Shabbat-O-Gram

 

June 1, 2007– Sivan 16, 5767

 

Rabbi Joshua Hammerman, Temple Beth El, Stamford, Connecticut

 

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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

 Spiritual Journey on the Web

    The Beth El Bar/Bat Mitzvah Commentary

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

 

Quote for the Week

 

From Rabbi Ethan Linden’s Commencement Remarks at the JTS Commencement of May 17

 

“In the Talmud, a student of the rabbis is sometimes called tzorbah merabbanan, which literally means: scalded by the rabbis.  To learn Torah, to learn at the feet of the sages, is to be burned, to have a searing experience of the soul.  The scar we carry is the realization of just how little we know.  We are burned by the knowledge of how much lies beyond our meager grasp.  Ask any student studying Talmud for the first time, and they can tell you what being scalded by the rabbis means.  It means facing the page, fighting our way through the difficult language and the unfamiliar concepts; it means feeling humbled and sometimes humiliated by the inability to follow the logic, or the argument, or anything at all.  It means feeling lost, so lost we start making up things just to feel less lost.  It means spending two hours putting the pieces of an argument in place just to have the Talmud tell us, after all our work: teku: this argument is unresolved.  For this, we have no answer.  And we sit before the text, scalded by the rabbis but somehow, closer to the truth then we were when we started.

 

And it is that truth we must communicate to the world beyond these quiet walls.  We are burned by the rabbis, souls seared in the fires of a Torah that reveals truth only in tiny fragments.  Fragments we assmble, as best we can, as we labor in the fire.  We must bring this truth beyond these walls.  We can find a way to show how our scars, our Torah, can be a remedy to a world of religious leaders whose focus on God's word has blinded them to God's world.  We can be a still small voice of conviction with conscience, of truth with trembling, of religion with humility.

 

We have learned. Let us begin to teach.”

 

JUST THE FACTS

 

 

Candle lighting: 8:01 pm on Friday, 1 JUNE 2007.  For 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.

 

Friday Evening:

 

Kabbalat Shabbat: 6:30 PM –

outside, weather permitting (otherwise in the sanctuary)

 

K,1 and 2 Shabbat Dinner: 6:30 PM

 

Tot Shabbat: 6:45 PM in the chapel

 

 

Shabbat Morning:

 

Service begins at 9:30 AM

MAZAL TOV TO ROBBIE KATZ,

WHO BECOMES BAR MITZVAH THIS SHABBAT MORNING

 

Children’s Services: 10:30 AM

 

Our Torah Portion for Shabbat Morning

Parashat Beha'alotcha

פרשת בהעלתך

Numbers 8:1 - 12:16

1: 10:35-11:9
2: 11:10-18
3: 11:19-22
4: 11:23-29
5: 11:30-35
6: 12:1-13
7: 12:14-16
maf: 12:14-16

Haftarah: Zechariah 2:14 - 4:7

If you liked Storahtelling, Storahtelling’s new weekly blog about the Torah portion is at http://storahtelling.blogspot.com/.  Also check out Torahquest at  http://www.torahquest.org/commentary_list.php  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 Sparks can be found at: http://www.uscj.org/Torah_Sparks5689.html UAHC Shabbat Table Talk discussions are at http://urj.org/torah/index.cfm, Reconstructionists are at http://www4.jrf.org/recon-dt.  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.  Also, try  http://home.utah.edu/~rfs4/jkmfc.htm.  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/

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

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The

 (occasionally)

Ranting Rabbi

 

 

At last night's stirring annual meeting, we took great pride in the impact of TBE congregants on the community.  Next week's annual meeting of the UJF, will be a regular kvell-a-thon for us.  Mazal tov to the announced award winners:

 

Eileen Rosner: Zinbarg Family Adult Leadership Award

 

Devra Jaffe Berkowitz: Harvey Peltz Young Leadership Award

 

Danielle Shapiro: Zinbarg Teen Award.

 

I hope that many of you will be there to join me in wishing mazal tov to these winners, along with all UJF volunteers and leaders, including president Fred Springer.  It's next Thursday at 7 PM, at the Bi Cultural Day School

 

 

Excerpts from my Annual Meeting Remarks

           

Last night’s stirring annual meeting gave about a hundred congregants the chance to take stock of our accomplishments and challenges, to thank those leaders who are stepping aside and lend support to those stepping up to the board.  Here are excerpts from my remarks.

 

 

First and foremost, I want to personally thank those volunteers and particular those lay leaders who will be stepping aside, for their dedication and love of the temple.  I also thank those who have just been voted in for placing their faith in the future of this kehila kedosha – holy community.  I look forward to working with all of you.  Thank you also to the nominating committee for doing such fine work.  We all worked hard to ensure that tonight would be as boring as possible – but more to the point, so that we would be able to leave here feeling good about this congregation and the amazing things we can do when we work together.

 

A special thanks to Roberta Aronovitch for her decade of service to Beth El, for her leadership and heart.  We’ve seen numerous examples of both over the years, but perhaps never more so than in a crisis – on the day found the medical waste and swastikas in our parking lot, or when we brought in the Roxbury nursery school after the fire down the street.  Through it all, Roberta’s dedication and could never be questioned.  I wish her and Sheldon and the entire family the best.

 

These are exciting times at Temple Beth El.  But at the same they are anxious times.  We face many challenges. 

 

  • Just this week the Advocate wrote about population trends indicating that our prime membership pool in Stamford will be decreasing over the coming decades.  We’ve already seen that. 
  • Compounding that challenge is the decade long decline that has faced the Conservative movement.  The 2000 national Jewish population survey indicated that 225,000 fewer Jews identified themselves as Conservative Jews than did so ten years earlier. That’s the equivalent of one very large shul - 2,125 members every month.  Only 40 years ago there were 2.5 million Conservative Jews, now there are 660,000 members. 
  • 40 years ago we were nearly the majority of American Jewry, now we are fewer than a third.  But the majority now is affiliated with NO movement.  The denominations have become increasingly irrelevant.

 

Here at Beth El we’ve had a habit of staring at statistics such as these and responding proactively and positively to every challenge.  We’ve done that locally and the movement is doing that nationally.

 

  • Just last fall, when it was clear that fundraising was going to be a prime challenge, perhaps THE prime challenge for this year, we rolled up our sleeves and went to work, restoring the confidence of our membership in our ability to come together as a community and igniting excitement in our programming.  The results far exceeded even our most optimistic hopes.  We broke fundraising records.
  • At the same time we instituted an ambitious new programming venture called Synaplex, one designed to help us address those very challenges facing Conservative Judaism.

 

            On July 1, Arnold Eisen will officially become the chancellor of the JTS, the de facto leader of Conservative Judaism.  This is a man who has literally written the book on what makes American Jews tick.  In fact, he’s written many.  He understands how the language of mitzvah and choseness does not resonate in the ears of people who have grown up in the age of what he calls “The Sovereign Self.”  Jews are seeking meaning on their life journeys, but they are seeking it on their own terms.  We have to reach them where they are at, in language they can understand – by “they”, I mean YOU – I mean all of us.  Most of all we have to create tight communities, what Eisen calls Plausibility Structures, borrowing from the sociologist Peter Berger.   Through a tight-knit community, living a Jewish life becomes plausible. 

 

You walk in here on the fifth day of Pesach and no bar mitzvah – a time when we might ordinarily have a few dozen people, and nearly 300 are crowded around linked tables filling the social hall - eating lunch – on Passover!  - we are bringing this vision to life.  Literally “breaking bread together.”  That’s what Synaplex does – it happened on Sisterhood Shabbat too – twice the usual turnout and a day that ended with even more people here for Havdalah Unplugged – yet one program didn’t take from the other – it all came together – and for one day – Shabbat was magical for us all.  And especially for our kids! 100 kids at a chocolate Seder.  100 people looking for three stars at havdalah at the nature center observatory or down at the cove.  By building community we are making an organic  Jewish life Plausible.  People are craving community, that connection to past and future, and the only place they can really find it is in the synagogue.  Judaism comes alive HERE – but the key is in getting people here.  Because today, for the Sovereign Self, it’s all about choice.  That’s our mission, should we choose to accept it – to get people to choose to be chosen.

 

THAT IS OUR SACRED MISSION… - we’ve accomplished so much of it – just this year, under the most adverse of conditions – and gosh darn it – we pulled it off.  You pulled it off!  Our tireless Synaplex committee partnering with Sisterhood, school, youth, adult ed, rabbi, cantor, educator, youth advisor, executive director, many congregants who have volunteered their time to lead sessions, including a few people very closely related to me – assisted by generous and visionary donors – we’ve done it. 

 

But we’ve got so much more to do.  We’ve got to take leap forward from Synaplex to model a new revitalized Conservative Judaism – and I’ve laid out some of the basics. 

  • I’ve long favored a more collaborative form of leadership than the traditional rabbi’s role – so what you see here are my suggestions for a vision statement that WE have yet to formulate.  Our old one has expired – and yet – after 20 years of our growing together, you will certainly recognize that much of what is here is already deeply engrained in Beth El’s culture.
  • We CAN DO GREAT THINGS as a congregation and we can be a shining light to American Jewry and a model for our movement. If we…
    • Model humility and intellectual honesty
    • Be passionate centrists, always looking to understand the other, but never being afraid to take a stand.
    • Champion human dignity – so that it would be impossible for anyone here to say, “I’m a good person but a bad Jew.”
    • Always aim for spontaneity and joy, never doing anything by rote and never let our prayers and practices grow stale.
    • And make sure that our doors are open wide to all who want to enter, all who need us – and that we go out to greet them and escort them in.

Rabbi Levi Kelman has spoken of there being two kinds of minyan seekers: “Judaism is not a single solitary path and it is not a totally communal path.  It is a community made up of individuals.  It’s individuals in search of community.  There is always the idea of a minyan, of nine Jews who are looking for the tenth, of one Jew who is looking for the other nine.”  We need to be looking out for both types of Jews.

 

    • And finally, most of all, we must never accept mediocrity,  Good enough is NEVER good enough.  Too many people are depending on what we do.  Our work is too important.  Our ancestors are counting on us, our descendants are counting on us – God is counting on us.

 

-----------------

Last December, after years of discussion, the law committee, consisting of 25 rabbis voted 13-12 in favor of two diametrically opposing decisions regarding homosexuality and Jewish law.  One, by Joel Roth, essentially maintains the status quo, based on the weight of precedent.  The other, authored by three rabbis including Elliot Dorff, states that what is banned in Leviticus was one specific act, but that neither the Torah nor the rabbis were speaking of love relationships and sexual orientation, as we now understand it.  Since 1973, the A.P.A. has understood that homosexuality is not an illness, and increasingly science has come to understand that sexual orientation is not a matter of choice.  Dorff asks, if we are all made in God’s image, how could God ordain that some human beings be condemned to a life of absolute and permanent isolation that undermines their human dignity.  And then, on top of it, to be the subject of constant humiliation, discrimination and, in the case of the Nazis, extermination.  Who would choose such a life?  And, as Jews, who have suffered so much indignity, how could we compound their loneliness by not welcoming them unconditionally?

 

            This Dorff position also received a majority of 13-12.  Yes, someone actually voted for both positions – although in fact 6 would have sufficed as an acceptable minority position. 

 

            So we have two very different world views; Roth says it’s a sin, Dorff that it’s not.  Roth seems more comfortable from the perspective of tradition, while Dorff answers a compelling moral call.  With Roth, we stay relatively the same, and with Dorff, everything changes.  With Roth, we can’t have commitment ceremonies, with Dorff we can.  With Roth, we can discriminate in hiring practices when it comes to sexual orientation, and with the Dorff, we can not. 

 

And there’s no half way.  No compromise position was possible for the Law Committee.  Rabbis now have the right to declare which ruling is in force for each congregation.  Congregations need to be involved in that decision – and that has happened here, for many months, since before December.  Aside from ritual committee meetings, board discussions and more informal gatherings, I’ve held two public information sessions on the subject.  One, held at our Feb. Synaplex and the other, held just last week.

 

Things happened swiftly in the movement after December.  Both American seminaries, including JTS, have taken on the Dorff worldview, while the rabbinical schools elsewhere are going Roth.  The USCJ has changed longstanding hiring practices. And synagogues and rabbis are falling into place as Dorff synagogues or Roth synagogues – though a lot of shifting is inevitable.  It’s sort of like red states and blue states – (and ironically Roth means red).  I can tell you that rabbis are all going to try to get along and we are.  The Rabbinical Assembly has 1700 members – only 6 have left since December.  At our last convention, the focus was not this – we’ve moved on.  And so will Beth El.  But when that happens, there are inevitably going to be some red congregants in blue shuls – and vice versa.  We have to make sure that everyone is heard and no one feels left out.

 

My feelings on this subject are well known and have been public for years.  I do see this as a moral imperative with a solid halakhic basis.  But before any final decisions are announced regarding Roth and Dorff - and even after - I want to make sure that anyone who feels discomfort knows that they can talk to me about it, without fear of my passing judgment. 

 

For ultimately this is about being non-judgmental.  As a Dorff congregation, should we elect to steer the bus that way, we will want to be seen as inclusive, compassionate, embracing, warm, welcoming and non-judgmental.  Others may speak derisively of us, but that will be out of their own discomfort.  We need to ignore that and extend our embrace to them as well.  THEN they will understand what Beth El is all about.  We all speak the words of the living God – and ours is a God of mercy, acceptance and love.

 

            Yes, these are historic times for Temple Beth El. 

 

When Brown vs. Board of education came down 50 years ago, at a time when America and the Supreme Court were both very different places, the natural response of many was “too much change, too fast.”  Our Jewish justice, Felix Frankfurter responded, “Attitudes in this world are not changed abstractly, as it were, by reading something…Attitudes are partly the result of action…you do not fold your hands and wait for attitude to change by itself.”

 

            Rosa Parks and Felix Frankfurter had the right idea.  Sometimes evolution is not the answer.  Complacency never is.  Whether we end up being a Dorff or a Roth, we will not be complacent.  We will not let the choice happen to us – we will choose it.  And in doing so, we will attract Jews from far and wide, who will enter our large and ever growing tent – choosing to be chosen.

 

 

Heksher Tzedek
For those of you who did not see the New York Times article recently, Samuel Freedman wrote an "On Religion" piece on the Heksher Tzedek initiative of the Rabbinical Assembly and United Synagogue, the initiative to establish fair wages for workers who produce kosher food.  http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/19/us/19religion.html?_r=3&oref=slogin&pagewa&oref=slogin

 

http://www.haaretz.co.il/hasite/pages/ShArtPE.jhtml?itemNo=862278&contrassID=2&subContrassID=21&sbSubContrassID=0

 

 

Mazal tov to all TBE – and other – Melton Graduates!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Honors its 2007 Graduating Class

 

Johanna Akyus

Susan Benjamin

Beth Boyer

Sheila Carmine

Malerie Yolen Cohen

Larry Cryer

Rhonda Ginsberg

Denise Greenman

Meryl Japha

David Liebeskind

Barbara Miller

Stella Mostel

Edward Neiss

Sylvia Plotkin

Eileen Rosner

Deborah Schoenfeld

Jack Skydel

Joyce Slayton

Robin Stein

Betsy Stone

Robert Teicher

Jill Yolen

 

 

For more information about the

Florence Melton Adult Mini-School,

Please contact Ilana De Laney at ilana@ujf.org or

Robert Abrams at rabrams@stamfordjcc.org

         

 

 

 

Mitzvah/Tzedakkah Opportunties

 

Inreach and Outreach

 
Beth El Cares
 
Cathy Satz (968-9191; csscounsel@yahoo.com)
Cheryl Wolff (968-6361; cwolff@optonline.net)
BETH EL CARES co-chairs

 

 

 

Best of luck to all those who will be participating Sunday in the Bennett Cancer Walk!

 

 

Standing Together

 

May 29th, 2007

Dear Rabbi,

The people of Sderot are at risk.  They are at risk of losing their lives, their homes, their businesses, their community.

 

Listen to Arutz 7 report on the Standing Together visit to Sderot

They need your help and the help of your community.  Communities all over Israel are doing their part.  Standing Together is taking volunteers to visit, distribute ice cream, entertain children and support local business.  Without support from the larger Jewish community these businesses will close.

After a very emotional trip to Sderot, Standing Together has organized a campaign to order challah from bakeries in Sderot. "The greatest form of Tzedakah (charity) is helping people with their own livelihood," the group says. "By ordering challahs this Shabbat from Sderot, we are all doing our part in this great Mitzvah and helping out our fellow Jews in Sderot during their great time of need." Orders of challah, rugelach or burekas can be made and paid for in Beit Shemesh, Ramat Beit Shemesh, Neve Daniel, Efrat and Elazar.

View pictures of our Sderot trip

What is your community going to do to help?


Contact David Landau, Director of Standing Together, at info@stogether.org or by phone 011-972-50-5580822 to join our efforts and make a difference in the lives of those neglected by so many.

 Visit our website

Sincerely,
Miriam Gottlieb
Program Coordinator
Standing Together

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

 

When you volunteer at The Jewish Home those are the words you will hear.

 

4   Become a Friendly Visitor who helps residents write letters, play Scrabble or have ice cream together in our Corner Cafe.

4   Be a Transporter who brings residents in wheelchairs to their appointments and recreational activities in the Home.

4   Be an assistant in the Computer Lab and help the residents surf the web, send e-mail and play games.

4   Play your guitar, perform on the piano, sing your song, and dance your dance for a very appreciative audience.

 

Annually teen volunteers are encouraged to apply for the Matilda and Julius Fleischer Junior Volunteer of the Year Award.

 

We arrange Volunteers’ schedules according to your availability, your interests and the residents’ needs. There is no minimum commitment. Once a week, once a month, whatever works for you. Whenever you volunteer at the Home, you will make a positive difference one smile at a time. And you will hear “Thank you”.

 

If you are at least 14 years old* for more information about becoming a Volunteer, please contact:

Shelley Berman, LCSW, DCSW

Community Relations Coordinator

203-365-6495

sberman@jhe.org

www.jhe.org

 

*12 and 13 year olds are welcome to volunteer accompanied by an adult until deemed eligible to volunteer independently.

 

 

Room Rental Requested

 

Lillian Wasserman is loved by so many of us through her many years of service to the Bi Cultural day school.  Lillian is looking to rent a room locally so that she will not have to commute from her daughter Rivka’s home in Westchester (which is logistically very difficult).  If you have a spare room available – maybe a child is leaving for college? - contact Rivka at lieberR@aol.com.

.

 

 

ASK THE RABBI

 

 

Knocked Up…NOT!

 

On the weekend when the movie of that name opens, check out this worthy effort by the Orthodox Union to address teen sex from a mature religious perspective: http://www.ou.org/abstinence.  It’s called Negiah.org (for the Hebrew term promoting sexual modesty.  It is a project of NCSY but the ideas reflect Jewish values shared by Jews of all movements.  Teens are bombarded with sexuality to a degree never before seen in our culture.  Even during the ‘60s and ‘70s, we learned about dating from the Brady Bunch, where a peck on the cheek was a big deal for Greg.  Sure, there was permissiveness, but there was no Internet.  Now there is, and if you haven’t checked your kid’s (or their friends’) pages on MySpace or Facebook, I recommend you do that.  You’ll be shocked at what they are saying and showing.  What saddens me most is how people are turned into objects.

 

I’m no prude, but it is important that teens come to see their sexuality as a means for deepening and enhancing adult relationships filled with love and commitment.  It is a divine gift and not inherently sinful.  But like any gift, it cannot be abused.  Kudos to NCSY for taking on this sensitive topic – and I recommend it for our teens.