July Yarhzeits

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7/1 Lucy Britanisky

7/1 Abraham Gelburd

7/1  Milton Vogelstein

7/2  Betty Freed

7/3  Marvin Singer

7/4  Edith Silverman

7/8 Dorothy Cohen

7/8  Ida Litoff

7/9  Sandor Teszler

7/10  Maurice Abelsky

7/10 Barry August

7/10 Benjamin Levin

7/12 Maurice Bromley

7/14  Lillian Lustgarten

7/15  Miriam M. Price

7/17 Frances Briller

7/18 Kathy Steinberg

7/19 Evelyn Fleishman

7/20 Richard August

7/20 Reba B. Morewitz

7/20 Jack Steinberg

7/21 Miriam Shapiro

7/22 Sherron Weinberger

7/23 Louis Anderson

7/26 Abraham Freedman

7/26 Edward Reichel

7/28 Jack Garrell

7/29 Toba Mary Segal

7/29 Linda Steinberg

7/30 Herb Moglin

7/30 Fannie E. Poliakoff

From the Heart with Rabbi Liebowitz

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Small people talk about other people— Average People talk about things—Great people talk about ideas—
(A sign on hanging on a wall at a Jerusalem Kiosk)

Dear friends,

By my reckoning this will be not only my last note to the Congregation’s Temple topics, but my 200th offering. I thank so many for the journey that we have taken these past twenty years. It was a journey filled with study, prayer, and charity. (Scholars in residence, Thanksgiving interfaith services (3) that helped to raise funds for various charities, caring committee visits, life cycle events, musical events, and some estimated 1200 and more Sabbath and holiday services etc.) In past notes I have offered accolades to a few members, often at the risk of not noting many others as deserving. Some of those sadly are no long with us in body, but still remain so in spirit. They include those steadfast attendees of our services who have made up a minyan and those who gave of their resources to sustain your temple. Others, still alive have moved away from Spartanburg, including some of the children, now grown whom I had the great joy of officiating at their Bar or Bat Mitzvah and subsequent weddings.

Many who are members presently may have only heard of these men and women from the past. That sometimes saddens me as some have lost sight of them. It is fair to say that the Temple has been like a turnstile with some new members en- tering and others exiting. It is now my time to exit. I do so with a sense of gratitude to many and a bit of self-imposed amnesia to the very few who were in conflict with me.

Recently I was given a nationally recognized award by Wofford – The Algernon Sydney Sullivan award for humanity. At first, to quote Groucho “I would never join a club that would have me as its member!” Such is my self-deprecating humor, which one dear colleague noted to me and to which I then said, “Yes, but I don’t do that all very well!” He then added“Worry not! Others will surely deprecate you instead!” Such is a reality that every rabbi without exception knows to be true. As one touching Israeli song would have it “accept the bitter with the sweet!” I want you to know that with all sincere modesty that the award is a tribute to this Jewish community. There are hundreds of Churches and other religious institutions with their religious leaders who have not been so honored. It is clear to me that through your communal support, the award was yours.

The quote shared above is an aspirational one for me and should be for all an incentive to become better Jews and better human beings. How well we spend our three score or more years on this plane of existence may be assessed by how we have pursued greatness in those ideas and deeds that have been placed before us. In our Midrashic tradition we as a people were bid to become “a nation of scholars and saints!” Easier said than done!

I wish one and all continued fulfillment as B’nai Israel – Children of Israel

Rabbi Yossi J. Liebowitz D.D.

P.S. Thank you, Jan for being my right arm, my wife Carrie and my children for their forbearance and love.

A Message From Our President

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Dear Congregants,

Congratulations to our Rabbi on his recent award, The Algernon Sydney Sullivan Award, a prestigious award given by Wofford College each year during commencement! Also, a tremendous congratulations to our recent high school and college graduates. Good luck to you as you begin your next chapter!

It is no secret in my family that I LOVE summer, especially a South Carolina summer. I can find something I love about every season, but summer has my heart.

It could be I grew up on a South Carolina peach farm and summer was the season in which my family was the busiest and there was never a dull moment. It could be that school was out and I felt I had infinite amounts of free time, when I was a student and later on in life, when I was a public school teacher. It could be the South Carolina beaches that beckon me from the mountains each summer. Or it could be the mountains that become green and lush which offer somewhat of a reprieve from the summer heat.

Whatever it is, I just LOVE summer.

This summer I am looking forward to enjoying time with my family and incorporating several hobbies such as reading several books (pre-selected and lined up on a shelf), needle- pointing (a hobby I literally cannot wait to do in the evenings), sketching and perfecting my not so perfect calligraphy skills. This year, I am adding playing Pickle Ball and learning to knit to this list. Maybe just maybe there will be time to do all these things along with my daily responsibilities because summer is simply, summer. The season where days are long, and time seems to move slower.

Even though it is summertime, our Temple is still open and offering several things to be involved in during the month of June. Please check our calendar and if anything interests you, please join our Rabbi and others who make our fellowship and activities possible.

I wish you all a happy, safe and relaxing summer!

Warmly,

Tina Lyon

Rabbinic Search Update

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As you may know, during the past few months we’ve considered four applications for the position of Sole Spiritual Leader of our congregation. One candidate received an offer from another synagogue, one withdrew his candi- dacy shortly after the interview, and neither of the other two seemed to fit our needs.

There are several reasons why the process has been so challenging. Chief among them is that we didn’t know we would need to look for a new rabbi until several months after the job announcements are typically posted. Our late scheduling certainly set us back, but we will be ready to go on time and in good order once the search process resumes in September.

In the meantime, the Placement Director at the Central Conference of American Rabbis has informed us that there is a sizeable applicant pool of prospective visiting rabbis who could perform such functions as conducting High Holiday and some Shabbat evening services. Such an arrangement will allow us to get our basic needs covered while we prepare our job announcements and conduct interviews in the months ahead.

While this process is unfolding, we wish to extend an invitation to all members of the congregation to help the temple by serving on committees, teaching Sunday school, helping to arrange and prepare social events, or contributing to the community in any other way you might wish. Please let me know at your earliest convenience if you think you may be interested in volunteering.

Thank you so much for your patience. I’ll certainly be keeping you informed about our progress during the summer and beyond.

Mark Packer
Vice President
Search Committee Chair

June Yahrzeits

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6/3  William G. Smith

6/4  Samuel Robinson

6/6 Marsha Poliakoff

6/6  Minnye Weinberger

6/7  Barney Gelburd

6/7  Rhoda Koshak

6/8  Marvin Frank

6/14 Herbert Shapiro

6/14 Beth Weinberger

6/16 Jacob Barash

6/16 Sidney Captain

6/19 Shalom Baruch

6/25 Myron Parsons

6/26 Harry Tanenbaum

6/27 Ernest Acanfora

6/27 Fay Friedberg

6/27 Bella Cohen Karsh

6/27 Richard Packer

6/28 Sidney Anderson

From the Heart with Rabbi Liebowitz

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“God made man because He loves stories.” Elie Weisel (The preface to The Gates of the Forest)

Dear friends,

Fans of the television show Boston Legal will recall William Shatner’s character Denny Crane. A colorful character whose egotism was gradually impeded by his loss of mental faculties and his incessant need to pursue women. In one scene he glibly comments that the reason for his interest in fostering new romances was “I want to tell my stories again to someone!” As the quote from
Elie Weisel so succinctly conveys, people love to share their favored narratives. The Jewish people have held fast to their narratives for millennia and this devotion has helped us in our survival and more than that our need to find life’s meaning.

Narratives and stories are powerful instruments that can persuade and foster change and at the same time sustain time honored values and traditions. Such is the favored exercise of companies, political parties, and religious institutions.

There is of course a downside to clinging to our narratives. How often our personal attachment to them can become stale and in fact deleterious to growth and change!

As a onetime prison chaplain, I encountered a most charming loan shark in the correctional facility. Once, with his guard down, he engaged in a personal revelry about his father who owned a candy store, what we now would call a convenience store. With his fists clenched and sharking, this inmate recalled how his father would generously let everyone and anyone buy products promising to pay for them eventually. Like Popeye the sailor’s Wimpy “I’ll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today!” This 75-year-old loan shark told me how he would complain to his father, “Dad, they take advantage of you. Don’t let them steal from you!” Respond- ing to this tale he had told over and over again, I finally said; “I guess you became a loan shark so people would not do to you what they did to your dad whom you loved!” Hearing this, he fell back in his chair for he had never put those two pieces of his life together.

Sometimes, we cling to our narratives, framing out what we think must be applied to our current situations, old ways of relating to the teachers we admired, the organizations that served us well and to the rabbis we knew. But to paste one’s antique narrative to a current situation is to get stuck in a maddening repetitive loop. That is to say, repeating the same behavior over and over again and expecting a new result. One teacher commented on how mice are smarter than people. When mice amble toward one part of the maze that does not lead to the cheese they turn around. But when people knock on a door repeatedly that won’t open, they continue to pound on it proving that was the way to go. All of us do that, you, me and everyone. It is difficult to let go of what you once knew.

While I love narratives and stories, I am suspicious of anyone who claims to have all the answers to problems based on what they think they had known before. Such persons are danger- ous. It fails to build teamsmanship and a sense of shared involvement.

Just saying!
Rabbi Yossi Liebowitz D.D.

Algernon Sydney Sullivan Award

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These annual awards for excellence of character and service to humanity are given each year to two students from the graduating class (undergraduate or graduate) and to one non-student member of the University community.

Rabbi Liebowitz will be awarded the Algernon Sydney Sullivan Award on May 21, 2023 at the Wofford College’s commencement at 9:30.

Algernon Sydney Sullivan was born
in Madison, Indiana on April 5, 1826, son of Jeremiah Sullivan (1794–1870) and Charlotte Rudesel (Cutler) Sullivan. He was named in honor of the

British politician, Algernon Sidney. His father was a lawyer, held the rank of Major in the War of 1812, and became a member of the Indiana legislature in 1821. Jeremiah Sullivan was also a judge of the criminal court of Jefferson County, Indiana, and of the Indiana Supreme Court (1837 – 1846). His grandfather, Thomas Littleton Sullivan, the son of an Irish barrister, emigrated from Charleville, County Cork, Ireland, in 1791, to Augusta County, Virginia. He also had a younger brother named Jeremiah C. Sullivan who, in addition to his legal career, also had a successful military career in both the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Army. Algernon Sullivan was educated

at Hanover College and Miami University, graduating in 1845. While a law student, about the age of twenty, he made a tour of Indiana, in advocacy of taxation for the maintenance of public schools. After studying law in his father’s office, he was admitted to the bar in 1848, and for eight years practiced in Cincinnati, Ohio.

For more information about Algernon Sydney Sullivan, Click Here

 

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