Chanukah Stories to Share

In Rabbi London's Chanukah message, she asked us to share with the congregation our favorite Chanukah story (personal or otherwise). Below are some responses:

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.

- Janice Weiss

 

 

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.

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."

- Margaux 

Building Bridges of Understanding

Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav taught: Kol ha'olam kulo gesher tzer me'od, v'ha'ikar, lo lefached clal. The whole world is a very narrow bridge, and the main thing is not to fear at all.

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?

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 ha-ikar: 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.

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.

Rabbi Andrea London

The Three Synagogues?

By Larry Kaufman

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  Knobel called to ask if I would be willing on such and such a Kabbalat Shabbat to give the dvar Torah.  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.

But in for a penny, in for a pound.  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.  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.   

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.  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. 

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 lehavdil, 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.  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?  

When we discussed this at Kahal, it turned out that the Cohen-Levi-Yisrael distinction may not be all that absent.  Someone pointed out that it is maintained for aliyot at the Beth Emet minyan.  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.

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.  All are encapsulated in the “obligations without measure” prayer, that lists the activities that can’t be overdone, but ends, talmud torah k’neged kulam, the study of Torah encompasses them all.  That might suggest that in the triad of study, worship, good deeds, study is paramount.   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. 

Torah, Avodah, G’milut Hasadim.  Wherever we place our dominant attention, the bottom line is the idea that those are not three things, they are one!

All Together Now, Out Loud, Four Small Words for Peace

The 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.

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.

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, Adonai 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 T’Filah. 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.

The siddur, 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 Mishkan T’Filah, 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.

One of the most familiar prayers in our liturgy is the Kaddish Yatom, Mourner’s Kaddish. 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 “Oseh Shalom Bimromav”, 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.

What make this restriction particularly curious and onerous is that this prayer for peace is found elsewhere in the siddur, at the end of the T’Filah, but each time other than in the Kaddish the prayer has been modified with the words “v’al kol yosh’vei teiveil” 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 Kaddish.

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 “v’al kol yosh’vei teiveil” to their recitation of the Kaddish. 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.”

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 Mashiach has been waiting for?

Roger Price

Celebrating MLK, Interfaith Writings and a Flash Mob in Jerusalem

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 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

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.”

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.

…. A hundred years after the Emancipation Proclamation and the Negro is still not free.. 

Rabbi Andrea London and Reverend Mark Dennis at the WBEZ Studios 

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.

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 “We shall overcome, we shall overcome, we shall overcome, someday…” 

….We need to lift our nation from the quicksand of racial injustice…

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.

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.

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.

Today, Martin Luther King would have turned 83 years old.

Would he be disappointed that we are still talking about race relations? Or would he be pleased at how different it looks?

“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 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.

Ellen Blum Barish

In other news....


Several Beth Emet women - Marilyn Price, Betsy Fuchs and myself -  are featured in the launch of an online interfaith publication titled Creative Space, produced by the women of SoulSpace, a women's interfaith circle that celebrated 10 years in 2011.


Marilyn Gehant, founding mother of SoulSpace, writes, 


"We invite you to enter Creative Space and share the spiritual writing and images of our Jewish, Christian and Muslim contributors. The seeking spirit of women of faith is at work in our inaugural posting of Creative Space.  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.  


Here's the link to read more:

http://soulspacecreative.blogspot.com/

And finally, because my daughter is en route back to college today from her first trip to Israel, I couldn't resist posting a link to this
wonderful Youtube video: a flash mob in Jerusalem. 
Enjoy.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzhQuQGyulA&feature=share

Know Us by Our Names – and by Our Deeds

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.  (I blogged about this three years ago on the Reform Judaism blog, at http://blogs.rj.org/blog/2009/01/26/god_and_man_at_shul/).  

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 (emet) as they see it.  And the story is memorialized on our website www.bethemet.org, so that any visitor can know what we stand for and how we came to be in the place where we are.

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.  The Beth Emet journey, over these sixty-plus years, has been one of action, and our action theme for the current year is tzedek, tzedek tirdof, justice, justice you shall pursue.  This theme provides us with programmatic focus, putting an even greater emphasis on what has long been integral to our congregational DNA. 

The instruction to pursue justice comes out of Parashat Shoftim, but the parasha also reminds us of other values, including rachamim, mercy, shalom, peace, emet, truth, and ometz, courage.  Hopefully these too are part of our genetic makeup. 

Fusing our Beth Emet stress on tzedek with my personal interest in what temples call themselves, I decided to take a specific look at congregations that incorporate tzedek in their names.  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.  But that’s all there are.  (This compares, on the one hand, with 16 Reform “emet” congregations, and with 14 Conservative “tzedek” congregations.)

So what do the tzedek congregations of the Reform movement do about pursuing justice, and about featuring its pursuit?  Although all have active social action programs, with mitzvah days and interfaith programming and soup kitchens among their activities, only one of the six provides visible attention to its commitment to justice. 

B’nai Tzedek, in Fountain Valley, CA, reminds its congregants and its visitors every time they enter the sanctuary of where they are.  On the right side of their bimah wall are the words "Tzedek, Tzedek Tirdof" – “Justice, Justice Shall You Pursue.” On the left side of the bimah wall are the words "Marbeh Tzedakah Marbeh Shalom" – “The More Justice, the More Peace.”  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.’"

We read in Tanchuma Vayakkhel:  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. 

 

As it with people, so too it should be for synagogues:  they should be known not only by their names but by their deeds.  Our congregational names need to be more than identifiers – they need to be a starting point for our identities.  We read in Pirke Avot 1:18, The world stands on three things – on truth, on justice,* and on peace.  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.   

*Full disclosure:  The Hebrew here is din, not tzedek, emphasizing law without the overtone of compassion inherent in tzedek.

Larry Kaufman

 

Talmudic Lessons for the Wanna-Be's

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.)

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. 

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. 

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.

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.

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.

“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?”

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.” 

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.  

“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.” 

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...”

Can someone please pass along his lesson to our Congress and the wanna-be’s?

Janet Reed

Justice and Evanston's Big Ten Ideas

Justice 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?



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.



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.



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.



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 http://www.evanston150.org/ or just call 847-347-2013.





Roger Price

When the Matriarch Dies ...

When the matriarch dies who is left in charge? 

In this weeks’ parshah Chaya Sarah (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.

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.

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!

Maybe it will work this year as well – the economic boost part!

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?

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. 

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.

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.

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. 

Another thing to give thanks for!

Shabbat Shalom and Happy Thanksgiving. 

Marilyn Price

In gratitude  

Cheshvan: The Bitter and the Sweet

We are entering the singular month of the Jewish calendar in which there are no holidays, festivals, fasts or observances other than Shabbat.

November is the month of Cheshvan, or what is known as mar Cheshvan, meaning bitter. 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 bitter). But I’m guessing that many more of us may be ripe for a rest.

I know I was.

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.

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.

View theses as a visual prompt to take Cheshvan up on its offerings.

And feel free to comment here about what that will look like or has looked like for you. I’d be interested to know ….

Ellen Blum Barish

Shake Your Lulav and Etrog

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.

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 the lulav and etrog, and then forget about it for the rest of the year.  Almost no Reform Jews put up their own sukkot, and few fulfilled the commandment to eat at least one meal there.

Our contemporary rediscovery of the joys of Sukkot  brings us back around to the understandings of the  ancient Israelites when they fulfilled the commandment:  

“The choice first fruits of your soil you shall bring to the house of the Lord your God.” (Exodus 34:26). 

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.  Likewise,  the Pilgrims took to heart the commandments to recognize God’s role in providing for their needs in the New World:

“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” (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. 

“Mark, on the 15^th 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…” (Lev. 23:39-43).

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!)

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.  And might the sukkah not also speak to settlers in the West Bank?

So I’m glad that more Jews acknowledge and celebrate Sukkot—and  I’m looking forward to shaking the lulav and etrog just the same!

Janet Reed

                                                                             

The Work of Forgiveness

The Work of Forgiveness

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?

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.

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?

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.

This poem was born after that ritual. It helped me find answers for 5770.

I’m still working on the answers for this year.

And you?

Shanah Tovah v' Metukah,

Dina Elenbogen

Tashlich

We dipped our words in water

wondering what the lake would give back.

We dug up the odd gems

of the passing year.

We did not throw sins into the wind.

We wrote them down in green ink on white paper,

let water wash over them

as letters faded to shadows.

We had written down a year

of inadequacies, frailties, iniquities.

In my left fist I kept the imperfect

stone of my heart.

I did not toss it in

to the waves that know

what we cannot give back

we will keep.

Dina Elenbogen

An Exercise for the Soul

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.  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.

Give each member of your family at least 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  Hebrew year  (5771) to collect all the papers. Take turns pulling them out and reading them.

 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.

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.  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! 

L’Shanah Tova!

Janet Reed

Sophie Black’s Jewish Journey in Three (Very) Short Chapters

Sophie Black

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 The Beth Emet Bulletin or have heard her ask stimulating questions in adult education classes.

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.

I talked with Sophie about her Jewish journey, which, since Sophie is such a bookworm, struck me as having three distinct chapters.

Chapter One

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.

“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.”

As a child still living in Leipzig, Germany in the 1930s, Sophie’s mother asked her to take something to her father at work.

“I got waylayed,” Sophie recalls,” And I didn’t do it.”

Her mother said, “You had a mitzvah to do and you didn’t do it.”

“This impacted me profoundly,” she says.

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: Sofia Vasilyevna Kovalevskaya, 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.)

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.

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.

Chapter Two

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.”

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).

Chapter Three

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 is Beth Emet.

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.

http://www.bethemet.org/component/content/article/35-upcoming-events/272-torat-chayeinu-our-stories-our-journey-with-sophie-black

Ellen Blum Barish

Let's March on July 4th

As 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

There are at least four reasons why Beth Emet should march.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Rabbi London, President Ephraim, members of the Board of Trustees, fellow congregants: let’s make it so!

Roger Price

A Search for a Long-Lost Ancestor Reveals the Tree of Life

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.

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. 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.

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.

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.

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.

I have known Paul’s story all my life. 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. 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. And I’m more than happy to tell his story and carry his spirit into future generations.

Janet Reed

Re’eh, Mitzvot, the Coming of Elul and You

This week’s parashah, Re’eh, (translated as ‘see’) concludes (14:1-16:17) with a detailing of the mitzvot that set the Israelites apart from other nations. 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).

But wait there’s more. In a few days (the evening of August 31, 2011) we begin the month of Elul. 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. It has been my custom to write an ‘Elul message’ for the past few years on some theme. The themes come from nowhere in particular – some germ floating in the air that landed in my brain. 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.

I mention this to you because my subject matter this year is mitzvot in the form of our personal stories. 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. This parashah, Re’eh, is a great way to begin the Elul journey.

Look at the mitzvot that Torah says set us apart from the other nations. Time has past since our desert tour and they are still usable, if not to the letter, but in some form. 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.

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. Our days could be busy keeping the 77 positive ones that remain in our ‘to do’ list and the 194 negatives. Of those 26 can only be done in Israel and then there are some that women are exempt from doing. Some of them are natural to most of us. It would be a blessing to know that you are already mitzvah-ready and working. Some are harder and require concentration and some are obscure. 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:

Behold, I set before you today a blessing and a curse. 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…

No coincidence that this particular commandment is woven through the listing of the first seven mitzvot.

Next week I start the Elul writings and am delighted to send them unblogged to anyone interested. Email me at marilynlprice@aol.com and poof they will be there. You are not commanded to read them – you may delete them – send them on – chant them to some familiar tune. They are tidbits of stories and will be entitled “My Grandma has a Tale” 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. Re’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.

Shabbat Shalom

Marilyn Price

Tu b’Av – A Jewish Holiday of Love

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).

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. 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.

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.”

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. You never know what will happen when the moon is full.

Roger Price

Wisdom from Jacob and the Dark Spaces

Late last spring when we came to the end of Genesis in Friday's Torah class, Rabbi London asked us to select a part that moved us and reflect on it in some way.

Suzanne Coffey chose Tol’dot, Genesis 25: 19-28: Jacob and Esau in Rebekah’s uterus. Suzanne is the mother of four premature quadruplets who were born after her own struggle with infertility.

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.

Thank you, Suzanne, for saying yes.

She was drawn to the story of Jacob’s struggle in Rebekah’s womb because her firstborn, Noah Jacob, struggled in his own way.

“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.”

“Jacob fights for primacy in Rebekah’s womb, and grabs his twin brother Esau’s heel in utero,” Jacob’s name means heel in Hebrew.

We all know about Jacob’s other struggles in the dark:

Jacob dreams about the ladder to heaven and wakes up knowing God.

Jacob wrestles with the angel in the night.

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.

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.

“Noah was battling to stay alive,” Suzanne says, “and the doctor told us to make preparations.”

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.

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.”

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.”

Suzanne says that she experienced “an interface with the Divine through Noah’s struggle.“ She says “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.”

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.

This Sunday (August 7) is Noah, Rachel, Alyssa and Hannah’s half birthday. In February 2012, they will celebrate their b’nai mitzvahs.

There is so much to celebrate.

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!

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.

Interview and photographs by Ellen Blum Barish

Justice: Seek It, Pursue It, Secure It, and Maintain It

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.

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!

I met police officers, many surprisingly young, who see on a daily basis what a lot of us would prefer not to see. They 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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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. Go to lspells@cityofevanston.org.

Roger Price is the blogmaster of www.judaismandscience.com.