Kabbalat Shabbat ("Welcoming the Sabbath") is our service for Friday evening. It begins each week at 6:15 pm, and is preceded by an Oneg Shabbat (literally, "the joy of Shabbat," but idiomatally, "good food and conversation") at 5:45. At a typical Kabbalat Shabbat service, the music is joyful and the teaching is brief. The service concludes at around 7:10 pm.

Longstanding Reform Jewish custom is to treat the the beginning of public worship as an appropriate time for candlelighting -- whether or not that moment falls prior to or subsequent to sunset. At Temple, we kindle lights to open our Kabbalat Shabbat service each week. We recognize, however the beauty and meaning of fulfilling the mitzvah of candlelighting as the sun prepares to set.