Shabbat-O-Gram
Shabbat Shalom
Friday night at 7 PM
we will at long last be hearing from Marcia Lane,
as part of our "This American Jewish Life" series. Read her
fascinating bio. We
also welcome backKatie
Kaplan and David Bravo.
A reminder of the
unforgettable evening of music and memories that awaits us at this Sunday
night's Cantor's
Concert. As if that isn't enough, toward the end, we'll also
have an important announcement to make.
Also, you won't want
to miss next week, Friday the 19th, our Pride
Shabbat. We'll
have some special guests, superb musicians Alicia Svigals and Uri Sharlin.
Alicia is the world's leading klezmer fiddler and a founder of the Grammy-winning
Klezmatics (her bio is beyond belief).
She is also very active within the LGBT community. Uri enthralled us just a
couple of weeks ago playing keyboard and accordion.
And the following week, June 26th, we
celebrate our High School graduates while also hearing from noted expert on
Israel advocacy on campus, Linda
Scherzer, former CNN reporter and founding director of the Write on for Israel"
program. All high school and college students and their
parents are encouraged to come to this very important program. Since
Shabbat starts late, we are also planning to take some reunion photos of our
students (it's always fun to compare our 12th grade graduates now to what they
looked like then...)
And please note that
as of July 3, our Friday
services will be returning to the 7:30
start time.
Speaking of
graduations, up top is a photo
of our recent 7th grade
graduates, courtesy of photographer Fred Canpolat. See all the
graduation photos and their complete Lifecycle Album here.
A Tale of Two Bar
Mitzvahs
It was the best of
Shabbats and the worst of Shabbats.
Here at Beth El last
Shabbat, Jewels Harrison, challenged by autism and unable to speak a word until
he was three, was able to fulfill a dream in becoming bar mitzvah. He
read Torah and led prayers, inspiring hundreds who attended and many, many others
who have since heard about it. The service was attended by a member of the US
Congress and a number of community leaders.
Meanwhile, we found
out after Shabbat that a bar mitzvah for autistic students in Israel was
cancelled and the kids' hopes dashed, by none other than the President of
Israel, who followed in the footsteps of the Rehovot's mayor in scuttling the
plans, for the simple
reason that the service would have involved a Masorti (Conservative) rabbi.
This betrayal, on top of the Rehovot betrayal, has infuriated many people.
This week, the
leadership of the Conservative Movement reacted in an unprecedentedly
unrestrained manner after the most recent humiliation.
And below is a letter
being circulated among Conservative congregations:
Dear Friends,
Yesterday, you
received an email about the regrettable
actions of Israeli President Rivlin, which demonstrated disdain and disrespect
for the more than two million Conservative Jews around the world, many of whom
work tirelessly for Israel, lead some of the most important Jewish
organizations in the country and are loyal and steadfast supporters of the
Jewish State.
Today, we are asking
you to add your voice to the chorus of outrage by sending the following email
to one or all of these addresses:
|
As we are commanded by our
tradition to speak out in the face of injustice, we believe that the volume
of voices raised in protest may help President Rivlin reverse his
wrongheadedness. In this spirit, please become an activist for the cause
of religious pluralism in Israel. Write to President Rivlin - there's an email
template below for your convenience. Post this on your Facebook page.
Ask your friends to do the same. Ask your rabbi to speak about it from
the bimah. Write something for your synagogue bulletin and e-newsletter.
Alert your Federations.
Take action now,
send an email to President Rivlin.
The Masorti
Foundation
|
I only hope that the
Israeli government does not underestimate the anger that this callous action
has caused on this side of the pond. It's one thing to constantly humiliate
non-Orthodox clergy, who have come to expect such treatment - perhaps to a
fault. It's one thing to humiliate prospective converts or those who pine for
civil marriage. They've gotten used to shipping off to Cyprus or some such.
It's one thing to keep us from praying in our authentic, egalitarian manner at
the Kotel, and to arrest our women and pummel those
men who dare to help them. But it's another to callously
dash the hopes of the disabled.
The President's
office is feeling the heat. I texted with a member of his staff on
Wednesday and he was very concerned that after Rivlin gave a major address (and
ahvery important and good
one, on changing Israeli demographics) at
this week's Herzliya conference, the press asked only about this
incident. The staffer said that if I bring a million Conservative Jews to
Israel on aliyah, then life will become very different for the non-Orthodox
streams. That's not an appropriate response, even if it is the
unfortunate political reality. Israel is the state of all the Jewish
people, not just those who live there - at least that's what the Prime Minister
keeps on saying. Rivlin has done a very good job at uniting Israelis. He
does care about the disabled. He also cares about Israel's image.
So do I. He is a good and decent man, who does listen.
Please take action.
We need for him to listen now.
----------------------------------------------------
In light of the
Rehovot mess, the contrast with what happened here last Shabbat cannot be
greater.
Mary Harrison,
Jewels' mom, gave a stirring speech last week. She cited current
statistics, which show that 1 in 68 children born today is diagnosed with
autism. In 1975, it was roughly one in 5,000. We do not know why
the surge has been that dramatic, but, according to Stephanie Seneff, research
scientist for MIT, by 2025 one in two children will be autistic. To date, there is no cure. The cause
is unknown.
Then Mary added:
"Autism does not
discriminate, autism doesn't care what a person's religion or race is; it
doesn't care where you live, or economic circumstances, autism has no regard
for heritage. It affects any and all demographics.
Those on the autism
spectrum might very well be the most misunderstood and misrepresented group in
our society today. We live in a time where we are most
comfortable slapping a label and writing a prescription. Where
devices have replaced direct communication."
Mary then spoke of a
recent conversation, where the topic came up about whether children with autism
can actually understand God.
"I believe God
made us and has placed in each person a desire for truth and justice, for love
and compassion. It's like we are all born with a missing part that
only God can fill. Jewels from an early age seem to naturally connect to God."
And indeed, from
infancy, Jewels was exceedingly comfortable here and people always were
welcoming of him. I can't recall a single "shush," as he would run
around and sing Hebrew melodies. He enjoyed being at services, and especially
delighted in the music.
His exuberance
reminded me of a time when my son Daniel (who, in case you didn't hear it yet
from the eternally kvelling dad, recently graduated from college) was just
three. One morning, I brought him to minyan. Midway through the Kedusha he
abruptly left our row and began running circles in the aisle, singing out
letters of the alef-bet.
Embarrassed, I coaxed
him back to his seat.
Later he told Mara,
"Daddy didn't want me to dance at temple today."
It made me think of
how we drain all our kids of the passion, the pulp of prayer, the pure joy, and
how only the lucky few survive to reclaim it when they are older.
Jewels helped the
rest of us to see what the pure oxygen of prayer can be. Few of us can ever get
to his degree of spiritual joy. But in order for our communities to get there,
we need him as much as he needs us - if not more.
The kind of support
Jewels Harrison received has been callously snatched from the students in
Rehovot. For pettiest of purposes, the President of Israel has kept some
treasured children from dancing and singing before God.
He may have intended
to slap down a few Conservative Jews, but his real victim has been joy itself.
Shabbat Shalom!
Rabbi Joshua Hammerman
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