Baby Naming
Babies can be named and blessed from the bimah during Shabbat services. To arrange for a baby naming, please contact us by calling the Temple Offfice at (301-942-2000) or by email at frontdesk@templeemanuelmd.org

B'nai Mitzvah
Bar and Bat Mitzvah ceremonies are held regularly at Temple Emanuel. Students are required to attend our religious school for three years in order to schedule a ceremony. The Cantor, Rabbi and tutors help train the students. Our ceremonies include the entire family as well as representatives of interfaith families in an inspiring service, led by the Bar or Bat Mitzah.

Confirmation
Confirmation takes place for 10th graders at the end of their Confirmation studies. In culminates in a creative service where all students have a chance to share their personal faith and convictions about many Jewish concerns.

Marriage/Wedding Blessings
Please contact Rabbi Stone at RabbiStone@TempleEmanuelMd.org and Temple office (301-942-2000) or by email at frontdesk@templeemanuelmd.org to answer any questions you may have.

To schedule the use of the sanctuary, the social hall or HaMakom for your ceremony or reception, please contact the Temple Office. Our facilities are also available for rental for your simcha.

An Aufruf (traditional blessing of the couple on the Shabbat preceding the wedding) can be scheduled the week before the wedding service.

Illness/Healing
Rabbi Stone and Cantor Boxt want to call or, if possible, visit members who are ill or hospitalized. Please help them by notifying the Temple Offfice at (301-942-2000) of illnesses and hospitalizations.

To add someone's name to our healing list, call the Temple Office (301-942-2000) and speak to Diane or e-mail her at frontdesk@templeemanuelmd.org with the details.

Bereavement and Funerals
If there is a death in the family, please contact the Rabbi or Temple office (301-942-2000) immediately. Rabbi Stone can assist you in the many questions you may have.

Temple Emanuel also has a Guide to Bereavement which is available in the Temple office to answer many questions.

The Temple can help organize a meal of comfort and evening minyans through its lay leadership and bereavement committees.

Yahrzeit
The Temple office also will send reminders about upcoming Yarzeit dates to remember your loved ones at Shabbat services.

The Bereavement Committee of our Temple family has been quietly providing support for members that lose a loved one.

After a call from the Temple office notifying the committee that someone has passed away, our caring wheels are put in motion. We offer a light, dairy condolence meal, prepared, delivered, and served by committee volunteers. Almost everything that is necessary is brought to the home within as little as 24 hours notice. While the family is attending the funeral services, members of the bereavement committee are in the home of the grieving family getting ready for their return from the cemetery. We serve the food and leave the house as we found it. Whether or not a meal is requested, a personal card is sent to the bereaved member, expressing sympathy from our Temple Emanuel family.

Our congregation is proud to be a caring community. The Bereavement Committee provides sensitive care at a difficult time.

Other related support is also available, such as information about the plan available to Temple members for funeral arrangements, conducting Shiva services and other necessary, pertinent information. If you need information of this kind, call the Temple office, 301-942-2000.

New students are welcomed into the Temple Emanuel community and blessed at a wonderful family celebration called Consecration, which will take place at the Simchat Torah service in the sanctuary starting at 7:30 pm.

The Jewish Funeral Practices Committee of Greater Washington has renewed its contracts on behalf of area congregations, which includes Temple Emanuel, with Hines-Rinaldi Funeral Home in Silver Spring MD and Jefferson Funeral Chapel in Alexandria VA. Both companies have built special facilities for the needs of all Jewish funerals.

The Hines-Rinaldi renewal is for the period 7/1/04 through 6/30/06. The Committee has annual cost-of-living renewal options for the succeeding five years. The package price, including casket and services at a synagogue, gravesite, or the Hines-Rinaldi chapel, will be $1570, the same as it has been. As before, it also includes a gravesite at their affiliated cemetery, Menorah Gardens, in Rockville, if desired. Standard Jewish funeral goods and services are also included. Hines-Rinaldi has raised the price of some options, primarily the use of limousines.

Our contracts provide the community with quality funerals that uphold Jewish values: honor and privacy of the deceased, simplicity and equality in death, protection of the bereaved from exploitation, and facilitation of the Jewish rituals that each congregation considers to be appropriate. Our contract prices are public, thus setting the standard for Jewish funeral prices in the area and benefiting even those who don't use our contracts. Use of our contracts since 1987 has saved the community more than 10 million dollars and some other funeral homes seem to be lowering their prices to compete with Hines-Rinaldi but be alert to all their hidden costs if you deal with them.

Please visit http://www.jewish-funerals.org/contracthines.htm for further details.