The services are participatory, welcoming. In the rustic cabin, seating about 25 people, melodic prayers fill the remote space.
Everyone is strongly encouraged to sing along.
The mustachioed rabbi with a friendly face gives a brief d’var Torah, and then everyone gets a cup of wine, recites kiddush and says the hamotzi blessing over the challah.
The entire service lasts about 30 minutes with one deviation from the norm. When the group recites the central prayer called the Amidah (“standing”), instead of praising God for commanding the “wind and the rain” (ruach and geshem), the rabbi adds in sheleg, meaning “the wind and the snow.”
The congregation gives a knowing chuckle.
Welcome to “ski shul” services, a ski-in, ski-out Kabbalat Shabbat service in Park City, Utah, and a longstanding tradition of Temple Har Shalom, a Reform congregation in the picturesque mountain community most widely known as host of the annual Sundance Film Festival.
Led by Rabbi Gerald Weider, the off-the-beaten-path Kabbalat Shabbat service is held in a mountaintop lodge at Deer Valley Resort that is accessible only by skis, and caters to congregants and visitors from out of town craving warmth and impromptu community.

Weider told JNS in a recent interview from Park City that the synagogue serves both the Jewish people broadly and local patrons. “It’s a win-win for everyone,” he said.
“Ski shul” holds services every Friday at 2 p.m., conditions permitting, at Deer Valley’s Sunset Cabin, which the alpine resort makes available to Har Shalom for an hour weekly during ski season.
Deer Valley displays information about the service, including its time and location, on signs at each of the resort’s chairlifts every Friday. The resort also lists it on the events calendar on its website.
The Israeli flag that Har Shalom hangs from the cabin on Fridays—the Magen David visible to skiers passing by—alerts those on the slopes that they’ve successfully reached the right location. And for the benefit of all, the cabin is located on a “green” slope, a designation for beginners.
A retired rabbi and member of Har Shalom, Weider is a self-described “ski bum,” who splits his time between the neighborhood of Park Slope, Brooklyn, N.Y., where he formerly led Congregation Beth Elohim, and Park City, Utah.
He has led Har Shalom’s “ski shul” for the past two years while the Park City congregation—which has about 400 members and is located about 15 minutes from Deer Valley—is led by Rabbi Jonathan, an interim rabbi. On July 1, Rabbi Jeff Dreifus is slated to assume the pulpit at Har Shalom on a full-time basis.
The ski service was conceived by Rabbi Joshua Aaronson, who became Har Shalom’s first full-time rabbi in 2002 and today leads Temple Judea, a Reform community in Tarzana, Calif.
The service tends to draw 10 to 100 people, according to Weider. The most popular services occur during the holiday week of Christmas and New Year’s. “Those two Fridays are always the busiest,” he told JNS.
‘People were standing in the snow’
When there is a larger crowd, a handful of additional worshippers cram inside and stand, or service-goers gather on a deck at the entrance of the cabin and follow along with tiny siddurim that are distributed.
The service used to be held at 3 p.m. but was pushed to an earlier time to accommodate parents with children in ski school, which lets out at 3:45 p.m.
“As a Reform rabbi, this is the kind of accommodation we want to make so people get the experience of celebrating Shabbat together,” Weider said.

Occasionally, weather conditions get in the way. During last year’s ski season, a Shabbat service was canceled because of the wind, which prompted the closure of the ski lift needed to reach the services.
But sometimes, everything goes just right. “On a lovely March Friday” last year, some 80 people turned out. “People were standing in the snow. The deck wasn’t big enough for everyone,” Weider said.
The members of Har Shalom and Jewish visitors aren’t the only ones who turn a nondescript ski lodge once a week into a holy place. On Sundays, non-denominational Christian services are held there as well.
Weider used to describe his services as the highest Shabbat service in the country, referring to the lofty mountaintop elevation.
But that distinction likely belongs to B’nai Butte, a congregation in Crested Butte, in Colorado’s Rocky Mountains.
As with Har Shalom’s “ski shul,” that synagogue has embraced the pun life. Its tagline: “Creating community in the chai country.”