Welcome to P’nai Or of Central CT

We invite you to join Congregation P’nai Or of Central Connecticut, a Jewish Renewal prayer and celebratory community! In addition to being a place to explore your spirituality in a Jewish context, Congregation P’nai Or is a place to meet interesting people and make new friends.

We welcome people of all ages, sexual orientations, religious backgrounds and lifestyles to our services. We are grateful that Pnai Or has attracted a rich diversity of members. As a community we are dedicated to creating an environment that is open and affirming, and serves the needs of all our members. We welcome your presence, your voices, your spirits, your families, and your friends. Join us for a wonderful year of meaningful, enriching, and uplifting prayer and an opportunity to make special friendships, and be part of a community.

“P'nai Or” means “Faces of Light”. We are one of many Jewish renewal groups around the world. Some are called P'nai Or, and some have different names. We are a member of Aleph (the Alliance for Jewish Renewal). See www.aleph.org for more information.

Our davennen/prayer includes singing, chanting, stories, dance, guided imagery, meditation, sharing, and Torah discussion. We pray in Hebrew and English, combine traditional liturgy with new melodies and creative translations, use gender-neutral God language, and refer to God in ways that transcend traditional anthropomorphic images. Through our prayer we touch all four worlds that the Jewish mystics teach about: Assiyah (action/body), Yetzirah (feeling/heart), Briyah (thought/mind), Atzilut (spirit).

In addition to High Holy Day services, Sukkot, Simchat Torah, Chanukah, Tu B'Shevat, Purim, and Shavuot, we hold regular Shabbat morning services, on the first Saturday of the month. Twice this year, we will hold a Shabbat for All Ages service, which will be particularly lively and friendly for children, as well as enjoyable and meaningful for adults.

What we value and want to strengthen in our Pnai Or community

We value that P'nai Or is a comfortable community for diverse age and stage groups

We value the meaningful sharing and learning about important life and spiritual development issues as explored through sacred texts, prayer and conversation. 

We value that wisdom comes from circle-style leadership.  We wish to strengthen our capacity for communal wisdom sharing.

We value the practice of communal blessings for healing and growth within the practice of Jewish rituals.

We value the pause that is inherent in a shabbos practice.  We wish to vary the kinds of gathering opportunities and formats to include other Sabbath and holiday rituals.

We value the quiet and contemplative times on our gatherings.  We wish to strengthen our contemplative capacity.

We value the beauty and the experience of chant as a spiritual practice.  We wish to strengthen the harmonics and fullness of chants.

We value the bridging of P'nai Or community to other areas of interest to us: psychology, other world traditions, movement practices, as examples.  We wish to strengthen the number of individuals in our community, to nourished and be nourished by vital community and enthusiastic practitioners.

We value the sense of building relationship with God, self and community through our community practices.

We value the imperative of renewal Judaism to practice world repair.  We value and wish to strengthen these practices within Pnai Or community.