Holidays

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In every generation a person should see themselves as if they were personally redeemed from Egypt! (Haggadah)

Dear Friends,

My father, alav Hashalom (May he rest in peace!) conducted the family seder. Though not religious he did an decent job and repressed his annoyance when his wife, my mom aleha Hashalom (May she rest in peace!) would complain at his sly attempts to skip over various parts of the traditional Haggadah. One time as my father was complaining about wanting to get on with the meal the very next words he had to read were: “and the evil son says: When do we get to eat already?” thus hoisting himself by his own petard much to the amusement of all gathered. Whatever discomfiture dear dad experienced was certainly lessened by the slivovitz that he generously imbibed dulling both his senses and leadership skills. We were aware of the progression of the seder when the yarmulke he sported would slowly but surely make its way from the back of his head to the front of his brow, a precious comical image which remains in my heart and head.

The Passover seder is unique and the many iterations of the Haggadah speak to the wonder of its messages. To name but a few creative ones:

~The Feminist Haggadah (Shechinah – the feminine Devine presence is intoned)

~The Eco Haggadah (noting our task to liberate the environment from humanity’s excesses)

~The Adoption Haggadah (for adopted children who search in vain for their biological parents— Moses was adopted!)

~The Velveteen Rabbit Haggadah (with its different mixes of new age language and customs).

~The libertarian Haggadah (Let’s not leave out those to the pollical right of the spectrum).

~The DIY Haggadah (for the creatively minded “I want my own personal stamp!”)

~The ten-minute Haggadah (for those with ADD or simply for those who have what my father called shpilchus in tuchus, ants in your pants— though that is not the exact translation – call me

if you want an exact rendering ) And many, many more!

Which do you prefer? You may not know it but the traditional Haggadah (and there are many which are claimed to be the real one) does not include Moses, this to diminish any idea of a intermediary between you and God. It is a bit shocking. It is as if you took out all the scenes with Charlton Heston in Cecil B DeMille’s

The Ten Commandments.

Of late I have come to understand the greater importance of the seven-week counting of the Omer which concludes with the holiday of Shavuot (Remembering Sinai and the giving of the Torah along with the celebration of the first fruits of the land). In some ways, they constitute one big holiday of nearly two months in length, a time of meditation and inspiration. By way of analogy, it would be like observing Rosh Hashanah and forgetting about its conclusion Yom Kippur. In this case, it is celebrating freedom without considering the impact of Torah commitment, for freedom is not an absolute but entails responsibilities.

As your Seders are upon you, I hope the precious memories of those who helped laid the foundation of your lives will come to mind. I hope as well that you will create for yourselves and for those coming after you ever new memories to be cherished.

A sissen and a kosher Passover,

Rabbi Yossi Liebowitz D.D.

Contract for Selling Chametz 5782

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Prohibition of Chametz

On Pesach it is prohibited to possess chametz (leaven). All chametz that will not be eaten or burned before Pesach must be sold to a non- Jew. All chametz utensils that will not be thoroughly cleaned by then, and are stored away in closets or rooms while preparing for Pesach. The storage area is locked or tape-shut, and leased to a non-Jew at the time of the sale. There are many legal intricacies in this sale, thus, only a competent rabbi should be entrusted with its execution. The rabbi acts as our agent both to sell the chametz to the non-Jew on the morning before Pesach starts and also to buy it back the evening after Pe- sach ends. Locking your chametz away and giving your Rabbi

the Signed Chametz Contract is an easy way of observing one of the most important laws in the Torah. (Contract follows below). Chametz which remains in the possession of a Jew over Pesach may not be used, eaten, bought or sold even after Pesach. It is customary to give tsedaka in the performance of this Mitzvah.

I, the undersigned, fully empower and permit Rabbi Yossi J. Liebowitz to act in my place and stead, and on my behalf to sell all Chametz possessed by me, knowingly or unknowingly as defined by the Torah and Rabbinic Law (e.g. Chametz, possible Chametz, and all kinds of Chametz mixtures). Also Chametz that tends to harden and adhere to inside surfaces of pans, pots, or cooking utensils, the utensils them- selves, and all kinds of live animals and pets that have been eating Chametz and mixtures thereof. Rabbi Yossi J. Liebowitz is also em- powered to lease all places wherein the Chametz owned by me may be found, particularly at the address listed below, and elsewhere.

Rabbi Yossi J. Liebowitz has full right to appoint any agent or substi- tute in his stead and said substitute shall have full right to sell and lease as provided herein. Rabbi Yossi J. Liebowitz also has the full power and right to act as he deems fit and proper in accordance with all the details of the Bill of Sale used in the transaction to sell all my Chametz, Chametz mixtures, etc., as provided herein.

Signed: ______________________________________________ Date: ______________
Name: ________________________________________________ Address/es: __________________________________________ ______________________________________________________ City/ State/ Zip Country: ____________________________

From the Heart with Rabbi Liebowitz

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“And Moses gathered all of the congregation together” (Exodus 35:1)

Dear Friends,

Unlike other colleagues who sought employment in Jewish organizations I chose early on to be a part of a Synagogue and Temple. I believed then as I do now in community, even in a time when institutions are either ignored, criticized, or simply abandoned. Places of worship are not alone in this regard. Civic organizations are also in the decline. Our hi-tech society has facilitated such disregard and at times, disrespect.

Some of my colleagues have even become “rent-a-rabbis.” Performing on the fly Bar and Bat Mitzvah ceremonies, weddings, and funerals and more! What had been heartfelt community experiences are now commodities to be secured. This is the price we often pay for living in a commercial market-oriented society. Our hi-tech streaming services have not helped much either. So many can simply turn on the tube and switch it on or off to any broadcast they wish. There is a difference between viewing a community and being in community.

And yet, when emergencies come up, such as the horrible Tree of life murders, non-members who contribute nothing by way of time or resources knew where to go, where to sit in a sanctuary they did not help to create, one which is situated beneath the lighting that they have not paid for, nor of the vacuuming and cleanup that sustains a sanctuary as a place of holiness. The same is true when other needs are to be fulfilled by a congregation or by a rabbi. I deeply understand how annoyed some members must feel when a funeral is asked for and when the services are secured for a nominal contribution. The nonmembers get the same dedication and compassion as members who have for decades supported the synagogue. It is hard for such members to feel anything but resentment. We are stuck between enhancing the temple structure and advocating for the compassion and the charity that it houses. We would look terrible were we to turn people away. It would be a betrayal of the holiness we are to embrace.

Some time ago, someone in the general community asked my counsel and my time which in good measure is the synagogue’s time. Curiously, the individual said, “You’re my rabbi!” How that ownership was declared is puzzling to me as it came from someone who had not ventured into the Temple for years, not for a service, not for study, and not for charitable participation in the community. I hope that you would know that I limit my response to one of acknowledgement, a small smile for what was meant as a compliment.

As for the members, I would be remiss if I didn’t note that a synagogue is not merely Bricks and Mortar, furniture and lighting and heat for its members. No matter how beautiful or how endowed, a synagogue is only as strong as the mission it upholds by those who are “the Jews in the pews!” A synagogue is called by three names; Bet Midrash – a House of study,

Bet Tefilla – a House of prayer, Bet Knesset – a House of gathering. These three are the pillars of what synagogue life is all about. Without it, we have an edifice complex, worshipping stone and mortar, forgetting what it was built to

contain. Without it, we have created a museum and not a Temple. You may notice that the Hebrew letters KufKuf – precede the name of synagogues. It stands for Kehila K’dosha, a holy congregation, for as scripture records, “Unless the Lord builds the House, its builders toil in vain!” (Psalm 127)

Yossi Liebowitz, Rabbi

From the Heart with Rabbi Liebowitz

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Dear Friends,

We are living in one of the darkest of times. Pandemic still afflicts, civil strife and racism still persists, inflation and the supply chain not yet fixed. (The replacement for my broken-down dishwasher is a month and a half away from delivery.) Recently, I read an article in anticipation of winter. Barrow, Alaska just began its 64-day hiatus without sunshine, slightly accented with an occasional twilight on the horizon. When things are dark it is hard to imagine light will return.

Chanukah is of course a holiday of light set in the less light filled days. Often our celebrations are associated with the time when the nights are longest. With rare exception, sometime around the fifth candle day, the days incrementally begin to lengthen, a harbinger of brighter times to come.

This pandemic has frayed our sensibilities and irritated our nerves. While it was novel to stare into a camera, that novelty has worn thin.

I am glad to stream our services to those who are still reasonably cautious and for those who for whatever reasons find it more convenient to constitute our minyan from afar. I am grateful to those who have ventured out and come to our services on Friday night, particular to two steadfast women Nancy Rosenberg and Lynn Strait ever vigilant to come and set up our oneg and read the prayers. They are not the only ones – the Blumenfeld family gets high marks for their steadfast participation along with our Vice-President and Ritual Committee chair, Mark Packer.

Our Temple community is a busy one. Most who have not been in a while may not know the activities that continue; Brown Bag Lunch, movie nights, Zoom Torah study, visitations to the homebound, skyping lessons in Hebrew, caring committee hospital visits, Sunday school, and more than occupy most of my time and the attention of many members. I wish to acknowledge those who have supported our other community concerns; the food pantry and most notably the Interfaith Community Thanksgiving Service that raised many thousands of dollars for Brothers Restoring Urban Hope. In the midst of our dark times I urge you to consider keeping our temple alive not merely through the finances but through the most important of all considerations, religious, ed- ucational participation. Woody Allen once quipped that 90 percent of life is just showing up.

One of the other most important aspects of any community cohesion is communication, not indirect in which someone else is appointed your Western Union messenger, but personal and direct. Foremost of the agenda of our sages was to thwart gossip which, though well intentioned is always fraught with dangerous miscommunication. It does not provide light, but only heat to our relationships. Our holiday season provides an ample opportunity to gossip about family and friends. Let us all not take advantage of that opportunity.

So, Chanukah is imminent. I wish one and all a season of light and joy!

Rabbi Yossi Liebowitz D.D.

From the Heart with Rabbi Liebowitz

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Dear Friends,

Some time ago I came across this cartoon. What attracted it to me was the “Jewish sense” of multiple interpretations. The Midrash comments that “Like a hammer striking a rock will yield many splinters, so looking at a verse of tradition will provide many meanings.” Why did the chicken crossed the road?

One favored paradigm, not unlike the literary response in the cartoon, bids to look at any verse, story, or tradition as multilayered: The literal view, the view that hints at something greater, the interpretive view (Midrash) and the Sod, or secret mystical understanding. In the case of the chicken crossing the road:

The four interpretations are:

1. Literal – to get to the other side
2. Hint – she must have a motivation
3. Midrash – Her mate is on the other side, OR to get away from a predator OR to get sustenance, OR to go back to its nest
4. Mystical or Sod – this is not about a chicken but a metaphor for our souls that are always making a journey – to heaven eventually?  To a transformative state, improving ourselves Or (well you enter into the conversation and come up with another splinter, i.e. interpretation that fits you.)

As it is Sukkot time we are mindful of one symbolic sense of the Lulav and Etrog:
The Sages of the Midrash insisted that there are four types of Jews:

· “Etrog Jew” is both learned and filled with good deeds
· The “Lulav Jew” has learning but no good deeds;
· The “Myrtle Jew” has good deeds but no learning
· The “Willow-branch Jew” has nei- ther learning nor good deeds.

What kind of Jewish person do you wish to be? We are commanded to bind these four together, in order to remind us that a Jewish community consists of many types of Jews all of whom must be accepted and lovingly included within our Jewish community.

Congregational life is certainly most reflective of the variety of Jewish types cited above. Surely there are many more: cultural, Yiddishist, political, Zionist, Hebraists, Meditative, etc. It is diz- zying to keep track of them all, let alone bind them together in a union that strengthens our community. I hope that the coming year (post pandemic we pray) will be for our temple com- munity a place to explore all of those possibilities. In these pages are events that hopefully speak to each of you, if not all then at least some. (Film – Interfaith Services, dinners, movie time, Torah study etc.)

If it’s not too late: Shanah Tova, Chag Sameach My best wishes to one and all.

Rabbi Yossi Liebowitz, D.D.

From the Heart with Rabbi Liebowitz

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Turn it, and turn it, for everything is in it. Reflect on it and grow old and gray with it. Don’t turn from it, for nothing is better than it. (Pirkey Avot chapter 5) Ben Bag-Bag.

Dear Friends,

At this time of writing, we are well into reading from the book of Deuteronomy. It is largely a farewell speech by Moses as the People of Israel are about to enter the Promised Land. Its title differs from the Hebrew Devarim which simply means Matters and connotes Divine utterances. The Western title Deuteronomy does indeed capture the theme of the book as well for the book is filled with repetitions, most prominently another version of the Ten Commandments. Readers are often perplexed by this repetition. I think of the apparent redundancy as consistent with the modern Hebrew saying – “I have already seen this movie!” A deeper look, however, will allow the reader to take note of subtle differences which offer some exquisite meanings not found in the previous version.

As we begin our calendrical sojourn to the High Holy Days in the late summer as our tradition bids us to do, I anticipate the liturgy in our Prayer book, the Machzor. The late Rabbi Richard J. Israel author of “the Kosher Pig and other Curiosities of Modern Jewish Life” told the anecdote of the Jew who was seen ripping out a page from the High Holy Day prayer book. Facing rebuke by another member of the community, he said: “It is my custom that the week before the New Year I rip out a single page out of our Machzor. Though I plan to live as long as Moses did, (120 years) there would still be thousands of pages left to omit even if I were to live to the age of Methuselah. (1000 years)

Our A.D.D, culture surely encourages brevity. Just consider the fifteen-minute segments in our regular TV shows punctuated by commercials and previews. In my youth my Rabbi would offer his High Holy Day sermon which would go on for at least forty-five minutes. What was the fifteen minutes introduction is now the standard length of any rabbinical talk. Any longer than that would prompt some members of the flock to point comically to their watch as a not too subtle reminder it was time to wrap things up. Fair enough as most of us in our culture do not have what Germans called Sitzfleish. Or as a modern quip would have it – “The mind can absorb no more than the seat can endure!” Many a Jewish visitor to Protestant Churches are impressed by the brevity of the service. Not so much at a full Catholic Mass in which you can likewise grow fungus by the time it is over. Our 24 hours Yom Kippur marathon does contain numerous repetitious prayers causing not a few eye-rolls when hearing Avinu Malkeinu yet once more.

The above quote by the rabbinic sage and disciple of Hillel the Elder some two thousand years ago is wise as it is ironic. He offers the imperative that we engage in repetition as you never know what things you may have missed the first time. Why ironic? Aside from this single maxim encouraging a second or even third look he is not mentioned any where else in the Talmud. His teachings were quite brief. My seventh grade English teacher told me that one would do well to re-read Huck Finn every ten years as we all have new eyes as the years pass. It is also the same for viewing classic films such as The Graduate. In my youth I saw Mrs. Robinson as a villainous character. As the years have passed, I now see her as a pained, almost sympathetic figure compromised by the choices she made in her youth.

Looking forward to seeing you at the High Holy days again and again and again and again, if not sooner!

Rabbi Yossi Liebowitz, D.D.

A Message from our President

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I hope everyone has enjoyed a wonderful summer and is beginning to look ahead to the fall season.

I know many of us are preparing for our children or themselves to go back to school. My favorite part about this time of year has always been school supply shopping. I have enjoyed this ritual for decades. From my own education, teaching elementary school to sending three children to school, I could not wait for school supplies to be displayed at the local office and discount stores. I literally could look at school supply offerings for hours. Making selections could even take more than one trip to the store. For me, new notebooks have endless possibilities, with the shiny cover and the pristine lined pages. What will I document in them, how will they be filled? Will it be with facts? Will I write a well-intentioned journal that I invaria- bly stop after a few weeks, or will it be daily lists that seem to go on forever?

Also, I am accustomed to using a paper planner, no digital calendar for me. I use a planner that is based on the academic year and guess what, this is the time of the year to select a new planner! More fun for me! I pour over websites that sell planners. It is truly amazing these days, the planner selections.

One can select a planner from their favorite designer or you can actually “build” a planner from cover to cover with just about any calendar configura- tion imaginable. Once I select and receive my planner, again, endless possi- bilities. What will I do productive this year and keep track of in my new planner? Will it be board meetings, luncheons, maybe a party here and there? Basically, a new planner is a blank slate with so many prospects, hope and renewal.

The time of year to purchase new note- books and a planner dovetail for me with the Jewish High Holidays that also bring with them a blank slate. We celebrate the beginning of a new year and the ending of the past year with much observation, reflection and reverence. After Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur the sense of renewal and hope is palpable.

Our Rabbi and Ritual Committee are busy planning the High Holidays which we hope to observe in person and virtually. Please check the calendar in Temple Topics for all upcoming events. In August there is a Temple BBQ planned at which I hope to see many of you. During September we observe Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur, Sukkot and Simchat Torah along with going back to Sunday School. Already, the calendar is filling up with so many possibilities!

I wish your notebooks and calendars to be filled with all you enjoy, be that time with family and friends or other endeav- ors that make you joyful. Most of all I wish each of you a wonderful new season and year, Shanah Tova!

Tina Lyon
Board President, Congregation B’nai Israel

Update for Services

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Covid-19 Policy for the High Holy Days

The Ritual Committee in concert with the Temple Board met this week to outline a Covid-19 Policy for the upcoming High Holy Days services. Based on the most recent CDC guidelines, those who are fully inoculated are welcome to attend holiday services in person, and mask wearing is expected. Services will be streamed via Facebook Live for those unable to attend. We want everyone to be healthy and happy for the New Year.

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