"God says to the snow, 'Fall on the earth...'"
Job 37:6

December 14, 2007- Tevet 5, 5768

Rabbi Joshua Hammerman, Temple Beth El, Stamford, Connecticut

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From last week’s Hanukkah celebration

(thanks to photographer Mark Plotzky)

Contents of the Shabbat O Gram:

(Click to scroll down)

Just the Facts

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)

Joke for the Week

Quote for the Week

““I try to maintain hope – or at least the memory of hope – when I am consumed with fear or despair. I believe that hope is part of the will to live: it allows peop0e to choose forms of treatment that are painful, risky and promising; it enables people to fight fear with enthusiasm for family and friends, for books and ideas.

- Paul Cowan z’l, journalist

JUST THE FACTS

Mazal tov to Dana Gordon (and parents Ellen and Bruce),

who becomes Bat Mitzvah this Shabbat morning.

Candle lighting: 4:09 pm on Friday, December 14, 2007 (one minute later than last week!!!!). 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.

THE FULL SERVICE SCHEDULE NOW APPEARS ON THE SEPARATE TBE ANNOUNCEMENTS E-MAIL

Shabbat Services: 6:30 Friday night in the chapel

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 THEN NOTIFY OUR OFFICE.

Reminder of our “No School No Shul” policy: On days when Stamford public schools are cancelled or delayed, morning minyan is officially cancelled (but on days when school is cancelled because of snow anticipated to fall much later, sometimes people show up for minyan anyway). On Sunday, when our religious school is cancelled because of weather, minyan is also cancelled. Friday night and Shabbat morning services are never cancelled, but people are asked to use their own good judgment on days when the weather is very bad.

Torah Reading For Shabbat Morning

Parashat Vayiggash (The story of Joseph continues)

Genesis 44:18 - 47:27

1: 44:18-20
2: 44:21-24
3: 44:25-30
4: 44:31-34
5: 45:1-7
6: 45:8-18
7: 45:19-27
maf: 45:25-27

Haftarah Ezekiel 37:15 - 37:28

Was Judah Maccabee a Black Belt?

So often we hear about intolerance at this time of year. Here’s a story with a very happy ending, courtesy of Maureen Leffand:

Hi Rabbi Hammerman:

Happy Chanukah to you, Mara and the boys.

During this "December dilemma" time, we are usually faced with non-Jewish people not including Chanukah in their wishes/festivities, etc. I would like to bring something to your attention.

Sensei Hunko of the Tiger Schulmann Karate school in Ridgeway Center has consistently included Chanukah in their school festivities. Each year for at least the last 5 years, Sensei Hunko and his team have a menorah on their front desk. They usually ask one of the Jewish students (most times it is Danielle) to stop by the school each night and say the prayer and light the candles.

While Danielle is saying the prayer and lighting the candles, Sensei Hunko brings all activities to a halt. Classes are stopped and all children are required to move to the front of the school and remain quiet during the lighting of the candles. All adults in the front of the school usually fall into place with the children.

While I have personally thanked Sensei Hunko for this very visible inclusion of Chanukah, I thought it might also be nice for him to receive a note of appreciation from you - - a leader in the Jewish community. I think his efforts should be recognized on a greater scale than just my saying thanks.

I realize how busy you are during this season but I know how much Sensei Hunko and his team would appreciate this recognition.

Regards,

And so I wrote to Sensei Hunko…

Dear Mr. Hunko,

I’ve heard from a congregant of mine of the warm and respectful way that you have included the celebration of Hanukkah into your school activities. I know that your gesture of asking Jewish child to lead in candlelighting each night of the festival not only instills in those children a sense of self esteem and pride, but it also helps you to accomplish many of the character-building goals that central to your school’s philosophy. I just wanted to make sure that you know, from another professional trying so hard to instill those same values in children, how much I appreciate what you are doing.

My best wishes to you and all who work with you for a joyous holiday season.

Sincerely,

Rabbi Joshua Hammerman

Below you’ll find some recent comments on a recent study of vital importance to synagogues.

(You may have read the the article on this topic recently in the New York Times )

I’d be interested in hearing your reactions.

From http://www.synagogue3000.org/

EMERGENT JEWISH COMMUNITIES and their PARTICIPANTS:

Preliminary Findings from the 2007 National Spiritual Communities Study

Over the past few years, we have seen an important new phenomenon in Jewish life: the creation of dozens of independent minyanim, spiritual communities, alternative worship services, and emergent congregations. This rich array adds diverse opportunities for worship, learning, social justice work, community-building and spiritual expression. We knew very little about the thousands of people associated with these new endeavors. Who are they? What are their concerns? How do they feel about the communities they're creating, joining, and building? Why do they participate?

To answer these questions, the S3K Synagogue Studies Institute, in collaboration with Mechon Hadar, conducted a survey designed by the prominent sociologist Steven M. Cohen in partnership with Rabbi Elie Kaunfer and Shawn Landres. Our goal was to find out more about the participants, members, partners, and "acquaintances" of these new spiritual communities. The results of this work is the first ever portrait of the interests, values, and concerns of a critical innovative turn in American Judaism.

Download the findings in pdf format

From http://www.starsynagogue.org/blog
Some Implications for Synagogues to the Emergent Jewish Communities Study

As many congregations continue to struggle with engaging younger members in synagogue life, synagogue leaders are continually asking, “What do American Jews want?”

Recent survey findings from the “Spiritual Communities Study” are providing some answers. The survey of some 80 emergent spiritual communities was conducted by Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion sociologist Steven Cohen on behalf of the S3K Synagogue Studies Institute and Mechon Hadar.

The findings of these emergent spiritual communities confirm that there is a healthy desire for spirituality, prayer informed by excellent quality and good music, and deep community, marked by sharing Shabbat and holiday meals together on a regular basis. The study also affirms that people are looking for opportunities for serious engagement. Individuals want to bring their volunteer gifts to the synagogue and to utilize them without bureaucratic barriers. (Many synagogues have felt the positive results of such engagement and empowerment through STAR’s Synaplex™ Initiative.)

Can these two communities, the community of emergent spiritual communities and mainstream synagogues, find a common meeting place? I believe that they could benefit from each other, for mainstream synagogues have infrastructure that these emergent communities often lack and conversely, these emergent communities, just by their presence, could supply some energy to mainstream congregations. And the existence of multiple minyanim under the same roof is not an entirely new idea—think “Library Minyan” from decades ago or today’s Tikvat Yisrael. Acknowledging that there is skepticism about this possibility from both sides, let’s think for a moment about what it might take.

Synagogues would have to abandon their current dues model with emergents and come to other, affordable financial arrangements.

They would have to be willing to accept them on their terms—that means everything from governance models to different models of prayer.

They would have to warmly embrace their presence and not just begrudgingly accept them as a revenue stream.

And what of the benefits for synagogues?

Some of these emergent communities don’t meet weekly, so synagogues may enjoy some greater involvement on off weeks or in other synagogue activities.

They would have another model that could stimulate learning in how prayer is done and how grass-roots organizing works well with younger people.

Over time, they might co-sponsoring some events and celebrate holidays together.

They would sharpen their self-understanding of the other activities which they do well, not offered by these emergent communities.

They would have the pride in doing what one generation has always done for the other—reaching out and extending a helping hand.

These findings should not come as a great surprise to those who are, work with or read about Gen X’ers and Millenials. Denominational leaders who dismiss these powerful spiritual centers as ephemeral fads are engaging in wishful thinking. If synagogues don’t find a way to engage them, they will continue to create the models that fit who they are.

Sustainable collaborations happen when people raise mutual interest a notch higher above self-interest. Here, self-interest and mutual interest are compatible. Synagogues and emergent minyans can each gain by exploring what it would mean to collaborate. And participants in the synagogue and emergent communities know that mutual caring for the future of the American Jewish is in our common interest. Despite the tensions that some may see in initiating a series of discussions around collaboration between these two communities now, the possibility of a “win-win” situation is potentially great.

B’shalom,
Rabbi Hayim Herring

From the blog “Jews By Choice” – read the entire article at http://jewsbychoice.org/2007/12/02/judaism-without-synagogues/

Judaism without Synagogues

A new generation of Jews, educated in day schools and more Jewishly literate than the generation that gave birth to it, is starting a new trend that’s as old as the hills: Do-it-yourself Judaism.

Tired of the creaky, bureaucratic and spiritless feeling of most synagogues, they’re getting together and leading their own worship services, according to this story in the New York Times.

A Judaism without synagogues may also be a Judaism without (as many) rabbis. The Rabbinic tradition, which codified and preserved Judaism through centuries of Diaspora, has also helped calcify it into a carbuncle of a tradition, sealed in a dry and didactic anal retentiveness, with the result that the rabbinate has become both creator and guardian of an increasingly arcane and divisive form of spiritual practice. My feeling from talking to Jews in London – who, by and large, are more observant, more literate, and yet more politically divided as a community — was that there’s an aching need to move beyond arguments about who’s Jewish, or who’s more Jewish, and toward something where everyone can learn, celebrate, and care without being categorized.

This is reminiscent of the chavura movement that began in the ’60’s, but it’s focused less on rebellion and more on the revived interest in liturgy and in a more spiritual experience.

One reason Do-It-Yourself Judaism makes sense is that younger people are so mobile that joining a synagogue, a more formal investment in a community, doesn’t make sense. If you might be moving in a year or two, why plunk down those dues? If you’re rootless, why act any different?

Other Bloggers react to the 2007 NSCS and the Emergent/Indy Minyan Phenom

»What Defines the New Minyan Movement?

at Jspot by Jeremy Burton

»Judaism without Synagogues

at JewsByChoice.Org by David Gottlieb

»Facts on the Ground

»Cold Hard Facts

at On the FAR Side by David Singer

»The Continuity “Questions”

at Thinking Jewish (Brooklyn Jews blog) by Rabbi Andy Bachman

»kiruv: can Orthodoxy prove itself meaningful?

at Divrei Chaim by Chaim B.