Shabbat-O-Gram
January 7, 2006 - Tevet 7,
5766
(THERE WILL BE NO
SHABBAT-O-GRAM NEXT WEEK)
Rabbi Joshua Hammerman, Temple Beth El, Stamford, Connecticut
Send your friends and relatives the gift of Jewish awareness -- a
Shabbat-O-Gram each week, by signing them up at www.tbe.org.
To be removed from this mailing list, sent e-mail request to office@tbe.org. If you have signed up and are not receiving
our e-mails, check your spam filter to make sure that TBE is not being “spammed
out.”
(See my comments on Ariel Sharon below, in the
“Rabid Rabbi” section)
A Statement from the Stamford
Board of Rabbis:
In Jewish tradition, prayers for
the sick and infirm truly travel from heart to heart. How comforting it is to
know that another is praying on our behalf when our bodies are failing us or
when life itself is particularly painful.
Our hearts go out to the Prime Minister of the State of Israel, Ariel Sharon and his family. Few truly know the
private agony that comes when someone we love is on life support. Larger than
life to some, Mr. Sharon is also a person with all the frailties that come with
being human.
Some love his politics, some passionately oppose his politics. But none can
doubt his love of Israel
and its people. Wounded in Israel's
1948 War of Independence, chastised after Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon, many
wrote him off a long time ago. But this tough Israeli demonstrated a tenacity
typical of many who call Israel
their home.
The Stamford
Board of Rabbis joins its voice with all who wish Prime Minister Sharon a full
and complete healing of mind, body and spirit. May his doctors and nurses, his
family and friends bring wisdom and compassion to his bedside. We trust that
the ship of state will remain steady even as Prime Minister Sharon struggles
with perhaps the greatest challenge of his life. Our prayers are with him.
Rabbi Ira Ebbin - President
Rabbi Daniel Cohen
Rabbi Marc Disick
Rabbi Joseph Ehrenkranz
Rabbi Mark Golub
Rabbi Joshua Hammerman
Rabbi Emily Korzenik
Rabbi Philip Schechter
|
A prayer for the prime minister
|
|
|
|
By Bradley
Burston
|
|
|
|
Say a
prayer for the prime minister.
Say a prayer for the man who could not be broken.
Say a prayer for our shattered present. Say a prayer for our shuttered common
future.
Pray for the man who could not be stilled. Pray for the man who could not be
swayed.
Say a prayer for the future only he knew.
Say a prayer for the people he has left behind. The Jewish People, the people
he loved, at times despite himself, despite them. The people who could not
bring themselves to love him.
Pray for those of us who once embraced him, and came to curse him.
Pray for those of us who once cursed him, and could not bring ourselves to
forgive him.
Pray for those who call themselves religious and see in this, the hand of
God.
Pray for those who call themselves non-religious and need now to pray.
Pray for the leaders who, unable to replace him, will now succeed him.
Pray for a miracle. Pray for all of us. Pray that we may know to heal each
other.
Pray for this land. That it may know the peace that he never will.
Add your own prayer at the Ha’aretz
Website: PRAYER FOR SHARON; see also Haaretz analysts:
Political scenarios in a post-Sharon era
|
and from the Jerusalem
Post, see: Comment:
What now?; Editor's
Notes: After Sharon; Analysis:
In the event of incapacitation
Readers
send their prayers for Sharon [ii]
The Jewish Agency
for Israel
has created an e-mail address for people to send their wishes to the prime
minister. The address is thoughtsandprayers@jewishagency.org.il
And from the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism…
We join with others all over the
world as we pray for the recovery of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, whose courage
and determination in leading Israel in the direction he has felt it must go has
brought us closer to peace. We pray that he recover from his illness, both in
spirit and in body.
We pray as well for Acting Prime
Minister Ehud Olmert, for the Israeli government, and for the people of Israel, whose
sturdy democracy we are sure will weather this crisis. May they in wisdom seek
the vision of peace and in our lifetime may we realize Amos’ hope of a world in
which nation shall not lift up sword against nation.
May God who blessed our ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,
Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, and Leah, bring blessing and healing to Prime Minister
Ariel Sharon, Ariel ben Vera. May the Holy One mercifully restore him to health
and vigor, granting him physical and spiritual well being, together with others
who are ill.
Contents
of the Shabbat O Gram: (click to scroll down)
Just
the Facts (service schedule)
The Rabid Rabbi
Mitzvah/Tzedakkah Opportunities
Ask the Rabbi
Spiritual Journey on the Web
Required Reading and Action Items (links
to key articles on Israel and Jewish life)
Announcements (goings on in and around TBE)
Joke for the Week
Our Hebrew School students at Brighton Gardens –
See story and other photos in “Mitzvah Opportunities” section below
Quote for the Week
“Israel
is not built on one person alone. If we got through the Rabin assassination, we
can get through anything.”
Yossi Shahar,
an Israeli government worker
JUST THE FACTS
Next Week:
SHABBAT UNPLUGGED IS BACK!!!
Dancing! Music!
Meditation! Celebration!
For all ages, the Spirit of Shabbat
Friday, Jan. 13 @7:30
For the young’ns,
Tot Shabbat with Nurit will be held at 7:30 in the chapel.
Friday Evening
Candle lighting for Stamford, CT: Candle lighting: 4:12 pm on Friday, 6 January 2006. For candle lighting times, other Jewish
calendar information, and to download a Jewish calendar to your PDA, click on http://www.hebcal.com/. To see the festivals of other faiths as well,
go to http://www.interfaithcalendar.org/
Kabbalat Shabbat: 6:30 PM – in the chapel
Tot Shabbat: 6:45 – in the lobby
Shabbat Morning: 9:30 AM – Mazal tov to Zachary
Gold, who becomes Bar Mitzvah this Shabbat morning!
Children’s services: 10:30
Torah
Portion: VaYigash - Genesis 44:18 - 47:27
1:
45:28-46:4
2: 46:5-7
3: 46:8-11
4: 46:12-15
5: 46:16-18
6: 46:19-22
7: 46:23-27
maf: 46:23-27
Haftarah – Ezekiel
37:15 - 37:28
See a weekly commentary
from the UJC Rabbinic Cabinet, at www.ujc.org/mekorchaim. Read the Masorti commentary at http://www.masorti.org/mason/torah/index.asp. University of Judaism, JTS commentary is at: http://learn.jtsa.edu/topics/parashah/.
USCJ Torah Sparks can be found at http://uscj.org/item20_467.html.
UAHC Shabbat Table Talk discussions are at http://uahc.org/torah/exodus.shtml.
Other divrei Torah via the Torahnet home page: http://uahcweb.org/torahnet/. Test
your Parasha I.Q.: http://www.ou.org/jewishiq/parsha/default.htm.
CLAL’s Torah commentary archive: http://click.topica.com/maaaiRtaaRvQhbV2AtLb/. World Zionist Organization Education page,
including Nehama Liebowitz archives of parsha commentaries: http://www.moreshet.net/web/index.asp?f=1
For a more Kabbalistic/Zionist/Orthodox perspective from Rav Kook, first Chief
Rabbi of Israel, go to http://www.geocities.com/m_yericho/ravkook/index.html.
For some probing questions and meditations on key verses of the portion, with a
liberal kabbalistic bent, go to http://www.jewishealing.com/learning.html
or, for Kabbalistic commentaries from the Zohar itself, go to http://www.kabbalah.com/k/index.php/p=zohar/weekly/intro. To see the weekly commentary from Hillel, geared to college
students and others, go to http://www.hillel.org/hillel/NewHille.nsf/FCB8259CA861AE57852567D30043BA26/DF7D129F15B3DF0885256AB80058E9C3?OpenDocument.
For a Jewish Renewal and feminist approach go to http://rabbishefagold.hypermart.net/Torah1.html
. For a comprehensive Orthodox viewpoint
from the Israeli rabbi, Yaakov Fogelman, go to the Torah Outreach Program at http://israelvisit.co.il/top/previous.shtml. Guided meditations for each portion by Judith
Abrams at http://www.maqom.com/kavannah.pdf For online Parsha quizzes from Pardes in
Israel, go to http://www.pardes.org.il/online_learning/parsha_quizzes/
Torah for Kids: http://www.torah4kids.net/ Weekly Lesson of Popular Israeli Rabbi
Mordechai Elon: http://www.elon.org/archives/archives.htm
- and his parsha sheets: http://www.mibereshit.org/special/download_eng_pdf.htm From Bar Ilan University: http://www.biu.ac.il/JH/Parasha/eng/;
http://www.torahproductions.com/weekly_article.jsp
THE ENTIRE
HEBREW BIBLE (AS WELL AS OTHER JEWISH SOURCES) CAN BE FOUND WITH SIDE-BY-SIDE
TRANSLATION AT
http://www.mechon-mamre.org/
Morning Minyan: Weekdays at 7:30, Sundays at
9:30 AM
IN THE CHAPEL
TO ENSURE A “GUARANTEED MINYAN” FOR THE DAY OF
YOUR YAHRZEIT – GO TO THE ROSNER MINYAN MAKER AT WWW.TBE.ORG AND ALSO CONTACT ME AT
RABBI@TBE.ORG.
A guaranteed minyan has been requested
for MONDAY JANUARY 9.
If you can make it, go to www.tbe.org and click on the Rosner Minyan Maker
to let us know.
Winter Weather Advisory
Note that in the case of
bad weather, weekday minyan does not take place when Stamford public schools are
cancelled OR postponed. On Sunday,
minyan is cancelled if our Religious School sessions are
cancelled. Friday evening and Shabbat morning’s main service is never
officially cancelled, but do use your best judgment in deciding whether to
come. We will endeavor to get proper
notification to WSTC radio regarding cancellations, but that may not always be
possible for children’s services held on Shabbat.
The Rabid Rabbi
Ariel Sharon
Last
summer, in the midst of the Gaza
withdrawal that, it turns out, will likely be seen as the crowning moment of
Ariel Sharon’s prime ministership, I came to a shocking realization. Everyone in the media had been squawking
about how much the man had changed, how the hawk who invaded Lebanon had become the dove willing
to give up land unilaterally; how the father of the settler movement had
betrayed his own political base.
I
suddenly realized that the man had not changed at all.
The Sharon I once despised had done nothing out of character
to become the Sharon
I had come to admire. In fact,
everything he did followed the same pattern, from his courageous forays into
enemy territory to strike back against terrorists early in his career, to his
dramatic (and possibly unauthorized) crossing of the Suez in 1973, to Lebanon
in 1982, to his famous stroll on the temple mount in 2001 to his strong
response to the Intifada once he became Prime Minister, to what happened in
Gush Katif last summer, to his bolting Likud and setting up a new centrist
party late last year. Even his behavior
over the past few weeks since his first stroke indicated that he intended to
bulldoze his own mortality, as it were, to defeat his illness unilaterally.
What
all these defining moments had in common was the man’s penchant for dramatic
action over consensus building and his steadfast belief that Israel’s security matters more than
anything else; more than ideology and more than party politics. He is a man who always preferred to go it
alone and in the end, he understood that his nation would also be best off
going it alone (with strong American support), in setting up long term
solutions that would allow Israelis to live in relative calm while awaiting a peace
partner. The security fence, which he
once rejected, and the redrawing of borders, which was once anathema, became
necessities to him in light of the new realities Israel faced.
I
spoke with Jan Gaines this morning, “our woman in Netanya.” She reports that
people aren’t crying – this is not like the Rabin shock, in part because few
people really “loved” Sharon,
though most respected him and would vote for him. Those who love him had in fact been the ones
who were spurned, many of whom are now looking at today’s events as divine
retribution or the result of a conspiracy (and there are legitimate questions
as to why he was not rushed from his Negev
ranch to Hadassah by helicopter, but those are for another day). No, people don’t love Sharon,
but many are very fearful of an Israel
without him. As David Horovitz writes in
the Jerusalem Post:
He was striding to victory because, unlike any of his
rivals, ordinary men and women with ordinary frailties and flaws, he had
persuaded Israelis that he was of a different league, a political superman,
immune to the limitations of other mortals. He was by no means universally
admired, but he had a vast middle ground of confused Israelis wanting to
believe that he knew what he was doing - that he, and only he, could steer the
country to security and tranquility.
So Israel
is a very different place right now.
What we can have faith in is the strength of Israeli democracy. Although Sharon has proved to be mortal after all, his
agenda will out-live him. It will find a
spokesperson and Israel
will find a leader. He would have won the next election not only because people
trusted him, but because his views cut a wide swath right down the middle of
the electorate and because of that he was able to bring together left and right
as few had before. He has created the
path; the next in line will not need to be so ferocious as this Lion (the
translation of his name) of God. S/He
only needs to be able to find that path and traverse it. As much as Sharon
as universally admired over recent months because of Gaza, his demonized caricature remains vivid
in the consciousness of much of the world.
His successor will not have that baggage (unless it’s Bibi or Peres) and
may therefore have some advantages either in forging new paths or in carrying
on the Sharon
agenda.
Sharon was good at lots of things and not good at
others. But he was best at creating
facts on the ground. He had lots of
practice. So, wherever he may be, those
facts will remain: facts like Ma’aleh Adumim and the security fence; targeted
assassinations and strategic withdrawals; his particular blend of boldness and
pragmatism.
If
you go to http://www.pmo.gov.il/PMOEng/Archive/Speeches/
you can look at some of Ariel Sharon’s recent speeches. One from early 2003 is of particular
interest. He was speaking to Birthright Israel
participants at the “mega event” that they all attend. (One of this year’s was
held, ironically, today, as the Birthright groups are over there now). He spoke on the day of a terror attack in Tel
Aviv and because of that he had to leave the gathering early. Although he was not the most articulate of
speakers, his words resonate today even more than they did that night:
“Everything we are going through now is to ensure that
you and your children will be able to live here in quiet, that you will be able
to invest all your efforts in science, technology, agriculture and electronics,
and make the wilderness bloom. This is the land of milk and honey. We are a
unique and wonderful people - a people of virtue.… I am sorry that I have to leave you, but when
I look at you thousands of young people, I know that we can look forward with
optimism and know that together with you we can fulfill all the dreams of the
Jewish people. We need you with us here in Israel now more than ever.”
Prime
Minister's Speech to Birthright Partiipants: 1/5/03
Two
years ago today, that was his parting message.
It could just as easily be his message today.
The
man hasn’t changed a bit.