MoTAS Weekly 3/26/2025: LAST CHANCE – SIGN UP FOR THE MEN’S SEDER

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In This Issue:

  1. MOTAS/MOTBH SEDER 3/30: MUST SIGN UP BY THURS NOON
  2. APRIL MOTAS MEMBERSHIP MEETING – SU 4/6
  3. NCAA SQUARES SALES NOW OPEN
  4. ANNUAL APPEAL NOW OPEN
  5. DINING OUT AT CHIS – MON APR 7
  6. 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. MOTAS/MOTBH SEDER 3/30: MUST SIGN UP BY THURS NOON

You may notice that although the weekly is dated on Wednesday, I’m sending it on Tuesday. That’s because YOU NEED TO SIGN UP FOR THE SEDER ASAP!

Bottom Line Up Front:

Our next big MoTAS event is our joint Mens Seder with the Men of Temple Beth Hillel (and we’re not exclusive — men from other congregations are welcome as well). The event is Sunday, 3/30/2025, starting at 5pm.

First and foremost: WE NEED YOUR HELP. We need people to help shop, setup, and cleanup. We need people to bring (ideally, donate) some of the ritual food that’s not being purchased or catered. We are also conducting a TASTE-OFF for Charosis and Gefilte Fish, so we need folks to show their best preparation skills and bring items to taste. Would you like to help with any of these? We have a volunteer sign up sheet at https://volunteersignup.org/EHHEY , or you can email me at faigin@cahighways.org.

We also need people to attend the seder. We’re hoping for 20-30 folks to attend, if not more. You can sign up directly at https://tasmotas.ticketleap.com/25-03-brotherhood-seder/. Here are some specifics about the seder; for more details, see https://wp.tasnorthridge-motas.org/activities/mens-seder/ :

  • Where and when: Temple Ahavat Shalom, 18200 Rinaldi Place, Northridge CA 91326. Doors open at 5pm; we’ll start at 530pm. Our plan is to be done by 8pm-ish.
  • The cost is planned to stay the same as last year: $40 per person.
  • Dinner will be catered by Alibaba Restaurant in Granada Hills. See the sign up page for the menu.
  • There will be a “taste-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. Sign up at https://volunteersignup.org/EHHEY.
  • 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, although donations are welcome.
  • 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. Click here to see the current version.

You can sign up directly at https://tasmotas.ticketleap.com/25-03-brotherhood-seder/. Sign up to volunteer or for the taste-off at https://volunteersignup.org/EHHEY.

2. APRIL MOTAS MEMBERSHIP MEETING – SU 4/6

Our April Membership meeting will be Sunday, 4/6, at 8:45am. A full breakfast, including bagels, lox, and eggs, will be available starting at 8:45am. After a brief membership meeting (including the announcement of officer candidates), we’ll be preparing the Yom HaShoah candle mailing.

3. NCAA SQUARES SALES NOW OPEN

Now that football season is officially over, it’s time for basketball and the craziness known as the Final Four, in early April. Once again, MoTAS is happy to offer you the opportunity to help raise some needed funds for special TAS projects, and maybe you’ll earn some $$ along the way. In other words: NCAA Squares are now on sale. To get all the information (and in some cases, more than you could ever want), go to http://squares.tasnorthridge-motas.org/ where you’ll find the instructions, a sign-up form you can download and then print, and a link if you wish to order your spaces online. Registration closes Tuesday, April 1, 2025 at 6pm, unless otherwise announced.

To summarize: each name on the board can have up to 3 spaces. The squares are priced at $36 each. The game is for both the men’s and women’s tournament (semifinal two games each, and final games), so there are 12 opportunities to be a winner, since there is a winner at the half and final score. If the board is fully subscribed at all 100 spaces, the payout is $150 per win. Once again, we’ll use our “tie-breaker” method to determine a winner if a winning square is unsold (If there are unsold squares, the payouts will be adjusted.) The tie-breaker is your prediction of the total number of points both teams will score in any game, for example, if you think the final score will be 82-61, your number = 143. Here’s a hint for those who are unfamiliar (or don’t really care….): the average score for the men’s tournament for the last two years was 147, and the average score for the women’s tournament was 134. You get only one tie-breaker per person, so choose wisely.

4. ANNUAL APPEAL NOW OPEN

The MoTAS Shabbat marks the start of our annual appeal. MoTAS does not collect membership dues — we depend on contributions from our membership to do what we do, and to help Temple Ahavat Shalom. You should be receiving the appeal letter shortly. To contribute online or to print a donation form, just visit support.tasnorthridge-motas.org or go directly to https://wp.tasnorthridge-motas.org/about/support-motas/. The online direct donation page is here; the link to our Box account with the downloadable PDF form is here.

5. DINING OUT AT CHIS – MON APR 7

Would you like an easy way to help MoTAS financially? How about taking your family to dinner. The MoTAS “Dining Does Good” allows you to go out to dinner, and have the restaurant donate a portion of your check support the Men of TAS. Our April Dining Does Good” will be April 7Monday,   at Chi’s Chinese, 9635 Reseda Blvd. Northridge, CA 91324,  (818) 886-6928, chis_chinese@verizon.net.

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.

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!

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