- About
- Community
-
Learn
- Our Schools
- Youth Department
- B'nai Mitzvah Program
-
Adult Learning
- Hazak
- Sayva: A New Approach to Positive Aging
- EFSHAR presents The Mystical Journey: A Month of Learning
- Talking Torah with Rabbi Lebovitz
- Weekly Torah Study with Rabbi Feinstein
- Thinking Aloud with Rabbi Nolan Lebovitz
- Discovery Circle
- VBS College of Jewish Studies
- Miller Introduction to Judaism (AJU) at VBS
- VBS Book Club
- Lunch and Learn
- The Inner Life of Men
- Adult B'nai Mitzvah Program
- OurSpace: The Artistic Spectrum of Jewish Learning for Adults
- Melton School
- Harold M. Schulweis Institute
- VBS YouTube Video Archives
- VBS Digital Media Projects
- Pray
- Volunteer
- Join
- Donate
Valley Beth Shalom is a synagogue community committed to the quest for a Jewish life that is Godly, meaningful, and purposeful.
We are the largest Conservative congregation in the heart of the San Fernando Valley. We have gained a national reputation for our programs in Jewish learning and living. Here, you will find a place of deep thoughts and deeply thoughtful people. We offer a variety of prayer services, courses of learning, ongoing commitments to service and acts of kindness for those in need, and celebrations of Jewish culture. Our schools provide outstanding Jewish education for children from infancy through high school. We invite you to visit and learn more about VBS.
Our Philosophy
Human beings seek meaning. We seek the certainty that our life matters. We gain meaning by locating our personal story in a grand narrative, a narrative of our people, our nation, or in the struggle on behalf of a great cause, in pursuit of truth, beauty or justice. We experience meaning in significant relationships of intimacy, family, friendship, and community. We find meaning in acts of significant giving and caring and sharing. All these provide moments when we break out of the narrow confines of individuality to experience a bigger self. Jewish tradition teaches that the broader we define the boundaries of self, the deeper our sense of life's meaning. Opening the self to include family, friends, community, people, and the world opens the way to a deeply meaningful life.
Thus, we are commanded in the Torah: Kedoshim t'hiu ki kadosh Ani, "You will be holy, as I am holy." (Leviticus 19). God is the Self that encompasses the entire world. As we expand our sense of self to embrace more and more of the world, we become holy, we become Godly.
Our Mission
We transform lives through:
Torah - Jewish Learning
Avodah - Jewish Worship, Celebration and Commemoration
Gemilut Hasadim - Ethical Action and Social Justice
Havurah - Jewish Fellowship, Community and Belonging
These basic principles sustain our synagogue as a participatory, activist, inclusive community whose members feel connected to one another, to their Jewish past, to the Jewish future, to Israel, to Jewish communities and throughout the world.
Sun, October 13 2024
11 Tishrei 5785