Saturday, November 19, 2016

Newly-Arrived Rabbi Noam Raucher to Speak at Community Interfaith Thanksgiving Service

Newly-arrived Rabbi Noam Raucher will be the keynote speaker at this year’s Altadena Congregations Together Serving (ACTS) interfaith Thanksgiving Service, Sunday November 20 at 7 p.m. at the Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center, 1434 N. Altadena Drive, just north of Washington Boulevard.

The event is being sponsored by ACTS (Altadena Congregations Together Serving), an interactive fellowship among local religious congregations, who work together on community issues such as homelessness, positive youth activities and mutual understanding.

Congregations that will take part in this event’s program include the Christian Science Church, St. Marks Episcopal Church, Altadena Community Church, the Bahai Faith, Christ the Shepard Lutheran Church and the St. Vincent De Paul Society.

Praise music on the Thanksgiving theme will be presented by Altadena Baptist Church’s Gospel Choir, under the direction of Loren Roberts, and by Cantor Ruth Berman Harris. A musical tribute will be made to song-writer Leonard Cohen, who recently passed away, through the singing of his moving “Halleluia.”

A freewill offering will be received to support the ACTS Food Bank from which a number of local families receive food every Saturday. Contributions from the public are appreciated.

Rabbi Raucher grew up in a home of Jewish educators and leaders in Hamden, CT. He graduated from Hofstra University in 2002 with honors in Judaic Studies and Psychology. He spent the next few years working for Hillel at the University of California, San Diego; and as a counselor at the Yale Psychiatric Hospital in New Haven. In 2011 he was ordained by the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies in Los Angeles.

He then served as Associate Rabbi of Temple Israel in Charlotte, North Carolina, and became Senior Rabbi of the Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center in the summer of 2016.

Rabbi Raucher loves being a rabbi and the meaningful work of the rabbinate.

He states: “I will live each and every day guided by a covenant of love with my Teacher. Each day I give thanks for the opportunity to serve the Jewish people, my fellow citizens of the world, and God. In service to them I will operate as a light of the Jewish tradition perpetuating: love, justice, hope, and wisdom. I will value people over programs, and relationships over numbers. I will always strive to sanctify life and treat all of creation as holy.”.