tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-39613307730052912972024-03-13T12:32:59.400-05:00B.E. BloggingLarry Kaufmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03249112600227823774noreply@blogger.comBlogger73125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961330773005291297.post-30194318529106582392012-12-10T11:56:00.002-06:002012-12-10T12:01:19.981-06:00Chanukah Stories to ShareIn Rabbi London's Chanukah message, she asked us to share with the congregation our favorite Chanukah story (personal or otherwise). Below are some responses:<br />
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My favorite story that's suitable for Chanukah (since it's set in a very significant snow scene) is I. B. Singer's "Zlateh the Goat." The story is delightful, with tension and danger that's resolved very happily with a goat and a young boy, and the theme is lovely. It's probably too long for preschoolers, but for grade school kids, it's very nice. I read it to my own kids more than once, and I even read it aloud to my son's public school class when he was in (I think it was) second grade, and I was invited to read "something about Chanukah." Simply put, it's a magical story.<br />
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- Janice Weiss</div>
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My favorite story comes from the book "Hershel and the Hanukkah Goblins" by Eric A. Kimmel. In the story, there is a little Jewish town on top of a hill. As a traveler (Hershel) passes through on Hanukkah, he notices that there are no Menorahs out. When he asks the villagers why, they reply that their are goblins who don't like Hanukkah and forbid the lighting of the candles. The only way the villagers can celebrate Hanukkah is if Hershel can convince the Goblin King to light the Menorah candles himself.<br />
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When I was too little to read, I was fascinated by the pictures. As I grew, and saw all my friends celebrating Christmas, I learned to appreciate the underlying message of the story; being proud of who you I was and not letting anyone else make me feel differently."</div>
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- Margaux </div>
Beth Emethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14962685051490110758noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961330773005291297.post-42008309970786971512012-11-12T14:38:00.002-06:002012-11-12T14:39:34.416-06:00Building Bridges of Understanding<div style="text-align: center;">
Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav taught: <em>Kol ha'olam kulo gesher tzer me'od, v'ha'ikar, lo lefached clal.</em> The whole world is a very narrow bridge, and the main thing is not to fear at all.</div>
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How many of the decisions we make as individuals, as a community, as a nation, are driven by fear? Fear of speaking out? Fear of taking risks? Fear of that which is foreign? Fear of she or he who looks different from us?<br />
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Rabbi Nachman's teaching suggests that, like a narrow bridge, life's precariousness can cause us to act out of fear rather than on the basis of our highest human values. To avoid acting out of fear is not simply an important rule, he says; it is <em>ha-ikar</em>: the guiding principle for us humans to adopt as we cross that bridge. One way we can embrace that principle and live more courageously and fully is by building relationships that cross the racial, ethnic religious, political and cultural divides that are so often sources of fear.<br />
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For the year 5773 our annual theme will focus on Building Bridges of Understanding between our community and other communities. These bridges will extent to to our interfaith partners, the greater Jewish community and Israel.<br />
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<em>Rabbi Andrea London</em></div>
Beth Emethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14962685051490110758noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961330773005291297.post-73234826917061961792012-04-26T08:18:00.000-05:002012-04-26T08:18:20.843-05:00The Three Synagogues?<br />
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">By Larry Kaufman</i><br />
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When I became a member of Beth Emet in 2007, I quickly learned that, most of the time, either Rabbi Knobel or Rabbi London would present the dvar Torah at Kabbalat Shabbat, while, most of the time, a lay member of the Kahal would lead the Shabbat morning Torah discussion. Thus I felt particularly honored, a year and a half into my membership, when Rabbi<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Knobel called to ask if I would be willing on such and such a Kabbalat Shabbat to give the dvar Torah.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I said yes, without thinking, and only then did it occur to me to inquire, “What’s the parasha?” It was too late to back out when I learned he had saddled me with Vayikra, the first parasha in the problematic Book of Leviticus.<br />
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But in for a penny, in for a pound.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As long as I was going to prepare a drash on Vayikra, I could hardly say no when Leonard Nelson, the Dvar Torah coordinator for Kahal, asked me to do a repeat performance the next morning. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Leonard and I discussed the possibility of people having to hear the same material twice, but concluded that there are relatively few people who attend services both on Friday night and on Saturday morning.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
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Similarly, in my short time at Beth Emet, I had observed that many people are regular participants in adult education but infrequent worshippers. And our current Tzedek tzedek tirdof theme puts a spotlight on the large contingent whose most visible activity lies in our manifold works of tikkun olam.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The JUF keeps reminding us that We Are One, but at Beth Emet, we seem to be at least three: a worship congregation, a study congregation, and a social justice congregation. Maybe the sign outside our shul should read Beth Emet – the Three Synagogues.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
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Commenting on the variety of ways our activists identify with the congregation is particularly timely when we are reading Leviticus, as we were at the time of my Vayikra dvar, and are again now. In his analysis of the relevance of Leviticus to the modern reader, Professor Robert Alter identifies <em>lehavdil</em>, to divide, to set apart, to draw lines, as the thematic core of the book. The parasha – in fact the whole book -- dwells on drawing lines among the roles of Aaron and his sons, the Kohanim, the other members of the tribe of Levi, and the Israelite civilian population.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Reform movement long since dropped the hereditary distinctions among Cohen, Levi, Yisrael, but have we substituted a new tri-partite division, worshippers, studiers, and social activists? <br />
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When we discussed this at Kahal, it turned out that the Cohen-Levi-Yisrael distinction may not be all that absent.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Someone pointed out that it is maintained for aliyot at the Beth Emet minyan.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Teddy Aronson told us she transitioned from her nominally Orthodox upbringing to Beth Emet and Reform when her traditional community refused to accept her status as a Levi. She was willing to pray where that status was ignored, but not where it was denied. Another Kahalnik, while appreciating the idea of different strokes for different folks, expressed dismay at the idea that we be seen as other than a unified congregation, held together by a shared ethos, even though people follow divergent and often multiple paths in expressing themselves Jewishly.<br />
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Yes, some of our members favor one, others another, of the three major mission of any synagogue – Torah, Avodah, G’milut Hasadim – study, worship, good deeds.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All are encapsulated in the “obligations without measure” prayer, that lists the activities that can’t be overdone, but ends, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">talmud torah k’neged kulam</i>, the study of Torah encompasses them all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That might suggest that in the triad of study, worship, good deeds, study is paramount.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But I prefer another reading, which satisfies the call by my Kahal colleague that we be seen as a unified congregation, not as the Three Synagogues.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span><br /><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Torah, Avodah, G’milut Hasadim</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Wherever we place our dominant attention, the bottom line is the idea that those are not three things, they are one!</div>Beth Emethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14962685051490110758noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961330773005291297.post-8868435154245845682012-02-12T10:46:00.002-06:002012-02-12T10:53:17.050-06:00All Together Now, Out Loud, Four Small Words for PeaceThe quest for justice sometimes takes us down unexpected paths to unanticipated places. For some it may be a facility that discriminates invidiously on the basis of age or origin or gender or race or creed. For others, it may be a legislature that refuses to act to redress a perceived wrong.<br /><br />Then again, sometimes the quest takes us back to a familiar place, a place closer to home where we would least expect to find an inequity, a place like our own prayer book in our own synagogue.<br /><br />When the issue was one of gender language and imagery, the Reform movement, like the Reconstructionist movement, amended traditional prayer texts to speak with more neutral language, for instance with Sovereign instead of King, Deliverer instead of Savior, <em>Adonai</em> instead of Lord, or with additional more expressly inclusive references, for instance by adding a list of matriarchs to the list of patriarchs in the<em> T’Filah</em>. But, as we sat in community with our brothers and sisters from the Second Baptist Church I realized there is more to be done beyond correcting gender related issues.<br /><br />The <em>siddur,</em> by virtue of its origins and purpose, is a parochial book. It contains the prayers and poetry of the Jewish people written and collected across continents and time. It is in many ways also an aspirational book, looking to a future. The editors of <em>Mishkan T’Filah</em>, however, missed a good (and rare) opportunity to demonstrate an authentic Jewish concern, and failed to enable our community to reach out and embrace the strangers among us.<br /><br />One of the most familiar prayers in our liturgy is the <em>Kaddish Yatom</em>, Mourner’s <em>Kaddish</em>. It is a prayer of considerable importance, said standing in our congregation and aloud. Its words say nothing about death or mourning, but speak of praise for the Eternal One. At the end of the prayer, there is a prayer for peace. It is an unusual appeal to “<em>Oseh Shalom Bimromav</em>”, that is, “the One who creates harmony on high.” We ask for peace for “us and all Israel.” I wondered during that service a few weeks ago what I would think if I were a member of Second Baptist Church and read those words. “What about me?” I imagined they were thinking. “I could use some of that peace too.” Indeed.<br /><br />What make this restriction particularly curious and onerous is that this prayer for peace is found elsewhere in the <em>siddur</em>, at the end of the <em>T’Filah</em>, but each time other than in the<em> Kaddish</em> the prayer has been modified with the words “<em>v’al kol yosh’vei teiveil</em>” or “and all who inhabit the earth.” So, the editors knew a way to express an inclusive wish for peace for all humanity, and did so numerous times in the prayer book, but, however well intentioned, failed to do so at the end of the<em> Kaddish</em>.<br /><br />I am less interested in analyzing why the editors made the choice they made than in urging we complete the task they have begun. A community bold enough to recognize how problematic certain gender language was for 50% of the population issues should be at least as sensitive to the 99.8% of the population left out of a prayer for peace. And there are such communities. Reform, Reconstructionist and unaffiliated congregations across this country and in Israel have added “<em>v’al kol yosh’vei teiveil</em>” to their recitation of the <em>Kaddish</em>. They have done so because they recognize that Torah teaches loving the stranger just as it teaches loving your neighbor. And they recognize, as Rabbi Melanie Aron has said, “There will be no peace for the Jewish people, where there is no peace for others as well.”<br /><br />Beth Emet is strong enough, wise enough and good enough to join them. And it should. So, as a community, let’s add four small words, out loud, and prominently. Who knows? Maybe this is what the <em>Mashiach</em> has been waiting for?<br /><br />Roger PriceRoger Pricehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04337091313668128720noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961330773005291297.post-41164360562518808042012-01-23T12:19:00.000-06:002012-01-23T12:19:47.073-06:00Celebrating MLK, Interfaith Writings and a Flash Mob in Jerusalem<i>If you were at Beth Emet on Friday, January 13 for the Martin Luther King Shabbas dinner and conversation, you know that you were at a history-celebrating and history-making event. But if you couldn't be there, you can get a small taste of that night from text and links below.</i><br />
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<i>I had the pleasure of contributing a personal story connecting King, to my father, to the civil rights movement, to the North Shore, and back to Beth Emet. Here is the text of that piece and the link to the radio interview that followed on Monday, January 16. EBB</i><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Verdana;">In 1958, 29-year-old Martin Luther King, Jr was a guest speaker at Beth Emet synagogue in Evanston. Admission was $1.75. The program says King was considered “one of the outstanding Negro leaders in the country.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Verdana;">Five years later, in 1963, King delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech at the March on Washington, rhetoric that set the tone for the civil rights movement and ultimately earned him a Nobel Peace Prize. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><i>…. A hundred years after the Emancipation Proclamation and the Negro is still not free</i></span><span style="font-family: Verdana;">.. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0FQEAhEmSioQyq9SxlgUv-wqdBL6GO_MAMghHIyTuDHp8YGFFYa9l9L85l14soOWJTgBn66jyneHCNBrv3gLVy9rBtkTfrLUBz_MMSIgdutBRWtSfPRAPKFFyINsoJJQ5pnQLW4P0W0M/s1600/photo.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0FQEAhEmSioQyq9SxlgUv-wqdBL6GO_MAMghHIyTuDHp8YGFFYa9l9L85l14soOWJTgBn66jyneHCNBrv3gLVy9rBtkTfrLUBz_MMSIgdutBRWtSfPRAPKFFyINsoJJQ5pnQLW4P0W0M/s320/photo.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: xx-small;">Rabbi Andrea London and Reverend Mark Dennis at the WBEZ Studios </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: xx-small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Verdana;">That same year, my parents moved to Glencoe. In nearby Deerfield, town leaders were threatening to keep an integrated apartment building from being built by turning the area into a park. Eminent domain, they said. My father, a white, Jewish businessman, had been moved by King’s mission to end racial segregation and discrimination. So he went to the rally in that park to protest and brought me along. I was almost four. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Verdana;">What happened there has stayed with me since: I can still see the huge crowd forming a large circle. I can still feel my father’s hand in mine and see the smile from a tall, black man as he took my other hand. And I will always hear that chorus of men’s, women’s and children’s voices singing “<i>We shall overcome, we shall overcome, we shall overcome, someday…</i></span><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><i>” <o:p></o:p></i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><i>….We need to lift our nation from the quicksand of racial injustice</i></span><span style="font-family: Verdana;">…</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Verdana;">Later that year, my dad, who at 29 had become active in the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) was arrested at a demonstration at the Chicago Board of Education office. CORE was demanding the resignation of the superintendent who was authorizing the building of new schools in white neighborhoods but not black ones. My father and 36 others were arrested and jailed at this nonviolent sit-in. A photograph of my father being dragged off by police made the cover of the Chicago Daily News.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Verdana;">Race relations in the 1960s was less about talk and more about demonstrations…. rallies … sit-ins … jail time or violence. The worst of course was in 1968, when Martin Luther King was shot on the second floor balcony of a Memphis motel. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Verdana;">A few years ago, a recording of King’s synagogue speech was found in a congregant’s basement. Beth Emet’s Rabbi Andrea London asked Second Baptist Pastor Mark Dennis to co-host a Friday evening sabbath service on Martin Luther King’s birthday. Evanston Jews and Baptists prayed and sang together. Portions of King’s 1958 speech were played, followed by dinner and a table discussion between the congregations about the challenges and next steps for race relations in the community. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Verdana;">Today, Martin Luther King would have turned 83 years old. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Verdana;">Would he be disappointed that we are still talking about race relations? Or would he be pleased at how different it looks?<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><i>“I have a dream that the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will sit down at the table of brotherhood. I have a dream.” </i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Verdana;">I have no way of knowing if the sons and daughters of former slaves and slave owners were in that room last Friday evening, but I do know that some fifty years after King first spoke about racial equality in this same community, his dream for blacks and whites to sit down at the table of brotherhood became a reality. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Ellen Blum Barish</i></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 14pt;"><br />
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">In other news....</span></b> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 14pt;">Several Beth Emet women - Marilyn Price, Betsy Fuchs and myself - are featured in the launch of an online </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 19px;">interfaith publication titled <i>Creative Space, </i>produced by the women of SoulSpace, a women's interfaith circle that celebrated 10 years in 2011.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 19px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, Helvetica, Arial;"><span style="font-size: 14.0px;"><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 19px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, Helvetica, Arial;"><span style="font-size: 14.0px;">Marilyn Gehant, founding mother of SoulSpace, writes, </span></span></span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, Helvetica, Arial;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">"We invite you to enter Creative Space and share the spiritual writing and images of our Jewish, Christian and Muslim contributors. </span></i></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, Helvetica, Arial;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">The seeking spirit of women of faith is at work in our inaugural posting of Creative Space. </span></i></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, Helvetica, Arial;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">On the way to a wedding, in sacred spaces, through home ritual, women pray and make meaning of life’s gifts and challenges. In the stillness of the woods and in the coolness of a swimming pool, they listen more deeply. To earthquake shattered Pakistan and the holy places of Israel, they journey to form relationships in faith. Waiting on the tarmac or sitting near a hospital bed or stirring a cup of coffee, women form images and expressions of souls searching the many manifestations of Adonai, God, Allah.</span></i><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> </span></i></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 19px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, Helvetica, Arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: 14.0px;"><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 19px;"><i></i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 19px;">Here's the link to read more:</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 14pt;"> <!--StartFragment--><span style="font-family: Verdana, Helvetica, Arial;"><span style="font-size: 12.0px;"><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><u><a href="http://soulspacecreative.blogspot.com/">http://soulspacecreative.blogspot.com/</a></u></span></span></span> <!--EndFragment--> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 14pt;"><br />
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And finally, because my daughter is en route back to college today from her first </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 19px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">trip to Israel, I couldn't resist posting a link to this</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 19px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">wonderful Youtube video: a flash mob in Jerusalem. </span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 19px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Enjoy.</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 19px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzhQuQGyulA&feature=share</span></span></div>Ellen Blum Barishhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10990834840808719514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961330773005291297.post-19124593524494641202012-01-19T09:00:00.000-06:002012-01-19T09:00:19.381-06:00Know Us by Our Names – and by Our Deeds<!--StartFragment--> <br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">I have had a long-time fascination with synagogue names, how they came to be adopted, and how the name of the congregation and the values it reflects “play out” in the life of the congregation, if at all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(I blogged about this three years ago on the Reform Judaism blog, at <a href="http://blogs.rj.org/blog/2009/01/26/god_and_man_at_shul/">http://blogs.rj.org/blog/2009/01/26/god_and_man_at_shul/</a>). <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">Here at Beth Emet, our founding story remains familiar and our founding principles are embedded in our congregational culture, where all are free to express the truth (<i>emet</i><span style="font-style: normal;">) as they see it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And the story is memorialized on our website <a href="http://www.bethemet.org/">www.bethemet.org</a>, so that any visitor can know what we stand for and how we came to be in the place where we are.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">But it must be said that openness to truth and freedom of speech are both relatively passive, the terrain across which our journey takes place.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Beth Emet journey, over these sixty-plus years, has been one of action, and our action theme for the current year is <i>tzedek, tzedek tirdof,</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> justice, justice you shall pursue.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This theme provides us with programmatic focus, putting an even greater emphasis on what has long been integral to our congregational DNA.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">The instruction to pursue justice comes out of <i>Parashat Shoftim</i><span style="font-style: normal;">, but the parasha also reminds us of other values, including </span><i>rachamim</i><span style="font-style: normal;">, mercy, </span><i>shalom</i><span style="font-style: normal;">, peace, </span><i>emet,</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> truth, and </span><i>ometz,</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> courage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hopefully these too are part of our genetic makeup.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">Fusing our Beth Emet stress on <i>tzedek</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> with my personal interest in what temples call themselves, I decided to take a specific look at congregations that incorporate </span><i>tzedek</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> in their names.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Given the distinct emphasis Reform Judaism has historically given to social justice, one would expect to find more than half a dozen on our roster of 900 congregations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But that’s all there are.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(This compares, on the one hand, with 16 Reform “</span><i>emet</i><span style="font-style: normal;">” congregations, and with 14 Conservative “</span><i>tzedek</i><span style="font-style: normal;">” congregations.)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">So what do the <i>tzedek</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> congregations of the Reform movement do about pursuing justice, and about featuring its pursuit?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Although all have active social action programs, with mitzvah days and interfaith programming and soup kitchens among their activities, </span><i>only one of the six provides visible attention to its commitment to justice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">B’nai Tzedek, in Fountain Valley, CA, reminds its congregants and its visitors every time they enter the sanctuary of where they are.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On the right side of their <em>bimah</em> wall are the words "<em>Tzedek, Tzedek Tirdof</em>" – “Justice, Justice Shall You Pursue.” On the left side of the<em> bimah</em> wall are the words "<em>Marbeh Tzedakah Marbeh Shalom</em>" – “The More Justice, the More Peace.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Their website goes on to explain “Congregation B'nai Tzedek is committed to pursuing justice in synagogue life as well as in society at large. B'nai Tzedek means ‘Children of Justice.’" </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><h4 style="background: white; line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">We read in <i>Tanchuma Vayakkhel</i></span><span style="font-weight: normal;">:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i>Every man has three names: one by which his parents call him; another, by which he is known to the outside world; and a third, the most important, the name which his own deeds have procured for him.</i></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: #303d36; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 10.5pt;"> </span></span><i><o:p></o:p></i></h4><h4 style="background: white; line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><i> <o:p></o:p></i></h4><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">As it with people, so too it should be for synagogues:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>they should be known not only by their names but by their deeds. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our congregational names need to be more than identifiers – they need to be a starting point for our identities.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We read in Pirke Avot 1:18, <i>The world stands on three things – on truth, on justice,* and on peace.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></i><span style="font-style: normal;">Much as I hope that every congregation lives up to the value its institutional parents inscribed in its name, and hopefully stresses it in some manner, no single one of our core values can be the only thing we do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">*Full disclosure:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> T</span>he Hebrew here is <i>din, </i></span><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">not <i>tzedek</i></span><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">, emphasizing law without the overtone of compassion inherent in <i>tzedek.</i></span><i><o:p></o:p></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><i><o:p></o:p></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Larry Kaufman</span></i></span></div><!--StartFragment--><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><i> </i></span><!--EndFragment--> <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><!--EndFragment-->Ellen Blum Barishhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10990834840808719514noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961330773005291297.post-60797416242180704392012-01-12T15:47:00.000-06:002012-01-12T15:47:47.224-06:00Talmudic Lessons for the Wanna-Be's<div>I was lucky enough to be in Boston recently on the day Elie Wiesel gave the second of his three annual lectures at Boston University, and I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to attend (especially since he was introduced by Deanna Klepper, chair of the BU Department of Religion and wife of Beth Emet’s former cantor, the renowned Jeff Klepper.)</div><div><br />
</div><div>Prof. Wiesel’s subject was Eliezer ben Hyrcanus—Eliezer the Great, one of the rabbis whose insights are found in the Talmud and well-documented in Pirke Avot, in which Rabbi Yochanon ben Zakkai essentially describes Rabbi Eliezer as smarter (or does he mean more worthy?) than his four other disciples put together. </div><div><br />
</div><div>Yet Rabbi Eliezer was excommunicated following a dispute in which he steadfastly disagreed with the other sages--a strange situation for the same avot who set such store by the values of study, discussion, dissention, debate and interpretation. </div><div><br />
</div><div>I have little doubt that Prof. Wiesel was actually making a crucial statement about what is happening too often in our political discourse here in the United States. And it should serve as a lesson to our leaders as they return to Washington for more Congressional shenannigans—as well as to us and our wanna-be leaders as we head into election season.</div><div><br />
</div><div>Legend has it that the debate that caused Rabbi Eliezer such trouble was over whether a certain oven was ritually pure. The oven was a special type, built in a certain way. Rabbi Eliezer argued rationally that it was pure, while all the others argued it was impure. Despite Torah’s requirements to comply with the rule of the majority, Rabbi Eliezer remained firm. When his rational arguments failed to convince them, Rabbi Eliezer turned to the supernatural. If this oven is pure, may this carob tree prove it, he said. And the tree was torn out by its roots and blown away. Still, his colleagues were unconvinced. May this stream of water prove it, he tried. And the stream flowed backward. With the others still unimpressed, he called on the walls of the building to prove his point, and they began to topple. But the other sages shamed the walls for interfering in an issue of law, and they ceased falling. Finally, Rabbi Eliezer called upon Heaven to verify his interpretation, and Heaven scolded the others for disagreeing with Rabbi Eliezer.</div><div><br />
</div><div>The sages, however, invoked the laws of Torah as the operative authority over “the celestial intruder” and, out of Rabbi Eliezer’s presence, declared all his earlier legal opinions regarding purification matters invalid, and then excommunicated him.</div><div><br />
</div><div>“Isn’t the Talmud based on dialogue?” Prof. Wiesel asked. “Isn’t that which makes it so glorious, transcending time and frontier and fashion? Which means, isn’t the Talmud a celebration of the right to be different? To demonstrate the beauty of discussion and dissention? Why then should the great Rabbi Eliezer be punished and ostracized… and ultimately expelled from the academy? Only because he believed in it and he had the courage to say in what he believed?...His voice is personal, solitary—so what? Is it so bad to be a minority of one?”</div><div><br />
</div><div>His conclusion is that Rabbi Eliezer’s mistake “was to call upon heaven rather than on logic…Talmudic debates, as all debates, are, and must be, rational, logical. They must take place at the human level. Once you introduce the supernatural element, it dominates the discussion and in effect, eliminates the participants. Such an attitude is dangerous…They were angry not with his views, although they disagreed with them, but with his methods.” </div><div><br />
</div><div>And those methods involved God’s opinion in a case that rested on points of law. “They were not arguing about mysticism, or poetry…” Prof. Wiesel said both sides should have argued legal issues. Rabbi Eliezer, he said, “should have reasoned with them, drawing on his knowledge and experience. He should have used filibuster tactics to prevail upon them…(seeking) evidence from different sources, formulating new interpretations” to convince his friends, rather than relying on supernatural and divine judgments. </div><div><br />
</div><div>“The sages,” Prof. Wiesel noted, “sought to avoid conflicts, disputes, fragmentation. They were not against minority views, nor were they against different opinions. They were against fanatic opinions. And none is as fanatic as the one that claims to derive from heaven. Such attitudes inevitably provoke splits. And in those critical times, with the Temple ruins still in everyone’s memory, the Jewish people needed unity of purpose and an awareness of man’s duty and power in order to be able, literally to be able, to dream of the new glory and sovereignty.” </div><div><br />
</div><div>Substitute a few words in that paragraph, like “World Trade Center” for Temple, and “American” for Jewish, and you have a contemporary lesson. Concluded Prof. Wiesel, “Had Rabbi Eliezer used his human qualities…he would have remained their friend and their teacher...”</div><div><br />
</div><div>Can someone please pass along his lesson to our Congress and the wanna-be’s?</div><div><br />
</div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Janet Reed</span></div>Ellen Blum Barishhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10990834840808719514noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961330773005291297.post-72026808321505342902011-11-30T11:39:00.004-06:002011-12-01T14:28:03.136-06:00Justice and Evanston's Big Ten IdeasJustice means different things to different people. Some focus on rules. Some look to results. Some even try to equate justice with ethics, although that may well lead down its own definitional rabbit hole. And it is probably true that what justice means may well depend on the context of the discussion. Are we talking social justice, economic justice, justice under the law, some other kind of justice?<br /><br /><br /><br />I have been mulling about this because I was recently involved in a community wide exercise that, on reflection, turned out to be largely about justice. It did not start that way. What twenty-one of us were charged with doing was reviewing over two thousand ideas submitted by Evanstonians in an effort to develop ten big ideas for the improvement of our city. We were to act as jurors, evaluating the ideas, and then selecting the one hundred best for a community vote. We were then to take the thirty ideas receiving the most votes of the community and, with the other ideas in mind too, craft ten ideas for implementation in Evanston by 2013, the 150th anniversary of Evanston’s founding.<br /><br /><br /><br />We did not talk a lot about Justice (or justice for that matter), but many of the ideas we developed, in retrospect, seem to address at least one aspect of just community, and that is the extent to which everyone should have a decent opportunity to participate in life’s game. We have urged the provision of affordable preschool for all, so that each child is prepared for kindergarten. We seek a youth center to encourage leadership development and appropriate experiences for growth. We would create a vocational co-op technical school as an alternative to college and a venue for job retraining. We want to establish fully functional neighborhood literacy centers in geographically diverse areas of Evanston to provide not only conventional library services but focus on teaching technology skills. We hope to develop a community health center for those who need it.<br /><br /><br /><br />Imagine a place where all children learn before kindergarten, where teens have a safe haven and can learn leadership skills, where high-school graduates and adults can acquire skills in a trade that can provide a decent and honorable livelihood, where literacy is valued and modern technology is available for all, and where those in need can receive basic wellness treatment. That is a place worth trying to build, because it would be a community where impediments to individual growth are removed and each person has a chance to develop his or her talents.<br /><br /><br /><br />Some have criticized our ten ideas because they do not know how they would be financed, and the economic challenges are real. But the critics do not deny the intrinsic value of the goals. So now, the question becomes one of creativity and will. If you are interested in helping to bring these ideas to fruition, to build this more just community, or if you want to know more about these or the other ideas we developed -- for instance, with respect to urban farms and community gardens, energy efficiency and conservation, water recreation, a year round farmers and artisans market, and bike lanes and walking paths -- you can access general and contact information at <a href="http://www.evanston150.org/">http://www.evanston150.org/</a> or just call 847-347-2013.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Roger PriceRoger Pricehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04337091313668128720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961330773005291297.post-14710783309964785722011-11-17T15:58:00.000-06:002011-11-17T15:58:24.693-06:00When the Matriarch Dies ...<!--StartFragment--> <br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">When the matriarch dies who is left in charge? <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">In this weeks’ parshah <i>Chaya Sarah </i></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">(the life of Sarah) we learn of the death of Sarah, the matriarch, the purchase of her burial place and the immediate need to find Isaac a wife. All those things happen in this portion and more (Genesis 23:1 – 25:18). Sarah the matriarch, it was said, lit the Shabbat candles with such conviction, such faith, such holiness that they remained lit all through the week. Sarah the matriarch, may her memory be for a blessing, had her flaws but is remembered with reverence in this parshah and then we discover who her successor was to be as Rivka’s story will unfold.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">What better time to think about handing down the maternal tasks than at Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is celebrated primarily in Canada and the United States, although there are also celebrations in Liberia, the Netherlands and Norfolk Island. The first Thanksgiving in Canada was in 1578, not to celebrate the harvest but the survival of Frobisher on his third dangerous journey from England through the storms and ice. It was not just a feast but also a service of communion – the first held in the territory. The Canadians celebrate Thanksgiving on the second Monday of October, which is the same day as the United States celebrates Columbus Day.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">In the United States, the first Thanksgiving was marked in Florida in 1565 by Spanish explorers and at various times in other places and always as a celebration of a successful harvest and gratitude. Abraham Lincoln, influenced by Sarah Josepha Hale, in 1863 proclaimed that the date of Thanksgiving (as an attempt to unify the States) was to be the final Thursday in the month of November. It remained that way until December 26, 1941 (under the Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt) when a bill was signed by Congress to make the fourth Thursday in November the official day in order to give the economy a boost. And so it is!<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Maybe it will work this year as well – the economic boost part!<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Aside from the wonderful coincidence (or is it) of Sarah (Hale) persuading Abraham (Lincoln) to unify Thanksgiving, just what does this have to do with this lovely and important parshah?<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">It is on Thanksgiving that we gather together and pass on the traditions of family and friends. It is a day of gratitude as we sit around the table or tables and eat recipes that have been handed down from generations. I am thinking of my mom’s cauliflower salad, my sister-in-laws Jello mold, the stuffing from Aunt Tillie or the way my friend Joseph put an onion in the turkey’s hollow – all these things that we bring to the table and embellish with our stories. That is what makes this holiday ours. And what has happened during the year, and who is no longer at the table, and who is new to the table and what we all have to be grateful about. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Sarah the matriarch handed the torch to Rivka, although she never met her. But we know that Rivka moved into her house, her tent, and took on the task of continuing the family. Gathered around the table in our house we use the silverware that was my grandma Mabel’s and the candlesticks that belonged to Roger’s mom. I think of the cake that Belle Price made every year with a small piece missing from the corner as she couldn’t bear to think it wouldn’t taste good so she sampled it. I see my father’s face smiling from my memory at his gathered clan and the descendants he didn’t know he would have that carry his name and joy of laughter. And I struggle through his job of carving the turkey – highly inadequate but doing his job as best I can.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Thanksgiving is sacred in our house. It has grown through the years to include the families that our family has grown and their extended ones as well. The gathering of the harvest is the crop that is the family and friends we have nurtured through the years and we are grateful. Thanksgiving is Sukkot in spirit and in plentitude.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">So who is in charge when the matriarch dies? Not just those who tend the house and environs, but all of us. Sarai (Sarah) made the ultimate journey with Abram (Abraham) and it ends in this week’s parashah, but her progeny continued that trip. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Another thing to give thanks for! <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Shabbat Shalom and Happy Thanksgiving. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Marilyn Price<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">In gratitude </span><o:p></o:p></span></div><!--EndFragment-->Ellen Blum Barishhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10990834840808719514noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961330773005291297.post-49843478305561520292011-10-30T21:59:00.003-05:002011-10-31T07:02:21.768-05:00Cheshvan: The Bitter and the Sweet<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4l9GH4dkIjH0-t5tXXbnhKc9niM_kVU1f-v5IiRQhu8-eGS-JT3JPHlhXPxTb6p1cHZ9BTTrlSqrcuhyGNrvVSg0Q5GAvfOxI9hqLpUDWF8sjVBAY-TTBn4go-011mEAbsZinUf4HS9U/s1600/photo.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4l9GH4dkIjH0-t5tXXbnhKc9niM_kVU1f-v5IiRQhu8-eGS-JT3JPHlhXPxTb6p1cHZ9BTTrlSqrcuhyGNrvVSg0Q5GAvfOxI9hqLpUDWF8sjVBAY-TTBn4go-011mEAbsZinUf4HS9U/s320/photo.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpTjawC7YccChftuhMoCsDbYXPCPNl3Vk1qLeL9rZpCMC4O_w4eJo0zRswoebTZmfvkJyqL4YzGzWDzrE_6HC5u0nxDYMmjxEXWgJWWFy3cm5QDKZMtNq5Sv0JjNrbtNxlxGtIl59kZJE/s1600/photo%255B1%255D.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpTjawC7YccChftuhMoCsDbYXPCPNl3Vk1qLeL9rZpCMC4O_w4eJo0zRswoebTZmfvkJyqL4YzGzWDzrE_6HC5u0nxDYMmjxEXWgJWWFy3cm5QDKZMtNq5Sv0JjNrbtNxlxGtIl59kZJE/s320/photo%255B1%255D.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><br />
We are entering the singular month of the Jewish calendar in which there are no holidays, festivals, fasts or observances other than Shabbat.<br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">November is the month of Cheshvan, or what is known as <i>mar</i> Cheshvan, meaning <i>bitter. </i>After three months of preparation for, or observance of Elul, Selichot, Rosh Hashonah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot and Simchat Torah, it’s certainly understandable to feel a bit of post-holiday let down or even emptiness (hence the word <i>bitter</i>). But I’m guessing that many more of us may be ripe for a rest. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I know I was.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Enter Cheshvan. These weeks before we prepare for Hanukah (December 20) and then, winter (December 21) offer an opportunity to find ways to refuel, refresh and replenish.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I write this blog entry from Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, where I took a last minute weekend to leave town, quiet my electronic devices and catch the last of the fall colors before they fell to the ground.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">View theses as a visual prompt to take Cheshvan up on its offerings.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">And feel free to comment here about what that will look like or has looked like for you. I’d be interested to know ….<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>Ellen Blum Barish<o:p></o:p></i></div>Ellen Blum Barishhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10990834840808719514noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961330773005291297.post-58151323484741402652011-10-16T20:58:00.000-05:002011-10-16T20:58:18.043-05:00Shake Your Lulav and Etrog<!--StartFragment--> <br />
<div class="MsoNormal">Like many aspects of Jewish life, the holiday of Sukkot has become much more widely observed by the Reform community than it was during my childhood.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Back then, as I recall, Sunday School students would make paper chains to hang in the temple sukkah, spend a bit of class time there waving<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the lulav and etrog, and then forget about it for the rest of the year. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Almost no Reform Jews put up their own sukkot, and few fulfilled the commandment to eat at least one meal there.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Our contemporary rediscovery of the joys of Sukkot <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>brings us back around to the understandings of the <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>ancient Israelites when they fulfilled the commandment:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>“The choice first fruits of your soil you shall bring to the house of the Lord your God.” </i>(Exodus 34:26). </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Sukkot was one of the three pilgrimage holidays (along with Pesach and Shavuot), when our ancestors flocked to the Holy Temple in Jerusalem bringing offerings from their crops as sacrifices for God’s bounty. Sukkot was so important to our ancestors that it’s been suggested that the eight-day Chanukah holiday was, in fact, a belated celebration of Sukkot (plus Shmini Atzeret the next day ) once the Temple was restored.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Likewise, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the Pilgrims took to heart the commandments to recognize God’s role in providing for their needs in the New World:</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>“You shall observe the Feast of Weeks, of the first fruits of the wheat harvest; and the Feast of Ingathering at the turn of the year”</i> (Exodus 34:22) became the inspiration for that first Thanksgiving. But I think part of the reason the holiday has resonated over the course of history has to do with the poignancy of the sukkah itself. Sukkot(booths or huts) were the living quarters of our ancestors during harvest time, as well as their lodging during their wandering in the desert and on their pilgrimages to the Holy Temple. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>“Mark, on the 15</i><sup><i>th</i></sup><i> day of the seventh month, when you have gathered in the yield of your land, you shall observe the festival of the Lord seven days…You shall live in booths all seven days…in order that future generations may know that I made the Israelite people live in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt…”</i> (Lev. 23:39-43).</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">But the sukkah is the perfect symbol for any fragile situation, and that, of course, is the history of the Jewish people. It could have been used throughout the ages to represent everything from our enslavement in Egypt to the Jewish plight during the Spanish Inquisition to life in the Warsaw Ghetto. (The sukkah’s fragility, in fact, begs the question of why there should be so many specific rules and regulations about constructing a temporary structure!)</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Right now, in an economic environment in which so many of our fellow citizens are homeless and hungry, recognizing the abundance of God’s gifts in the temporary shelter of a sukkah offers us a current context for its significance. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And might the sukkah not also speak to settlers in the West Bank?</div><div class="MsoNormal">So I’m glad that more Jews acknowledge and celebrate Sukkot—and <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m looking forward to shaking the lulav and etrog just the same!</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Janet Reed</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><!--EndFragment-->Ellen Blum Barishhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10990834840808719514noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961330773005291297.post-89128532749178475242011-09-26T16:29:00.003-05:002011-09-26T16:29:33.717-05:00The Work of Forgiveness<div><br /></div><div> The Work of Forgiveness</div><div><br /></div><div>This is a bittersweet time of year. I look forward to the stirring sounds of Breisheit and Kol Nidre, the intensity of large communal prayer, a time and place for introspection, apples, honey and new fruits shared with family and friends. Yet I also know that before me is the work of forgiveness, a tricky business that is not always black and white. The same questions emerge: What happens when we want to hold onto our grudges?</div><div>What about those times when we can’t change our own hurtful behavior because we know it is just a defense against someone else’s hurtful actions towards us? And what if someone’s sin against us isn’t a casual transgression or insensitivity but reveals a fundamental character flaw that we don’t know if we still want in our lives. What if that person has asked for forgiveness but the cumulative effect of their actions has fundamentally altered how we see them, how we feel about them. Isn’t it our duty to forgive? Do the words “I forgive you” change the way we feel in our hearts? And what if our own sins are hard to change because they are telling us that something is not right in our lives? What work needs to be done to strengthen our most sacred relationships? These weighty questions return with the season. Some years I have answers; other years I’m lost in the dark.</div><div><br /></div><div> A few years ago, when the concept of sin and forgiveness felt particularly murky, I began Tashlich at the beginning of the month of Elul instead of on the traditionally observed time of Rosh Hashana—or the during the Days of Awe. On the first day of Elul a rabbi friend led me and a few other women to the shores of Lake Michigan to begin the process. She brought along blank paper and green markers and asked us to make a list of all that we wanted to discard that was getting in the way of being truly at peace. We then tossed our white pages with green letters into the lake and watched our words float to the surface. The lake swallowed some of them. We lifted the now faded green letters from the water and while less easy to read, the words were still there to contemplate for the rest of the month. Which words still spoke to us. Which seemed to be erased by the act of articulation? What letters still bled down the page?</div><div><br /></div><div>We had had a chance to begin the hardest work: articulating our struggles. As the days of contemplation continued, we had time to think about what were the stones that needed to be tossed back into the water. What were the sins that needed to be cast off. And what were the gems that we would continue to hold in our hands, waiting for the answer.</div><div><br /></div><div>This poem was born after that ritual. It helped me find answers for 5770.</div><div>I’m still working on the answers for this year.</div><div>And you?</div><div><br /></div><div>Shanah Tovah v' Metukah,</div><div>Dina Elenbogen</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><b>Tashlich</b></div><div><br /></div><div>We dipped our words in water</div><div>wondering what the lake would give back.</div><div><br /></div><div>We dug up the odd gems </div><div>of the passing year.</div><div><br /></div><div>We did not throw sins into the wind.</div><div>We wrote them down in green ink on white paper,</div><div><br /></div><div>let water wash over them</div><div>as letters faded to shadows.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>We had written down a year</div><div>of inadequacies, frailties, iniquities.</div><div><br /></div><div>In my left fist I kept the imperfect </div><div>stone of my heart.</div><div><br /></div><div>I did not toss it in</div><div>to the waves that know</div><div><br /></div><div>what we cannot give back</div><div>we will keep.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Dina Elenbogen</div><div><br /></div>Dina Elenbogenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05028189442731758076noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961330773005291297.post-55340697151297423532011-09-25T09:44:00.000-05:002011-09-25T09:44:42.052-05:00An Exercise for the Soul<!--StartFragment--> <br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">As we begin our annual season of reflection, I find it a useful and joyful practice to begin by first looking back at the highlights of the past year.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So it’s become a tradition in my family to spend a few minutes as Rosh Hashanah arrives to share our favorite memories of the past year. I share this exercise with you as a wonderful family activity that, as a Beth Emet teacher, I always introduced to my third-grade students and their families. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Give each member of your family <i>at least</i></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> five scraps of paper, and have them (privately) write down one of their favorite events on each piece of paper. (Have someone write down the responses for children who can’t yet write.) Use a manila envelope marked boldly with the last<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hebrew year<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(5771) to collect all the papers. Take turns pulling them out and reading them.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For the past couple years, with our son in college, we’ve had to alter our strategy a little, using emails and Skype to share our happiest memories. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">For children as well as adults, it’s a wonderful way to provide some closure to the past year, as well as to reinforce a sense of the Jewish year as opposed to the secular year.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And, before we delve into the darknesses that have plagued us, it reminds us of some of the things we got right in the past year! I think Jonah would’ve been a happier prophet if he had spent a little time thinking about all the good things that happened during his adventure!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">L’Shanah Tova!<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Janet Reed<o:p></o:p></span></div><!--EndFragment-->Ellen Blum Barishhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10990834840808719514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961330773005291297.post-64256904283438801892011-09-14T18:37:00.000-05:002011-09-14T18:37:55.044-05:00Sophie Black’s Jewish Journey in Three (Very) Short Chapters<!--StartFragment--> <br />
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</div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBvn0X4EETYSi0VCCQOxblFU5LKhWhsWsXcbuNWHI025LeIB33lAMVODb9fzScMfyDuPN-_KHteh80TgpiXPJAkds6VcJorgn9qz7rIU173_XxjSSN4WIqhpTdl42H0CIOxfCVwsexgT0/s1600/IMG_0501.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBvn0X4EETYSi0VCCQOxblFU5LKhWhsWsXcbuNWHI025LeIB33lAMVODb9fzScMfyDuPN-_KHteh80TgpiXPJAkds6VcJorgn9qz7rIU173_XxjSSN4WIqhpTdl42H0CIOxfCVwsexgT0/s320/IMG_0501.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sophie Black</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal">Few congregants’ names are as synonymous with Beth Emet The Free Synagogue as Sophie (Kowalewsky) Black. You may know her as one of the congregation’s earliest members. Or that she was the synagogue’s first female president from 1983-1985. Perhaps you have read her book reviews in <i>The Beth Emet Bulletin</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> or have heard her ask stimulating questions in adult education classes.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Though Beth Emet has benefited hugely from her contributions since she and her husband, Sidney, became members in 1955, it turns out that the synagogue has been the perfect place for her to express herself, Jewishly.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I talked with Sophie about her Jewish journey, which, since Sophie is such a bookworm, struck me as having three distinct chapters.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>Chapter One<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Sophie’s parents, who were born in Russia, lost their home and possessions in a pogrom and moved to Germany. They were not observant Jews, but Jewish in their core beliefs, says Sophie.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“My parents were socially conscious people, “ she says. “I was taught that there is an obligation to live righteously and do good deeds. To try very hard. That it was a Jewish thing to do to leave things better than how we found them.”<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">As a child still living in Leipzig, Germany in the 1930s, Sophie’s mother asked her to take something to her father at work. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“I got waylayed,” Sophie recalls,” And I didn’t do it.” <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Her mother said, “You had a mitzvah to do and you didn’t do it.”<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“This impacted me profoundly,” she says.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Her father, a knitwear businessman, and her mother, who had earned a master’s degree in history at the University of Kharkov, had high expectations for Sophie. They named her after the first Russian female mathematician to be appointed a full professor at a European university: <i>Sofia Vasilyevna Kovalevskaya</i><span style="font-style: normal;">, who was much later the subject of a short story by Alice Munro in “Too Much Happiness. (The character was named Sophia Kovalevsky and Sophie says it is about a woman who “never got tenure, was quite lonely, was a free thinker and had many affairs.” Not at all like our Sophie, except perhaps for the free-thinking part.)<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Sophie and her parents left Germany after Kristallnacht in 1938 for the United States when she was 12. They lived briefly in Newcastle, Pennsylvania, and then settled in Cleveland, Ohio. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">They found a Jewish community (they lived near the Pecars - Harvey Pecar’s family and not far from Rabbi Polish’s mother’s home), and Sophie, not surprisingly, excelled in academics. She went to Western Reserve for a bachelor’s degree in history, and, with a masters’ degree in library science from Columbia University she got a job at the Harvard University Law School library in 1952.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>Chapter Two<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Two years later, she met Sidney, who played an immense part in fueling Sophie’s Jewish soul – the second chapter in her Jewish journey. He came from a good deed-doing family in the Boston area, Sophie says. Once a month, his mother took clothing and food to a charity and Sid, in turn, never passed a collection box by. “That was his way,” Sophie says. “He was a spiritual man with a conscience.” She was very moved by this and “imitated him.”<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">They married in 1955 and a business opportunity brought them to Chicago. Sid worked in a collection agency and Sophie went to work at the Northwestern University Library. They settled in Evanston where they learned about Rabbi Polish and joined the newly growing synagogue, which was then housed in “a mansion that stood where the sanctuary is now at Ridge and Dempster,” says Sophie. Their two children, Nina and Joe, grew up at Beth Emet (her son, Joe is now a rabbi).<b><o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>Chapter Three<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The third chapter in Sophie’s Jewish journey takes us to where we started. At 85, she continues to actively pray, study, teach, contribute and question in and around the sanctuary, library and classrooms. After 57 years, in addition to her many gifts and charms, Sophie <i>is</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> Beth Emet.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><i><br />
</i></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><i>Don’t miss Sophie’s D’var Torah on Friday, September 23 at 6:30 titled, “Talking in Translation” about the not-so-easy task of learning English as a young German immigrant in Newcastle, PA.</i></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i><br />
</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>http://www.bethemet.org/component/content/article/35-upcoming-events/272-torat-chayeinu-our-stories-our-journey-with-sophie-black<o:p></o:p></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Ellen Blum Barish</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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</div><!--EndFragment-->Ellen Blum Barishhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10990834840808719514noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961330773005291297.post-46074640721948014492011-09-08T22:38:00.006-05:002011-09-13T17:25:29.935-05:00Let's March on July 4thAs we approach the holiday season, about to celebrate the metaphorical birthday of the world, Hayom Harat Olam, my mind wandered to another holiday season and another birthday celebration. I mean, of course, the Fourth of July, the birthday of the United States of America.<br /><br />I made this connection easily enough because, as Mordecai Kaplan put it, I live in two civilizations, one Jewish and one American. An unaffiliated or purely secular Jew may not. A resident of Kiryas Joel in New York may not. As one who feels blessed to be Jewish and privileged to be American, I do.<br /><br />And come July 4, 2012, I want to march in the great celebratory parade down Central Street in Evanston. And I want to do so with others from my Jewish community at Beth Emet.<br /><br />Not so long ago, it would have been unthinkable for Jews to march as Jews in the parade. Evanston abided, if not encouraged, restrictions against Jews. The neighborhood into which my family and I moved over forty years ago had very few Jews. And the land we purchased was, as I recall, encumbered by a restrictive covenant barring transfer to Jews. The restriction, by then, was unenforceable, but there it was.<br /><br />Though Beth Emet has been an Evanston institution for over sixty-one years, it has never marched in the parade. Other faith based organizations have. Another Jewish congregation (JRC) has. But not Beth Emet, not the oldest, largest Jewish congregation in Evanston.<br /><br />There are at least four reasons why Beth Emet should march.<br /><br />1. Because we can. My grandparents could not move freely in the Old Country. The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution gives us the freedom to do so here, in particular to assemble, to speak and to exercise our religion. We all know that if we fail to exercise our bodies, our muscles atrophy. The same is true of our political and religious freedoms. We must use them, and teach them diligently to our children, or they will wither.<br /><br />2. Because we should. We are taught not to separate ourselves from the community and we are also taught to repair the world. Those two teachings conflate here because repairing the world begins with helping to make our home community a better place in which to live. But we cannot help repair Evanston if we have no credibility on the street, if we are not visible, if we do not, literally as well as figuratively, walk the walk. One way to get street cred is to walk as a community.<br /><br />3. Because it is good for Beth Emet. Joining in this open celebration of freedom shows that the Free Synagogue really believes in its name. It is a community that honors freedom. And it also shows that we know how to have fun. What a great way to publicize the congregation and its values.<br /><br />4. Because it is good for the Jews. The time has long passed when Jews had to, or thought they had to, change their names to survive or, perhaps, to succeed. And so has the time passed when Jewish life in America could sustain itself on the twin pillars of building Eretz Yisrael and remembering the Shoah, as important as those tasks are. By marching in this parade as Jews we enrich our lives as Jews and have a chance to present a positive image of a modern Jewish community, sufficiently self-confident to assert itself publicly. This is important for ourselves, for unaffiliated Jews, and for the general community who, when they see Jews in the public square, normally only see them in black hats and long coats.<br /><br />As individuals we may not agree on how to resolve or even address the public issues of the day, but we all ought to be able to agree that on this day, at least this one day, we can all join together in public to express our gratitude for this country and the freedoms it affords us. If my grandparents could suffer in steerage to cross the Atlantic, I can walk a mile or so to honor the choice they made to come here and the country which received them and provides me and my family with unparalleled opportunities. I hope others can as well.<br /><br />A long time ago, according to tradition, it took one brave man to take one courageous step to open a path for freedom for his people. Let us be like Nachson. Let’s take that first step, and then a few more. Let’s march together on July 4th.<br /><br />Rabbi London, President Ephraim, members of the Board of Trustees, fellow congregants: let’s make it so!<br /><br />Roger PriceRoger Pricehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04337091313668128720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961330773005291297.post-45718835022422418422011-09-01T08:51:00.003-05:002011-09-01T08:58:40.667-05:00A Search for a Long-Lost Ancestor Reveals the Tree of Life<!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman"">Like the old riddle about the man who is his own grandfather, I recently became the self-appointed guardian of my great-grandmother’s 7-year-old son. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman"">Spurred by my new membership in Ancestry.com, I became curious about what happened to my grandfather’s younger brother, who died at age 7 after being hit by a wagon, according to the story my grandfather had always told me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Having assumed responsibility several years ago for the Waldheim Cemetery graves of my mother’s four grandparents, it bothered me that little Paul was not buried near his parents, and I started wondering where he was. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman"">I had heard, and been disturbed by, Paul’s story all my life. He was skipping bottle caps in front of their home on the West Side one day in 1914 when a horse-drawn wagon jumped the curb and crushed his leg. After five weeks in the hospital, he was about to be released when the doctors told his parents that the leg had been badly set, and he would be crippled for life unless they reset it. Paul never came out of the anesthetic they used. He died in mid-December. The little coffin was set across two chairs in the living room of their home.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman"">I once referred to “Uncle Paul” when speaking of him to my grandfather and he immediately corrected me. “Paul,” he said, as if the concept of Paul being an uncle didn’t compute. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman"">So last time I was at Waldheim, I inquired about Paul, and discovered a record of his grave. The cemetery provided me a guide who drove me over and helped me locate the grave. The Hebrew and English engraving on young Paul’s grave stone is barely legible now, but even before we figured out for certain that it was his, I found myself planted in front of a worn monument in the shape of a tree trunk. It was, indeed, Paul’s. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman"">I have known Paul’s story all my life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Now I’m part of it. I love the idea that Paul will have a visitor again after so many years, and that I can “care for” the son of the woman for whom I was named.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>If our spirits live on through our children’s children and our namesakes, and in the hearts of those who cherish our memory, then little Paul really does belong to me, in a way. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And I’m more than happy to tell his story and carry his spirit into future generations. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Janet Reed</span></span></p> <!--EndFragment--> Ellen Blum Barishhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10990834840808719514noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961330773005291297.post-55264823895845710052011-08-27T08:59:00.001-05:002011-08-27T09:04:49.522-05:00Re’eh, Mitzvot, the Coming of Elul and You<!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal">This week<span style="font-family:"MS 明朝"">’</span>s parashah, Re<span style="font-family:"MS 明朝"">’</span>eh, (translated as <span style="font-family:"MS 明朝"">‘</span>see<span style="font-family:"MS 明朝"">’</span>) concludes (14:1-16:17) with a detailing of the mitzvot that set the Israelites apart from other nations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>They include but are not limited to: kashrut, tithing, observing the sabbatical year, the particulates of lending money, the treatment of slaves, consecrating the first born animal and then there is a review of the observances of the Yomim Tovim (Pesach, Shavout and Succot).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"></span>But wait there<span style="font-family:"MS 明朝"">’</span>s more. In a few days (the evening of August 31, 2011) we begin the month of Elul.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>This is a time that we have an opportunity to reflect on the past year and bring ourselves to a strong mental place for a good cleansing at Yom Kippur.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It has been my custom to write an <span style="font-family:"MS 明朝"">‘</span>Elul message<span style="font-family:"MS 明朝"">’</span> for the past few years on some theme.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The themes come from nowhere in particular – some germ floating in the air that landed in my brain.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Prior years have brought my readers (blessed be their eyes and hearts) such things as: texting - the text giving new meaning to the magic of cyber shortcuts, writing our own story, everyday spirituality and the like.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"></span>I mention this to you because my subject matter this year is mitzvot in the form of our personal stories.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The mitzvot that we are not only commanded to do, but that which draw us into the prospect of a good healthy place to begin our New Year some 29 days after the start of Elul.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>This parashah, Re<span style="font-family:"MS 明朝"">’</span>eh, is a great way to begin the Elul journey.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Look at the mitzvot that Torah says set us apart from the other nations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Time has past since our desert tour and they are still usable, if not to the letter, but in some form.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Some manipulation needs to be done with consecrating the first born animal but in issues of the treatment of slaves we need only substitute our treatment of people (piercing of ears aside) and the rules are pertinent. </p><p class="MsoNormal">Among the many listings of mitzvot that one can find is a long list, (there are 613 – 248 positive and 365 negative) there are many that we are no longer responsible to do since the destruction of the Temple.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Our days could be busy keeping the 77 positive ones that remain in our <span style="font-family:"MS 明朝"">‘</span>to do<span style="font-family:"MS 明朝"">’</span> list and the 194 negatives.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Of those 26 can only be done in Israel and then there are some that women are exempt from doing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Some of them are natural to most of us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It would be a blessing to know that you are already mitzvah-ready and working.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Some are harder and require concentration and some are obscure.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I would like to recommend that knowing what is commanded of us and then following through leads us back to the opening lines of this parashah:</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i>Behold, I set before you today a blessing and a curse.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The blessing, that you will heed the commandments of Adonai your God, which I command you today; and the curse if you will not heed the commandments of Adonai your God, but turn away from the way I command you this day, to follow other gods, which you did not know</i><span style="font-family:"MS 明朝""><i>…</i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">No coincidence that this particular commandment is woven through the listing of the first seven mitzvot.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Next week I start the Elul writings and am delighted to send them unblogged to anyone interested.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Email me at <a href="mailto:marilynlprice@aol.com">marilynlprice@aol.com</a> and poof they will be there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>You are not commanded to read them – you may delete them – send them on – chant them to some familiar tune.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>They are tidbits of stories and will be entitled <span style="font-family:"MS 明朝"">“</span>My Grandma has a Tale<span style="font-family:"MS 明朝"">”</span> and will focus on ways our mitzvot are prevalent in our daily stories as I trek through my mitzvah memories and make way towards the year 5772.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Re<span style="font-family:"MS 明朝"">’</span>eh helps us get to where we need to go with reminders of that which makes people special - but only if they work at it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Shabbat Shalom</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Marilyn Price</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <!--EndFragment--> Ellen Blum Barishhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10990834840808719514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961330773005291297.post-20813385440034460042011-08-12T11:00:00.001-05:002011-08-12T11:00:40.405-05:00Tu b’Av – A Jewish Holiday of Love<p class="MsoNormal">Most of us know about, but do not rigorously observe, Tisha b’Av, the recently passed day for the sorrowful commemoration of the destruction of the Temples in Jerusalem. Most of us do not know about, and so do not observe, the joyous holiday of Tu b’Av, the holiday that commences this Sunday night (August 14).</p><p class="MsoNormal">Tu b’Av is a holiday of about love and romance, graced appropriately enough with a full moon. One sage in the Talmud, intending a compliment, even placed Tu B’Av on the same level of joyousness as Yom Kippur.<span> </span>I have never viewed Yom Kippur as a joyous holiday, but I understand Shimon ben Gamliel to mean that this holiday is, or ought to be, a time of great importance.<span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal">I also know, as the contemporary sage Hal David has taught, “What the world needs now is love sweet love. No, not for some but for everyone.”</p><p class="MsoNormal">So, in a few days, let’s celebrate the last holiday of the year. Maybe we all won’t go dancing in the vineyards, but let’s at least renew our acquaintance with Tu B’Av. <span></span>You never know what will happen when the moon is full.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Roger Price</span></p>Ellen Blum Barishhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10990834840808719514noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961330773005291297.post-85100711035592996662011-08-05T16:37:00.002-05:002011-08-05T16:41:50.769-05:00Wisdom from Jacob and the Dark Spaces<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSKdWytH4Pv9us8MOrc1kImlw0jMeTJi0dz_VwZFffwndoBC0b51XJ8ZXkPqJ-p08JEl4T-3W3pVbAda9wuPM4lWzfHF_fhdLMomgdmUJjfY__lTUVJGo91I8zQVZtxrDVNYyTINVUk-0/s1600/3.5IMG_0909.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSKdWytH4Pv9us8MOrc1kImlw0jMeTJi0dz_VwZFffwndoBC0b51XJ8ZXkPqJ-p08JEl4T-3W3pVbAda9wuPM4lWzfHF_fhdLMomgdmUJjfY__lTUVJGo91I8zQVZtxrDVNYyTINVUk-0/s200/3.5IMG_0909.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5637490268695124770" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEsl9FBloUce72leNl6FohP3mheErrP9jw4kFtKv1TYZnLwLBOJODsry2kolNA0IasFyThL4e0sbXtLfAPcw-SG4JBS3ypFs4DDEN22dHIwss9g9w_I-jYmtFiN3wOOYjqnx9ADD70SIg/s1600/babiesIMG_0904.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEsl9FBloUce72leNl6FohP3mheErrP9jw4kFtKv1TYZnLwLBOJODsry2kolNA0IasFyThL4e0sbXtLfAPcw-SG4JBS3ypFs4DDEN22dHIwss9g9w_I-jYmtFiN3wOOYjqnx9ADD70SIg/s200/babiesIMG_0904.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5637490252588591042" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2jRfs8l9xtzXFEFL8XvIuPkGNiLQpzCqFlb2MYQU88teWHbHBgFUuR6XeF1_7G-WlbuiWUiRVZecmxNbcAY-rXIa5Es8L0Bh8ktfidgk0qG3aVWbri7FE482Ia4mPYpFmtvWAxVELRUU/s1600/IMG_0911.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2jRfs8l9xtzXFEFL8XvIuPkGNiLQpzCqFlb2MYQU88teWHbHBgFUuR6XeF1_7G-WlbuiWUiRVZecmxNbcAY-rXIa5Es8L0Bh8ktfidgk0qG3aVWbri7FE482Ia4mPYpFmtvWAxVELRUU/s200/IMG_0911.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5637490245733763218" /></a><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" color: rgb(51, 51, 51); line-height: 21px; font-family:Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif;font-size:14px;">Late last spring when we came to the end of Genesis in Friday's Torah class,<span style="font-weight: normal; "> Rabbi London asked us to select a part that moved us and reflect on it in some way.</span><p class="MsoNormal">Suzanne Coffey chose Tol’dot, Genesis 25: 19-28: J<span style="font-weight: normal; ">acob and Esau in Rebekah’s uterus. Suzanne is the mother of four premature quadruplets who were born after her own struggle with infertility.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal">The way she connected Jacob’s story to her own was so moving that I asked Suzanne if she’d be willing to tell it again so that it could be shared with you here in this blog space.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">Thank you, Suzanne, for saying yes.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">She was drawn to the story of Jacob’s struggle in Rebekah’s womb because her firstborn, Noah Jacob, struggled in his own way.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">“Torah’s Jacob has his most powerful moments in the dark,” she says. “And this is where he interfaces with the Divine and his destiny.”</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">“Jacob fights for primacy in Rebekah’s womb, and grabs his twin brother Esau’s heel in utero,” Jacob’s name means <i>heel </i><span style="font-style: normal; ">in Hebrew.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal">We all know about Jacob’s other struggles in the dark:</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i>Jacob dreams about the ladder to heaven and wakes up knowing God.</i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i>Jacob wrestles with the angel in the night.</i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i>Jacob is grabbed by the thigh during the wrestling and then walks with a limp but earns praise and compassion from the angel and God as a result of the fight.</i></p><p class="MsoNormal">Like the Jacob in Torah, Suzanne’s firstborn, Noah Jacob, struggled to leave the womb first. He succeeded, but not without incredible challenges. He suffered two severe cerebral hemorrhages, a case of pneumonia and sepsis. The infection attacked his blood, the femur bone near his hip and then traveled to his heart.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">“Noah was battling to stay alive,” Suzanne says, “and the doctor told us to <i>make preparations</i><span style="font-style: normal; ">.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal">This all happened in 1999. Rabbi Eleanor Smith came to the hospital to rename Noah. She had been there earlier to give Noah and his sisters, Rachel, Alyssa and Hannah, their Hebrew names. But because Noah was struggling, Rabbi Smith returned to rename him Noah Jacob Yerachmiel, meaning “God Have Mercy and Compassion.” A prayer for his life.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">Hours after the renaming, Suzanne says that Noah started to show signs of pep. “His face went from looking like an old man to just relaxed.”</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">Noah has cerebral palsy as a result of the brain bleeds and he has a hemiparesis which affects the right side of his body. As a result, he walks with a limp and has difficulty with fine motor skills. He is, however, in a regular classroom at school and during our conversation, he was away visiting his grandparents. But he is, in the words of his mother, “mercifully well off.”</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">Suzanne says that she experienced “an interface with the Divine through Noah’s struggle.“ She says<span> </span>“A combination of good medical care, medicine and God turned it all around for him. God answered my prayers. God intervened on Noah’s behalf. Life could have turned out very different for us, but God showed mercy and compassion.”</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">Though she had noted some of the parallels between the Jacob story and her own Noah Jacob, more of the pieces came together as she prepared for her d’var in Torah class.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">This Sunday (August 7) is Noah, Rachel, Alyssa and Hannah’s <i>half </i><span style="font-style: normal; ">birthday. In February 2012, they will celebrate their b’nai mitzvahs.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal">There is <i>so </i><span style="font-style: normal; ">much to celebrate.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal">Not only the covenant that Noah, Rachel, Alyssa and Hannah will be making with the Jewish people. And the one they will have with the Beth Emet community. And the party afterwards!</p><p class="MsoNormal">But Suzanne will have the chance to celebrate that through motherhood, she not only brought four new lives into the world, she found her own personal portal for interfacing with the Divine.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-size:x-small;">Interview and photographs by Ellen Blum Barish</span></i></p></span>Ellen Blum Barishhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10990834840808719514noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961330773005291297.post-42084007011408437372011-07-28T11:23:00.005-05:002011-07-28T13:54:00.355-05:00Justice: Seek It, Pursue It, Secure It, and Maintain It<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJJQSllf0dranRMgtTOMcq8PDFZzsOw1Jidj0b9X7XEinjLlxwS9KiUlsYfsV-o3DLCfIQWasEDz87qkuRn1Lhhg48UdoD8mJxaHi1YdSr7LVHdBg1ctEA2BfNx60aSGT5J8xfL3qaQlo/s1600/get-attachment.aspx.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 183px; height: 199px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJJQSllf0dranRMgtTOMcq8PDFZzsOw1Jidj0b9X7XEinjLlxwS9KiUlsYfsV-o3DLCfIQWasEDz87qkuRn1Lhhg48UdoD8mJxaHi1YdSr7LVHdBg1ctEA2BfNx60aSGT5J8xfL3qaQlo/s400/get-attachment.aspx.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5634441380695977570" /></a><p class="MsoNormal"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Last spring, as a recently retired attorney, Roger Price had the time to satisfy his curiosity. So he enrolled in Evanston's Citizen Police Academy. Since justice is Beth Emet's theme for 2011-2012, Roger's reflections kickstart our attention to things justice-oriented in the community that surrounds Beth Emet: Evanston.</span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:16.0pt;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Justice is a core Jewish value. We are urged to seek it, pursue it, secure it and maintain it. In our community, those tasks are often delegated to professionals and we generally know too little about who they are and what they do. Last spring, I decided to learn more. I enrolled in Evanston’s Citizen Police Academy, as part of its thirty-third class. What an experience!</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> I met police officers, many surprisingly young, who see on a daily basis what a lot of us would prefer not to see. They </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">told us what many do not want to hear. They serve and protect all who want service and protection but would pass on the details, the financial cost and the personal toll on the responders.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-size:medium;"> I did not get to meet Horatio Caine or Det. Mac Taylor, but I did hear from some very real officers who talked about all too real, all too disturbing, often all too sad stories, of people at all stages of life who were engaged in conduct that ranged from premeditated and evil to simply sloppy or stupid. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-size:medium;"> I heard officers speak from the heart of the challenges they face, not just the budget constraints, but the challenges of scrutiny, probity, confidentiality and fear. They live in a world where everyone is a suspect until proven otherwise and the discretion they use, the decisions they render, often without full knowledge of a situation, can literally make the difference between life and death for them or someone else. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;"> </span>And I heard officers speak, with incredible pride, about the work that they do, about the satisfaction that they have in assessing and resolving a difficult problem, about being able to alter another human being’s life. How many of us really get a chance to do that, especially up close and personal and on a regular basis?<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;"> </span>I also had the privilege to ride along with a police officer. At first the ride was mercifully dull. The city was quiet. And then, with lights and sirens and a gulp in my throat, we were off to face the unknown. I saw up close and personal the aftermath of a home invasion, with a rear entry glass door smashed, broken glass all over a den floor and a broken heart of a violated homeowner. Minutes later, I saw the arrest of three young adults, stopped initially for littering and then for possession of controlled substances. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;"> </span>By graduation, we covered topics as varied as animal control, dispatching, criminal investigation, domestic violence, evidence collection, chaplaincy and gangs. I had gained a good deal of knowledge about programs, procedures and policies. But more importantly, I had a chance to meet some real heroes, to paraphrase Raymond Chandler, men and women who down these sometimes mean streets must go, yet who themselves are not mean, who are neither tarnished nor afraid. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;"> </span>Crime, we are taught at the Academy, occurs where the community allows it. And the Evanston Police Department is a small force – less than half the size of the estimated gang population here. For a safer and better community, police and citizens must work together. Anyone concerned about our hometown and mindful of our obligation to seek, pursue, secure and maintain justice should consider participating. Academy Class 34 begins in the fall. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Go to </span><span style="color:blue;"><u><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">lspells@cityofevanston.org</span></u></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">. </span></span></p><span style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:Georgia, serif;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Roger Price is the blogmaster of </span></i><span style=" ;font-family:Arial;"><span style=" ;font-family:'Times New Roman';"><i><a href="http://www.judaismandscience.com/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">www.judaismandscience.com</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">.</span></i></span></span></span></span>Ellen Blum Barishhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10990834840808719514noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961330773005291297.post-91850109335005557132011-07-20T23:46:00.001-05:002011-07-20T23:49:33.114-05:00Thoughts on Judaism, Science, Blogging, Adult Education, and How Everything is Connected to Everything Else<!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><i>by Larry Kaufman</i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal">The age-old quandary, which came first, the chicken or the egg, is perhaps both paralleled and answered by a primary principle of Torah study, there is no earlier or later in the Torah.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The parallel issue is the concern about sequence; the answer to the question, though, is actually provided:<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>we read of the creation of winged creatures on the fifth day with no coverage at all of the creation of eggs.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">This comes to mind because I have recently learned about a new blog, <a href="http://www.judaismandscience.com/">www.judaismandscience.com</a>, whose author, Beth Emet’s Roger Price, credits it to be an outgrowth of the mini-course he offered here at the synagogue on Friday mornings during the spring, but which almost certainly emanates from an earlier interest on Roger’s part in the general subject matter of the compatibility of religion and science.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">As a “satisfied customer” who participated in Roger’s class, I went eagerly to the blog when I learned about it.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>What I found is not an expansion on the specific essays by scientists and religionists that we had talked about, but further forays into the broad issue -- exemplified in unpredictable insights whose connectedness is clear once Roger points it out, but which I would never have thought of on my own.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">For example, how does Sportin’ Life’s aria, “It Ain’t Necessarily So” from the Gershwins’ <i>Porgy and Bess </i><span style="font-style:normal">connect to Judaism or to science?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Figure out your own answer, and then read the mind-blowing blog post to see if you got the whole thing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>(I sure didn’t.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I personally have posted several articles both on the Reform Judaism blog (<a href="http://www.rj.org/">www.rj.org</a>) and here at <i>Torat Chayeinu </i><span style="font-style:normal">that emerged from discussions in Beth Emet classrooms, Rabbi London’s Torah study class being a particular stimulus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></span><i>Kol hakavod</i><span style="font-style:normal">, kudos to Helene Rosenberg and the Adult Education committee for providing the Beth Emet community with these opportunities for intellectual and Judaic growth, and to Ellen Blum Barish and Susan Fisher as the spark plugs in providing us with this forum for continuing the discussion and expanding our horizons further.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></span><i> </i></p> <!--EndFragment-->Ellen Blum Barishhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10990834840808719514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961330773005291297.post-91675463399480279022011-07-15T14:59:00.008-05:002011-07-15T15:37:55.877-05:00Power Outages, Double Rainbows and The Gifts of Shabbat<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmnOg_JLM50r2L3NRGscACVvjrGvEINd-Et-74_SsTkDwi6Or4q0zVhvvHj-d0QA7XQShAjGbjL2hq6HGRfyhoMWCi9wi5f_g80YEsrqHdrrlkvMxEgjj2JBg2IVK23Y8BmSnItoxgJ6U/s1600/IMG_0698.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 299px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmnOg_JLM50r2L3NRGscACVvjrGvEINd-Et-74_SsTkDwi6Or4q0zVhvvHj-d0QA7XQShAjGbjL2hq6HGRfyhoMWCi9wi5f_g80YEsrqHdrrlkvMxEgjj2JBg2IVK23Y8BmSnItoxgJ6U/s400/IMG_0698.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5629679263175209314" /></a><br /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>I hope this finds you powered back up if you lost your ability to plug in this week as so many did (I was among the lucky who did not.) It's one thing to lose power for an hour or two; something so very different to lose it for days on end.<div><br /></div><div>Since my house was gifted with a working refrigerator and outlets, ours was the go-to spot for our neighbors wanting to save groceries and charge their phones and laptops. I couldn't help but notice how a power outage gets people connecting in other ways. People get to talking. One friend described how during one of her many dark evenings, she lit and candle and sat quietly in her livingroom. Within a few moments, her college-age daughter entered the room and began to play her guitar. And together they sat like that for a long while. Moments, my friend said, she would have never had if the power hadn't gone out.</div><div><br /></div><div>I've been thinking a lot about Shabbat recently. How to bring more of it into my life. Even when it isn't Shabbat. That moment between my friend and her daughter strikes me as one of those. Rarer now with so many ways for us to plug in.</div><div><br /></div><div>Last Shabbat I was in Colorado with my family and after a short, light rain - at dusk - emerged a double rainbow. Regular business stopped. Out came our cell phone cameras. (The photo above is one of the results.) We lingered for a while, marveling at it. </div><div><br /></div><div>Upon seeing a rainbow, the Hebrew prayer goes:</div><table nof="LY" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="643"><tbody><tr align="LEFT" valign="TOP"><td><table nof="LY" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="567"><tbody><tr align="LEFT" valign="TOP"><td class="TextObject" width="474"><p style="text-align: center;"><i><br /></i></p><p style="text-align: center;"><i>Barukh attah Adonai eloheinu melekh ha-olam,</i></p><p style="text-align: center;"><i>zokher haberit vene’eman bivrito v’kaiyam bema’amaro.</i></p> </td> </tr> </tbody></table> </td> <td> <table nof="LY" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="27"> <tbody><tr align="LEFT" valign="TOP"> <td height="34" width="6"><img src="http://www.hebrew4christians.com/clearpixel.gif" alt="" border="0" height="1" width="6" /></td> <td></td> </tr> <tr align="LEFT" valign="TOP"> <td height="19"></td> <td align="CENTER" valign="MIDDLE" width="21"><a href="http://www.hebrew4christians.com/Blessings/Special_Events/Rainbow/Printer_Version/printer_version.html"><img id="Picture214" src="http://www.hebrew4christians.com/Blessings/printer-friendly.gif" alt="" border="0" height="19" width="21" /></a></td> </tr> </tbody></table> </td> </tr> </tbody></table> <table nof="LY" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="648"> <tbody><tr align="LEFT" valign="TOP"> <td height="46" width="67"><img src="http://www.hebrew4christians.com/clearpixel.gif" alt="" border="0" height="1" width="67" /></td> <td width="581"><img src="http://www.hebrew4christians.com/clearpixel.gif" alt="" border="0" height="1" width="581" /></td> </tr> <tr align="LEFT" valign="TOP"> <td></td><td class="TextObject" width="581"><p style="line-height: 18px;">The rainbow was given to be<i> “l’ot brit”</i> [for a sign of the covenant] between the LORD and the earth] to keep it from destruction by deluge (<a href="http://bible.gospelcom.net/cgi-bin/bible?&version=ESV&passage=Genesis+9:12-17" target="_blank">Genesis 9:12-17</a>). </p><p style="line-height: 18px;"><br /></p></td></tr></tbody></table><div>I'm thinking about that double rainbow as the double blessing of the gift of Shabbat; the gifts of physical rest and psychic space. An entire day without humanmade light or power sources.</div><div><br /></div><div>Shabbat Shalom. </div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Ellen Blum Barish</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">July 15, 2011</span></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Ellen Blum Barishhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10990834840808719514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961330773005291297.post-4558519205518203192011-07-04T22:23:00.004-05:002011-07-04T22:31:45.901-05:00A Prayer for Our CountryWith fireworks bursting overhead, we celebrate Independence Day in the United States. After the oohs and aahs give way to the stillness of the night, we may find a moment to reflect upon the significance of the day and consider a prayer for our country:<br />
<br />
<i>O GUARDIAN of life and liberty,<br />
may our nation always merit Your protection.<br />
Teach us to give thanks for what we have<br />
by sharing it with those who are in need.<br />
Keep our eyes open to the wonders of creation,<br />
and alert to the care of the earth.<br />
May we never be lazy in the work of peace;<br />
may we honor those who have died in defense of our ideals.<br />
Grant our leaders wisdom and forebearance.<br />
May they govern with justice and compassion<br />
Help us all to appreciate one another,<br />
and to respect the many ways that we may serve You.<br />
May our homes be safe from affliction and strife,<br />
and our country be sound in body and spirit.</i><br />
<br />
For the prayer in its entirety, along with the other prayers for our community, see <a href="http://tmt.urj.net/images/MT%20376-377.pdf">http://tmt.urj.net/images/MT%20376-377.pdf</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961330773005291297.post-53661425191235024992011-06-08T16:24:00.004-05:002011-06-08T16:36:18.344-05:00Thoughts On Not Counting Anymore<!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">A big thank you to Marilyn Price and those of you who responded in the comment section during the Counting of the Omer on these pages.</span></i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">It appears that the “Our Stories, Our Journey” visionaries were right: There is interest in - and plenty of room for - an electronic conversation about Things Jewish and Things Spiritual. </span></i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:Verdana;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Shall we see if we can become an even louder chorus of voices?</span></i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:Verdana;">Some thoughts came to me during the Omer Counting that I was allowing to marinate and I’d like to share them:</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:Verdana;">I connect counting with being young.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:Verdana;">Things like:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:Verdana;">Counting the days until school would start.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:Verdana;">Then counting the days until school was out for summer.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:Verdana;">Counting the days until my birthday (which I am no longer very interested in doing) or overnight camp or someone’s party or the start of college or graduation or first job or first love and you get the idea.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:Verdana;">All of this counting was in excited anticipation of something to come.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">What I remember most about that counting is how future-oriented it was. That it was all about how good something would be rather than how good it was in the moments before.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:Verdana;">What I find interesting is how differently I feel today about counting. Taking note of each day prior to Shavuot offered a slowing down; an appreciation of something in that day. A taking note and a chance to count blessings and stay in the present. Less like a waiting for something and more like a very present and full-bodied appreciation. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;">An interesting reversal, I thought. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:Verdana;">Other thoughts came to me, too. Like the idea of “counting on” something. How very little there was to "count on" which then makes the thing one "counts on" all the more vital and important and appreciated.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:Verdana;">The word “accountability” came to mind, as well. The idea that being accountable for certain things makes me someone "to count on" which then makes me vital and important and, hopefully, appreciated.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:Verdana;">Then I got giddy with it and wondered about the origins of the title “Count” as in Count Dracula or Countess LuAnn (from “The Real Housewives of New York”). And then it was time to stop!</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:Verdana;">Anything interesting come up for you in these weeks of counting?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:Verdana;">EBB</span></p> <!--EndFragment-->Ellen Blum Barishhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10990834840808719514noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3961330773005291297.post-7982853122143374662011-06-06T20:36:00.000-05:002011-06-06T20:37:54.576-05:00The Counting of the Omer 5771 - Day 49 - We are HERE now<span style="font-family:Comic Sans MS;color:#000080;"></span><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;">The closing bell (and with the way the market has been this last week I apologize for that reference) is upon us. This is the last day of the Counting of the Omer and as promised I will attempt to put the pieces together for you. This morning I received the following note and thought I'd share it with you mostly because my friends and readers (one and the same) teach me so much. The setting is Israel and the Omer reading referred to is Day 47 entitled "Are We Here Yet?"</span></div><br /><div></div><br /><div><em><span style="color:#0000ff;">Last night I was invited to a "Tikun Leil Shavuot" at a high school in the area (where I used to teach). Read this to the group and we discussed the question you asked in the context of "Studying Judaism In the 21st Century".</span></em></div><br /><div><br /><span style="color:#0000ff;"><em>Thought you might like to know that for some people the story was less important than your question. In some ways we certainly are not "here" because we spend so much of our busy lives without the possibility of contemplation. Sitting back and considering the story is one thing, but taking the time out to do so is another. In the end, your question was answered individually.</em><em> G</em></span></div><br /><div><em><span style="color:#000000;"></span></em></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;">We have come to the base of Sinai and bring with us our own narratives, the things we have had time to think about in these past 7 weeks. We have been recollecting family and friends and incidents. If the concept of 'we were all at Sinai' is puzzling to you or has been puzzling to you I am hoping that we have put a new spin on it. It is at Sinai that tradition tells us we received the Law, the Teachings. It is at our personal Sinai, our base, that the same holds true. It is at home base that we too learn the rules and try through our lives to incorporate them into a good life, a life of here.</span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;"></span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;">So here we are at NOW, here we are at HERE. The present. The present is where we are, yet in an instant it becomes the past. In my repertoire of stories one of the favorites is about King Solomon's ring. The closing line in Yiddish is <em>'Gam Zeh Ya-avor'</em> (this too shall pass). Treating the present with special care and reverence, many times hard to do, is the underlying message. If things are bad they will be over and if things are good they will be over as well. The object is to treat each incident as if it has some special value. Not a new idea, clearly one you knew but who does have the time to contemplate? Who doesn't want to wish the bad away? To hang on to the good? </span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;"></span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;">I promised you a lesson in creating a storyboard, a story in three parts. Beginning, middle and conclusion. You did the first two and here we are at NOW at HERE. This is not the conclusion but once again it is a place to begin. I don't know if you've had time to contemplate your story, I don't know if you're happy with the way it is, or if it's time to recognize that changes can be made but you are the one to do it. </span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;"></span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;">Back to our protagonist of the two days past. Beginning life as a slave, raised as a prince of Egypt, then as a runaway and then as a prophet. Making decisions that affected all around him, listening to good advice from family, losing his temper and suffering the loss of family and the ultimate disappointment of not crossing into the Journey's destination. Fictional character or not the model is a strong one and one to learn from. Many of the same situations face all of us. Few of us will lead 600,000 people across a desert (or anywhere), few of us will carry such a burden of responsibility but all of us have the ability to be in control of our story, our sacred narrative.</span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;"></span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;">The question 'ARE WE HERE YET?' should be asked repeatedly. </span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;"></span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;">Tomorrow night is Shavuot, the Festival of the Weeks, or <em>Hag ha-Biddurim </em>(the Festival of the First Fruits) or <em>Hag Matan Torateinu </em>(the Festival of the Giving of Our Torah). It is a joyous holiday, a day of ritual and study. However you plan to spend it, in Synagogue, in a walk in the woods, at work or at play remembering who you are taking with you. </span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;"></span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;">As for me, I am glad you took the time to come along, your comments important, your silences noteworthy and your company exquisite!</span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;"></span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;">marilyn</span></div>marilynlpricehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17167323959521049213noreply@blogger.com0