What we do
Our focus is on creating experiences that connect us
to each other,
to ourselves,
to the sacred,
and to the broader community of which we are a part.
We learn together
The core doing of our congregation is Torah-based discussion and learning. Whether it’s a teaching by Rabbi Uhrbach or Rabbi Boino, post-service informal conversation about the Torah reading and how it relates to us and our world, a summer study group, or lively give and take around the Shabbat dinner table, we’re all about deep discussion about the things that matter most.
We pray together
We gather most regularly for prayer.
Our Shabbat services are a highlight of the week, both Friday night and Shabbat morning, in person and online, offering weekly connection, centering, and grounding.
Festival services are enriched with special melodies and poetry. Experiencing the harvest season while praying, singing and eating in the Sukkah is especially joyful. Rabbi Uhrbach’s Purim shpiels, held at JTS, are legendary (if you think that’s an exaggeration, check out the song videos from 2022 here).
Our High Holy Day services are a uniquely transporting and transformative experience from beginning to end.
“Rabbi Uhrbach does not pray for me: she brings her wide scholarship to lead me, and help me. She is a bridge who helps me to understand how to pray.”
— David B.
We’re there for each other
At Bridge Shul, we’re there for each other in celebration and joy, and in hard times.
During our services, we mark and celebrate the full cycle of life - births and b’nei mitzvah, birthdays and anniversaries, professional achievements, graduations, retirements. We also make space to share the pain of loss, the challenges of illness, moments of anxiety and fear.
Outside of our services, we show up — to pay a shiva call, dance at a wedding, bring food, offer companionship or concrete help — whatever is needed.
And of course, our rabbis are available for members’ weddings, baby namings, and funerals.
“We experienced the profound emotional importance of our community during the course of our child's bar mitzvah preparation and ceremony. He had a very individual deep engagement with the texts he was deciphering and analyzing, but he experienced the resonance of their meaning by sharing them with this congregation. Many congregants had watched our son grow from his earliest days as a baby, and they were there to witness and celebrate one of his most significant Jewish life rituals.” — Rachel L.
“When we arrived at the cemetery, there was a crowd of people who were waiting for us. It was members of this synagogue. They wanted to comfort and be with us during such a time of grief. The outpouring of love during that painful time still brings tears to my eyes until this day. We are there for each other in times of celebration but also in times of need.” — Kim B
We volunteer together
One of the best ways to get to know each other is to work on things together. So we’re a hands-on kind of community, where everyone pitches in to set the dinner table and clean up afterwards, transform the Bay Street Theater into a mystical High Holy Day sanctuary, or plan a special event. First-time attendees often feel very comfortable rolling up their sleeves and pitching in, and immediately become “regulars”.
We also look for opportunities to give back to the larger community of which we’re a part, whether it’s packing vegetables at the local food pantry, running food drives, registering election voters, or reading to young children. We’re especially supportive of our closest neighbor, the Bridgehampton Child Care Center, and their community food pantry.
We laugh together
One of the most important things we do is laugh together — over shared meals (what’s a Jewish community without food?), Zoom glitches, inopportune airplane noise during outdoor services, and our mascot Scout raising his voice to the shofar. Knowing each other well and sharing the everyday absurdities of life create a foundation of trust that enables us to be real with each other. Together we embrace the full range of human moods. In community we are playful and reflective, experience joy and sadness, offer and receive comfort from others and make spaces in which to be alone with our thoughts.