from the MRJ Pacific Southwest region, is Saturday, March 8, 2025 at Temple Beth Tikvah in Fullerton. The cost of the dinner is $50 if you are paying by cash or check; $50 plus TicketLeap fees if you are paying by credit card. You can RSVP or pay online at https://tasmotas.ticketleap.com/25-03-mrj-man-of-the-year-dinner/. RSVPS are due by February 28, 2025 at 6:00PM.

2. FEBRUARY MOTAS MEMBERSHIP MEETING – SU 2/9

Our February Membership meeting will be Sunday, 2/9, at 9:00am. A full breakfast, including bagels, lox, and eggs, will be available starting at 8:45am. Join us for our usual business review, and learn what is happening with the temple. Our speaker will be Scott Yollis, who will discuss the Second Amendment and historical aspects of gun control.

3. DINING OUT AT RED ROBIN – TU 2/18

Would you like an easy way to help MoTAS financially? How about taking your family to lunch or dinner. The MoTAS “Dining Does Good” allows you to go out to lunch or dinner, and have the restaurant donate a portion of your check support the Men of TAS. Our February Dining Does Good” will be Tuesday, February 18, 2025  at Red Robin, 9301 Tampa Ave, Northridge, CA 91324. Just present the flyer or mention the fundraiser when you order or pick up your take out order in person. You can even order online: (1) Start your order at order.redrobin.com and select the Northridge location. (2) In the menu, go to the category labeled “Fundraisers (To-Go Only)” and click on that item. (3) Click the “add” button, and then “add to bag.” (4) Add your meal items and check out. (5) Arrive at Red Robin, come in, say hi, grab your food and be on your way! If your location has curbside pick-up, they can bring it to your car too!

How do you get a flyer? You can find a flyer for the event at https://wp.tasnorthridge-motas.org/activities/dining/ (click on the image of the flyer) or download PDF from our Dropbox account . Once you are at the Dropbox version of the flyer: [NOTE: We are experimenting with Dropbox, let me know if this is easier.]

• If you are on a PC or Mac using a browser: (1) look in the upper right corner. Under the filename, you’ll see “FILE”. Click on that, and you can either PRINT or DOWNLOAD..
• If you using a browser on an Android phone: This takes you directly to the PDF. You can download from there.
• If you are using some other method, please send it to me and I’ll include it on this list.
• If you can’t figure this out at all: Drop me an email at cybermaven@tasnorthridge-motas.org , and I’ll send you the PDF as an attachment.

We really encourage you to come and support these events: we raise a little extra funds for our work, but more importantly, we come together and break bread as a Temple family on a regular basis. It is a real joy to walk into a neighborhood restaurant and see your Temple friends, to sit down and share a table and talk. This is the heart and goal of MoTAS: Building Relationships.

4. POKER TOURNAMENT – SUN 3/9

If you are a poker brat, a poker bum, or are simply a recreational poker player who would like to try your hand at a real Texas Hold-em tournament, join the Men of Temple Ahavat Shalom on Sunday, March 9, 2025 for our annual Poker Tournament. The proceeds support the activities of MoTAS, which in turn benefit our temple and religious school. MoTAS has used the proceeds from previous efforts to donate the following for the temple: (*) New microphones that have transformed the sound from the bimah; (*) An updated main office kitchenette; (*) Light fixtures for the Sanctuary bathrooms; (*) Lighting and electrical updates to the Social Hall kitchen; (*) A new water heater for our Social Hall kitchen

Help MoTAS achieve our 2024-25 goals by participating as a Player or Sponsor.  Register to play for just $95, less than half the cost of any other charity tournament in Los Angeles. Please invite all of your poker playing friends and family to join us in benefiting the temple and religious school. The address is 18200 Rinaldi Place. Please arrive at 3:30pm to register. Bring your dark glasses and lucky hat if you like. We also offer a bounty of an additional $100 in playing chips if past players bring a new player to our tournament. Become a Sponsor with one of our available sponsorships:

For more details, visit our Poker Website, http://poker.tasnorthridge-motas.org/ ⇒  https://wp.tasnorthridge-motas.org/activities/poker/, where you can learn about prices and sponsorship levels. Please sign-up in advance online or send a check made out to TAS with a hard copy of the registration form to Howard Miller at 9656 Geyser Ave, Northridge CA 91324.

We’re also looking for donations for the raffle and silent auction at the tournament, Contact Howard at hmiller12@socal.rr.com if you have something to donate.

5. L’DOUGH ‘DOUGH – SUN 3/16

L’Dough V’Dough is a Holocaust Museum LA program that invites participants to braid and bake challah. As our challah bakes, we will hear a survivor’s family’s story of their survival and perseverance. This program will be at TAS on Sunday, March 16 at 9:30am. RSVP required by March 4. RSVS to Scott Gore: scott22g@msn.com, 508.361.9565. For more information contact Scott. More details at (www.holocaustmuseumla.org/programs).

6. SUPERBOWL SQUARES SALES FINAL CALL

This is your last call. Squares must be purchased by 6pm, Wednesday Night. The cost is only $36 per square, and you can help Temple Ahavat Shalom while potentially rewarding yourself. On-line registrations now have a small handling fee from TicketLeap that we used to absorb — this allows reduces the cost to MoTAS and allows us to do more for TAS. Payouts are $330 for each quarter, and $650 for the final score. A full board of 91 squares pays out $1640 to players, and $1636  to MoTAS. You can find the rules of the game, register and pay online, or find a form that you can print and mail in, at https://wp.tasnorthridge-motas.org/activities/sports-squares/. Squares must be purchased by the Wednesday, February 5, 2025 before the Super Bowl.

7. MOTAS/MOTBH SEDER: CHAROSIS/GEFILTE FISH COOK OFF – SU 3/30

Here are some updates regarding the forthcoming joint Men of TAS/Men of TBH Seder on Sunday, 3/30/2025, which MoTAS will be hosting at Temple Ahavat Shalom.

• The cost is planned to stay the same as last year: $40 per person.
• Dinner will be catered by Alibaba Restaurant in Granada Hills. We’re in the process of finalizing the menu.
• We’re hoping to have a “cook-off” event for Charoset and Gefilte Fish. We’ll be asking the men of both brotherhoods to bring in their favorite home-prepared Charoset and Gefilte Fish. We’ll start doing sign-up sheets at the upcoming meetings.
• We’re hoping for MoTAS members to prepare and bring in some of the other ritual items, notably eggs, horseradish, and such.
• MoTAS will provide drinks (including the wine) and the matzah.
• We will be using a modified and pared down version of our Brotherhood Haggadah from previous years that incorporates content from the MRJ Mens Seder, that Beth Hillel seder, and a few other sources. We expect it to be significantly shorter than our previous version, modulo some of the discussions from the MRJ haggadah. We hopefully will have a copy for perusal at the February meeting.

We’ll have a sign up link as soon as everything is finalized.

IN CLOSING

As always, remember that the Men of Temple Ahavat Shalom is *your* organization. Keep up to date on our activities at http://www.tasnorthridge-motas.org/ and participate. Sign up for our action alert list at http://tinyurl.com/motas-action-alert. We want to serve all the men of Temple Ahavat Shalom and welcome new participants from the TAS membership. Join our Facebook group and “follow” our website. Join the MoTAS Google Group at https://groups.google.com/g/tas-motas (you may need to be logged into your Google account, if you have one). Come be part of the Men of Temple Ahavat Shalom!