Tag: Kohenet

Posted on in Testimonials

Bat Mitzvah Preparation: a review

We began our Bat Mitzvah journey with SandraLaya nearly a year ago, after she was recommended by her colleague as the perfect spiritual leader to help our family bring to life a warm, welcoming and deeply meaningful Bat Mitzvah ceremony for our 12 year old daughter.

SandraLaya is genuinely passionate about Judaism and Jewish education and she is a very caring, inspirational and considerate professional. We were so impressed at how she always provided the right amount of encouragement, support and challenge that allowed our daughter to have the confidence and skills to enjoy and appreciate what she was learning.

This has been an enriching and fulfilling process that has provided our daughter with an important foundation and a lifelong positive connection to the Jewish value of ‘tikkun olam’.

While we’ve already had to postpone and reschedule the Bat Mitzvah twice, due to the pandemic, our family looks forward to enjoying this life celebration with SandraLayas’s guidance and support in the future.Thank you SandraLaya, you’re the best!
The Gordon Family

Posted on in Celebrant, Living abundantly

Passover Liberation Sedars

This was undoubtedly my busiest Passover EVER!!!  My colleagues and I at the Jewish Liberation Theology Institute held 3 sedars in 3 different cities – Toronto, Hamilton and London.

Setting up in London, Ontario

Our founding Rabbi Lucia Pizarro led the sedars in both Toronto and London, Ontario. Lucia was born in Mexico City, where she became qualified to practice law. She completed an M.A. and a Ph.D. in Philosophy at the University of Essex in the UK. She followed her academic passion for Jewish thought with four years working for social justice in Palestine. She recently became a mother and a Rabbi.  Our guest was Rabbi David Mivisair officiating in Hamilton. Rabbi David Mivasair is motivated by the commandments “justice, justice you shall pursue” and “seek peace and pursue it”.  For over 25 years, David served as the spiritual leader of synagogues in the US and in Vancouver, where he lives.  David is active in the leadership of Independent Jewish Voices in Canada and Jewish Voice for Peace in the US.  He lived in Israel for four years and in May went with 130 other Jews to support Palestinian activists defending their communities from destruction.

 

 

I was very excited to be the song and prayer leader in both Hamilton and London this year.

 

In London our guest speaker was Tarek Loubani. Tarek is a Palestinian physician and humanitarian. He is an Associate professor at the University of Western Ontario where he works as an emergency physician. He runs the Glia Project, which provides low-cost open-source medical equipment to impoverished locations, and EmPower Gaza, which puts solar panels for electricity on hospitals in Gaza. He will talk about his work at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza, in the context of the 70th anniversary of the Nakba.

tarik loubani

In Hamilton, our guest speaker was Robert Massoud. Robert is a Palestinian-Canadian. In 2004, he founded Zatoun to build bridges between Palestine and North America through the sale of cultural and symbolic products from Palestine. The main offering is fair trade extra virgin olive oil to serve as a symbol of light, hope and peace.  Zatoun is available through the fair trade network, activist and faith communities. He believes that appreciating the enormity and wide-ranging impacts of the Israel-Palestine situation creates interest for people to self-educate which is the best path to commitment and effective civil society.

Robert Massoud

In Toronto we had a speaker from the Palestinian community who asks people to support the Indigenous Land Defence Across Borders (ILDAB) project.

Posted on in Life Cycle Officiant, Uncategorized

Celebrating Your Life Cycle Events

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SandraLaya Ruch, Life Cycle Celebrant – Weddings, Funerals, Coming of Age, B’nai Mitzvah, Retirement, Unbinding and more.

 SandraLaya brings a professional attitude to all your Life Cycle events.  She will work with you to create just the right atmosphere to meet all your hopes and expectations. She is an ordained Kohenet (Hebrew priestess) mother and grandmother, teacher and community leader. SandraLaya offers private and group classes for Bar/Bat Mitzvah preparation, conversion and general studies in Judaism (Judaism 101)

SandraLaya lives in Toronto area and officiates marriages, coming of age ceremonies, baby namings, Jewish conversions, funerals and memorial ceremonies, unbindings and other Life Cycle events in Toronto and the GTA as well as Hamilton and London.  She has traveled extensively for both work and pleasure.  She brings a sincere openness to people and their personal beliefs and values.

Wherever you choose to celebrate – in a traditional setting or under a waterfall, Sandra will bring just the right amount of reverence to your Life Cycle event.

 Areas include the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), London, and Hamilton

  • Weddings
  • Funerals
  • Memorials
  • Baby Naming Ceremony
  • Jewish Conversion
  • Adult Name change celebration
  • Bar/Bat Mitzvah
  • Coming of Age Celebration
  • Unbinding Ceremony

Contact:  sandralruch@gmail.com

Telephone 416-716-4010

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Testimonials

Kasha Coming of AgeThe coming of age ceremony you did for Kasha was very beautiful and touching! You’ve got the gift of bringing people together in a meantingful way.            Marla Slavner June 2016

David and Wayne” Thank you Sandra (Ruch) for your professionalism. It was a pleasure to have you as our officiant to the start of our life together. Sandra had a gentle personality, dressed very professional and had great shoes. We have nothing to say except great things.”   David and Wayne

Kenana for Sandra RuchSandra Ruch was absolutely amazing! She went above and beyond to provide us with a ceremony that my husband and I both loved. She provided with us with many readings and gave us an outline of how the ceremony would go. She was professional, responsive and gave us lots of ideas! Our guests thought the ceremony was beautiful and memorable.Thank you so much Sandra! Kenana & David 09/17/2016

Kale and JustinSandra Ruch went beyond our expectations, she was kind and really guided us through the entire process. I have already had numerous people reach out to me asking for Sandra’s information – she was a huge hit. Sandra was truly magnificent. She was accommodating with us being out of province, she provided so much guidance in the process and really gave us a warm feeling. She has the combination of a really heartfelt smooth tone with genuine excitement and love when performing your service. We would recommend her to all. Kale & Justin

AndreaRob2016We had the absolute pleasure of Sandra Ruch officiating our wedding ceremony. From the moment we met Sandra it was clear that she truly cared about us and wanted our day to be tremendously special. She spent an evening getting to know us and helped guide us through what turned out to be a very personalized, well executed, and beautiful ceremony. Thank you Sandra for caring so much about us and delivering a beautiful ceremony. Andrea and Rob

From start to finish my experience was fantastic! Everyone at All Seasons Weddings made our official wedding ceremony easy plan and they are extremely efficient in planning and wonderful to communicate with. Sandra was our wedding officiant and I can’t say enough about how pleasant, kind and wonderful her spirit is. When I first welcomed her into our home, I felt like I had known her for years. She is warm and caring and took the time to get to know us. Initially we had planned to have Sandra come to our home and sign our marriage certificate but she made us feel special and put the care into her role to present a sweet speech and really highlight what it means to commit to marriage. We had already had a symbolic wedding ceremony at our destination wedding but Sandra still made our quaint living room gathering feel special. Thank you Sandra! I talk about you to all my friends getting married and really hope that you can spread your kindness and spirit to other couples. You really left and impression on us and thank you for being our officiant!  Courtney & Allan