February 2, 2007–
Shevat 15, 5767
Shabbat Shira – Tu
B’Shevat
(The Shabbat of Song)
Tu B’Shevat and Super
Bowl Edition
(prediction below in “Ask the Rabbi”)
Rabbi Joshua Hammerman,
This Week!
Next Week!
Featuring Sisterhood
Shabbat
Havdalah Unplugged
Scholar in Residence
Send your friends and relatives the gift of Jewish awareness -- a
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Contents
of the Shabbat O Gram:
(Click
to scroll down)
Just
the Facts (service schedule)
The (Occasionally) Ranting Rabbi
Mitzvah/Tzedakkah Opportunities
Ask the Rabbi (including my annual Superbowl prediction)
Required Reading and Action Items (links
to key articles on Israel and Jewish life)
…This week including “Conservative Judaism at a Crossroads”
Announcements (goings on in and around
TBE)
From our recent 7th
grade mock-wedding
Check out www.tbe.org for our extensive library of photo
albums,
articles, sermons, info about
the temple,
Shabbat-O-Grams and links to
the Jewish world.
Yashar Koach to our 5th grade,
who collected enough money to donate
375 trees
to JNF
to rebuilt the damaged forests of northern
In Memoriam
Victims of this week’s terror attack in Eilat:
Emil
Almaliakh, 32
Michael
Ben-Sa'adon, 27
Quote for the Week
IN HONOR OF THE
WORLD WIDE WRAP!
“How good it is to wrap
oneself in
prayer, spinning a deep
softness of
gratitude to God around all
thoughts,
enveloping oneself in the silken
veil of song.”
(Abraham Joshua Heschel,
adapted)
L’hitra’ot to our 8th
Grade students at BCDS,
(including my son Dan)
who leave for
Friday Evening
Candle lighting: 4:55 pm on Friday, 2 February 2006. For candle lighting times, Havdalah
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/. The United Synagogue has updated its
candlelighting information. To learn more, click here.
Tot Shabbat: 6:45 PM
– in the lobby
Shabbat Evening service:
6:30 PM – in the chapel
Shabbat Morning: 9:30 AM – GUEST D’var Torah to
be given by Don Adelman
Children’s
Services: 10:30 AM
Our Torah Portion
for Shabbat Morning
Parashat
Beshallach
Exodus 13:17 - 17:16 – The Crossing of the
1: 14:26-15:21
2: 15:22-26
3: 15:27-16:10
4: 16:11-27
5: 16:28-36
6: 17:1-7
7: 17:8-16
maf: 17:14-16
Haftarah: Judges 4:4 - 5:31 (Song of Deborah)
If
you liked Storahtelling, you’ll LOVE Storahtelling’s new weekly
blog about the Torah portion Find it at http://storahtelling.blogspot.com/. ORT
Navigating the Bible; Rashi
in English; BibleGateway:
Useful for comparing different translations: Note- this is a Christian site.
What’s
Bothering Rashi (Bonchek) Each week, one example from the parashah is
deconstructed. 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://www.jtsa.edu/community/parashah/.
USCJ Torah
THE ENTIRE
HEBREW BIBLE (AS WELL AS OTHER JEWISH SOURCES) CAN BE FOUND WITH SIDE-BY-SIDE
TRANSLATION AT http://www.mechon-mamre.org/
100
Blessings: Download information about the grace
after meals (see Birkat
Ha-mazon explained in Wikipedia and in the Jewish
Virtual Library) The actual
prayer can be downloaded at Birkat
Hamazon [pdf]
Morning Minyan
7:30 Weekdays, 9:30 Sundays
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.
We’ve had several people coming lately
who are saying kaddish following recent deaths in the family. We want to make sure we have a minyan
each day. Your presence any morning is greatly appreciated!
Please sign up at the Rosner Minyan Maker at www.tbe.org
THIS SUNDAY
GET INTO LEATHER…
at the World Wide Wrap
Sunday, February 4th at 9:00 a.m.
(includes morning
minyan slightly after 9:30)
For the
seventh year in a row, thousands of Conservative Jews around the world will be
“wrapped up” in the “ties that bind.” As part of the WORLD WIDE WRAP, Jews
around the world--men and women--will participate in an ancient practice called
“tefillin” on Sunday, February 4, 2007. A form of prayer, tefillin involves
wrapping leather straps attached to boxes containing scripture around the
forehead, arm and hand in an intricate pattern that spells out the name of God.
Join our 7th grade
families for the “Wrap,” for an explanatory morning learner’s
service and a video entitled “The Ties that Bind.” Beth El will be one of the hundreds
of congregations worldwide that are participating in the Wrap. Extra sets of tefillin will be provided,
and instructions will be given to those who are in need of assistance.
(Naturally, it’s also OK just to watch!). Plus, after our bagel breakfast,
we’ll have a chance to purchase tallises from our gift shop’s extensive
selection.
The Federation of Jewish
Men's Clubs in
If you
would like to look at some fabulous material in advance that explains this
ritual and delves into its spiritual power, take a look at the following web
sites: What
are Tefillin? (there are several other articles linked to
MyJewishLearning.com regarding tefillin, including Reinterpreting
Tefillin and, for a more Kabbalistic view, Reb Goldie on
Tefillin).
Winter Weather Advisory
Note that in the case of
bad weather, weekday minyan does not take place when
The
(occasionally)
My Jewish
Week article for this week:
http://www.thejewishweek.com/top/editletcontent.php3?artid=5697
Jewish and Gentle: Time for a Mussar Revival
By Joshua
Hammerman
These are dangerous times.
But despite the clear threats posed from the outside by Iranians, Arabs,
Europeans and Borat’s cowboys, we can’t overlook the dangers
staring directly at us in the mirror.
In
Here
in the
So
many people leave the Jewish community precisely because they perceive it as
being unwelcoming and unforgiving.
Pettiness and rancor cuts across denominational and institutional lines,
affecting synagogue and federation alike, Jews of all denominations. We are all guilty, some more by their
actions, others by their indifference.
It’s happening everywhere.
The
Talmudic sages understood how we could be our own worst enemies, ascribing
great calamities not to foreign oppression but to internal strife. The second temple burned, in their eyes,
because of causeless hatred among Jews. Unlike prior generations,
today’s Jews have the freedom to opt out of Jewish life entirely, and so
many have. They and their family
members, many of whom are not Jewish, are waiting for that signal of acceptance
that too often does not come. They
are there for the taking, if only we would welcome them in.
It
might be the most difficult assignment the Jewish people have ever had: to
model civility and love in a world where so many despise us. For the most part, we’ve pulled
that off amazingly well over the centuries – until now.
Why
is it that so many Jews say to me, “Rabbi, I feel like I am a good
person, even though I’m not a good Jew.” Since when must the two be mutually
exclusive? Jewish ritual is vacuous
if it does not lead to ethical ends.
As the Ten Commandments make clear, Shabbat sensitizes us to the needs
of all members of our household, even the servants and animals. Kashrut is pointless unless it points us
toward a greater sensitivity to life. Judaism, which should instinctively
linked to kindness, modesty and honesty, too often is associated with ritual
correctness, ethnic tribalism and an unyielding ethic of holier-than-thou.
“Nice”
needs to be the Next Big Thing for Jews, and, just in time, there appears to be
an upsurge of interest in civil behavior.
For centuries, “Mussar,” as it is known, has been a
steadying influence in Jewish life.
Giants like Rabbi Israel Salanter and the Hafetz Hayyim have dotted the
spectrum over the past couple of centuries, and currently the first rumblings
of a full-scale Mussar revival are being felt, with the publication of Rabbi
Joseph Telushkin’s “Code of Jewish Ethics,” the popularity of
Shmuley Boteach’s cable program, “Shalom in the Home” and a
bevy of ethicists peddling their home-spun advice on websites and in
print.
The
website at Rabbi Ira Stone’s Philadelphia Mussar Institute (www.phillymussar.org) contains
instructive exercises promoting the development of middot (positive character
traits) such as patience, humility, honesty, frugality and silence. While not every Jew may be up to keeping
a daily ethical diary, all Jews need to see principled behavior as the core of
Jewish life. This is not to take
anything away from social action, but each synagogue now needs to establish a
committee on social INTERaction.
Many
churches have adopted what they call Behavioral Covenants, codes establishing
norms for proper manners, whether at meetings, in the pews or on the
street. I Googled various
combinations of “Behavioral Covenant” and “Jewish,” and
while a number of matches came up, none led me to a synagogue, JCC or
federation that has created an actual Behavioral Covenant. I’m sure some are out there
– but they need to be everywhere.
Organizations like Synagogue 3000 encourage communities to be warmer and
more welcoming like the mega-churches.
Advice that once came so naturally to Jews, even a sourpuss sage like
Shammai (who said in Pirke Avot, “Greet everyone cheerfully”), now
requires a think tank.
We
shouldn’t have to seek gentile prototypes to persuade communities to be
Jewish and gentle. Our own models
abound.
For every Saint Francis of
Wouldn’t
it be amazing if every organization came together to agree on a collective
Behavioral Covenant for American Jewish Life? It might actually be doable, since the
“middot” cross denominational boundaries. Imagine what the impact would be.
It
would change everything.
When
our communities project an ethos of love, generosity of spirit, humility and
acceptance, the world will notice.
For the Jews and Judaism to thrive in these turbulent times, we must set
our clocks permanently to Yom Kippur and reinforce those principles that can
help us live together in harmony.
When, for each Jew, being a good Jew MEANS being a good person, the book
of life will remain forever open.
Mitzvah/Tzedakkah Opportunties
Beth El Cares
Cathy Satz (968-9191; csscounsel@yahoo.com)Cheryl Wolff (968-6361; cwolff@optonline.net)BETH EL CARES co-chairs Mitzvah Project – Dog-related Items LINDY FRUITHANDLER WILL BECOME BAT
MITZVAH ON MARCH 17. PLEASE READ
THIS NOTE FROM HER REGARDING HER MITZVAH PROJECT:
For my mitzvah project I am helping Adopt-A-Dog, a volunteer organization in Greenwich, CT, which helps find good, safe homes for homeless animals. They have found homes for many Katrina dogs that lost their families in the hurricane. To help them, I am donating money I have raised, and collecting dog-related items such as toys, collars, bones, and leashes; and cat-related items such as toys, collars, and catnip. Any crates that your dog or cat no longer use would be greatly appreciated by Adopt-A-Dog You do not have to be dog or cat owner to help - Adopt-A-Dog also needs new or used blankets, pillows, soft table cloths, and really anything els