The Temple Board, the Temple Ritual Committee and I are all very excited about the visit of our guest, Cantor Shira Ginsburg, during our upcoming High Holy Days.
Our very own Dr. Mark Packer has been instrumental in planning the upcoming High Holiday services with Cantor Shira Ginsburg. Please be sure to read the information headlined at the beginning of our Temple Topics this month. There you will find information about our guest Cantor and the schedule for the upcoming High Holy Day services.
Please be sure to RSVP for the Break- the-Fast as soon as possible.
I wish everyone a happy, healthy and sweet new year and I am looking forward to seeing each of you during the High Holy Days.
Please call the office or send an email as soon as possible regarding your memorials in the Yizkor Book. The deadline for this was August 31, but we will extend the deadline until Wednesday, September 6. We must have ample time to edit memorials and print the books.
Full page is $136, 1/2 is $54, 1/4 page is $36, and 1/6 page is $18.
A big thank you to everyone who came to help us make butterflies on June 4th. It was nice to have so many helping hands and to visit as we worked. We have over 500 butterflies in the freezer ready to package for our November 2nd sale.
Our next baking day will be on August 9th. Come help and learn how to make strudel.
This year, in addition to the usual things you help with, we will need lots of cookies and bars. We will be packaging them for our inside sale. It has been a long wait, but this year the sale will be open to the public in the socialhall.
Pre-orders are due by October 20th. On October 27th we will be packaging everything. We will also fill the pre-orders and get them separated in the freezers. We will need any baking you can help us with before the 27th of October.
The freezers in the Sisterhood closet and the silver one off the kitchen have lists taped to the doors and a pen for you to mark what you have put into the freezer. This list will help us keep track of the pre-sales to ensure we can fill all the orders and have enough for the day of the sale. Please label the items so we know what they are.
August 31st we will put together pot pies at my home. They were so popular last year that we will need to make at least 50 this year. Please let me know if you would like to come help.
Again, thank you for all your help making the Sisterhood Bake Sale a success.
What do we mean by Jewish humor? To begin, it is humor that is overtly Jewish in its concerns, characters, definitions, language, values or symbols. (A Jewish joke, goes one definition, is one that no goy can understand and every Jew says he has already heard.) But not all Jewish humor derives from Jewish sources, just as not all humor created by Jews is necessarily Jewish. In these matters it is best to examine not the singer but the song.
Jewish humor is too rich and too diverse to be adequately described by a single generalization. Jewish theologians used to say that it is easier to describe God in terms of what He is not; the same process may be useful in understanding Jewish humor. It is not, for example, escapist. It is not slapstick. It is not physical. It is generally not cruel and does not attack the weak or the infirm. At the same time, it is also not polite or gentle.
But individual humorists come to mind immediately to negate each of these tendencies: The Marx Brothers are slapstick performers; Jerry Lewis and Sid Caesar are physical; Don Rickles is cruel; Sam Levenson is polite and Danny Kaye is playful. So much for generalizations.
What Jewish humor is may be even more difficult to determine, and we offer the following broad statements in full awareness of the possible futility of the exercise:
1. Jewish humor is usually substantive.
It is about something. It is especially fond of certain specific topics, such as food (noshing is sacred), family, business, anti-Semitism, wealth and its absence, health, and survival. Jewish humor is also fascinated by the intricacies of the mind and by logic, and the short if elliptical path separating the rational from the absurd.
As social or religious commentary, Jewish humor can be sarcastic, complaining, resigned, or descriptive. Sometimes the “point” of the humor is more powerful than the laugh it delivers, and for some of the jokes, the appropriate response is not laughter, but rather a bitter nod or a commiserating sigh of recognition. This didactic quality precludes laughing “for free,” as in slapstick humor, which derives its laughter from other people’s misfortunes.
2. Jewish humor tends to be anti-authoritarian.
It ridicules grandiosity and self-indulgence, exposes hypocrisy, and kicks pomposity in the pants. It is strongly democratic, stressing the dignity and worth of common folk.
3. Jewish humor frequently has a critical edge.
This edge creates discomfort in making its point. Often its thrust is political–aimed at leaders and other authorities who cannot be criticized more directly. This applies to prominent figures in the general society, as well as to those in the Jewish world, such as rabbis, cantors, sages, intellectuals, teachers, doctors, businessmen, philanthropists, and community functionaries. A special feature of Jewish humor is the interaction of prominent figures with simple folk and the disadvantaged, with the latter often emerging triumphant. In general, Jewish humor characteristically deals with the conflict between the people and the power structure, whether that be the individual Jew within his community, the Jew facing the Gentile world, or the Jewish community in relation to the rest of humanity.
4. Jewish humor mocks everyone — including God.
It frequently satirizes religious personalities and institutions, as well as rituals and dogma. At the same time, it affirms religious traditions and practices, seeking a new understanding of the differences between the holy and the mundane.