In This Moment: Kristallnacht and Veterans Day

In This Moment Mazal tov to all the winners of this week's elections, especially TBE's own Senator Richard Blumenthal! Veterans Day and Kristallnacht Shabbat Shalom Last night, marking the 84th anniversary of Kristallnacht, the "Night of Broken Glass," recalling the destruction of hundreds of synagogues and thousands of Jewish-owned businesses across German-controlled areas of central Europe, I went out and took this photo of our sanctuary. It was part of a UJF community wide commemoration. Lights shone brightly throughout Jewish Stamford last night (though with the Climate Change Conference going on in Egypt right now, I turned the lights off right after taking the photo). In contrast to the blazing infernos of that horrific November evening in Germany, how peaceful our sanctuary looked as it illuminated the New England night. Second Gentleman Douglas Emhoff visited a Jewish owned business in Iowa this week, a reminder of how our current situation contains echoes of the past, but if we take the red flags seriously, we can ward off evil. Despite the fear and hatred awakened by dark forces in our country, we can still leave the lights on and let them shine out into the world through our unbroken glass, as we proclaim unabashedly who we are, albeit through a glass darkly (to quote the New Testament) in our shattered world. We can also take some comfort that some of those who have expressed great contempt for Jews and Judaism took a shellacking on Election Night, perhaps first and foremost PA governor candidate Doug Mastriano, defeated soundly by Josh Shapiro (who keeps kosher, observes Shabbat. proposed to his wife in Jerusalem, and featured hallahs she baked in his campaign launch video) after introducing antisemitic tropes into the campaign, including a strange "Fiddler on the Roof" parody done by a Messianic Jew. Yes, the big winners this week just might have been civility, truth and moderation, which can only bode well for our democracy. Because Kristallnacht is commemorated on the secular anniversary of Nov. 9-10, it always leads directly into Veterans Day. The two holy days are linked by the quote you see below, which I found in the National Museum of American Jewish Military History, a small gem of a museum that I stumbled upon a few years ago while wandering on the side streets near Dupont Circle. You can find there and elsewhere the stories of a number of Jews, like Frank Cohn, who escaped Germany around the time of Kristallnacht only to return among American soldiers of liberation a few years later. Join us on Friday night, in person or on livestream, as we pay tribute to our vets. Join us on Zoom at 6 tonight for the final session of our interfaith dialogue Bible study. Tonight we'll be discussing how Jews and Christians look at the Biblical concepts of "eye for an eye" and "turning the other cheek," along with adultery, murder and divorce (not necessarily in that order); based on the Sermon on the Mount. Click here to read the chapter. Join Zoom Meeting https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87411102614?pwd=T0RNNDEvbUlsNE53QjBJY05YS1phQT09 Meeting ID: 874 1110 2614. Passcode: 723118 Recommended Reading See Ben Davidson's d'var Torah, screen shots and Zoom video from his Bar Mitzvah last Shabbat. More Proof that this is the End of History (Francis Fukuyama) - Liberal democracy, precisely because it distributes power and relies on consent of the governed, is in much better shape globally than many people think. Despite recent gains by populist parties in Sweden and Italy, most countries in Europe still enjoy a strong degree of social consensus. Is it time to hit the panic button in our synagogues? (Forward) “After FBI warns of ‘credible threat,’ 60% of preschoolers at my synagogue didn’t show up this morning. Am I more scared than I was yesterday? Yes. Am I scared to go into the synagogue? No, I am not,” Israel’s endless campaigning is over. Now, the real political fight begins. (WaPo) Daniel Gordis: The Israel We Knew is Not Gone Thomas Friedman: The Israel We Knew is Gone (NYT) For this week's portion of Vayera, some of my favorite Parsha Packets. (Click on cover thumbnail to see pdf) Share This Email   Share This Email   Share This Email Temple Beth El 350 Roxbury Road Stamford, Connecticut 06902 203-322-6901 | www.tbe.org    A Conservative, Inclusive, Spiritual Community

In this Moment for November 6: After the Election, Rabin's Legacy; Lessons of the Akeda; Kristallnacht

 

In This Moment

 Shabbat-O-Gram, November 6, 2020

Mazal tov to Maya Shapiro, who becomes Bar Mitzvah this Shabbat morning. The Shabbat-O-Gram is sponsored by Danielle and Lael Shapiro in honor of Maya.

Our professional and lay leadership convened with leaders from UJF this week, to affirm our common goals and values.  Please respond to the call at UJF's Super Sunday this week. See more photos in our fall album. 

Click here for Zoom recording, screen shots and the dvar Torah 

from last week's service celebrating Richard Baer becoming Bar Mitzvah

If you missed last week's commentary on the film "Borat," (or have since seen the film and are now immune to the spoilers), see it here as a Times of Israel featured op-ed.

For this week's portion of Vayera: The Akedah Project

The Akedah Project explores the story of the Binding of Isaac ("akedah" means "binding" in Hebrew), which is one of the most confounding narratives in the Bible. Scholars, rabbis, artists, teachers, poets, and readers have tried to make sense of this story for millennia, which has given us a range of lenses through which we can read it, even as we bring the new questions, ideas, and perspectives that come with every new generation of readers. Click here to find more than 30 videos, each offering coming to the Akedah from a different angle.

And see my take below as to 23 lessons we can learn from the Akeda:

Rabin's Hope

Stamford Jewish Community Responds to Rabin Assassination, Nov. 1995

As I write this, the election has not been called, so it would be premature to opine on it or congratulate the winners.  I invite you to join us at our Kabbalat Shabbat services this evening at 6 as we enter a most welcome - and most needed - Shabbat and start the process of regaining strength for the important work head - the work of healing and recovery, especially needed as the Covid cases continue to rise, nationally and in our area.  

Yesterday and today mark the 25th anniversary of the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin.  That event changed the course of history dramatically and it continues to traumatize us to this day.  Rabin's legacy can be helpful to us this week.

What made him such a visionary leader is that he was able to let go of the past without losing his historical perspective. There are lessons to be learned from any experience, and he learned plenty over the course of his epic career. But he never let old resentments cloud the fact that every new day presented a gleaming blank slate of possibilities. 

Though not a religious man, he embodied the spirit of the prayer Jews recite each morning, praising God "who renews in goodness each day the work of Creation." Every day God presses the "reset" button. Rabin was able to do this as well, like Mandela and Gandhi, Lincoln, Sadat, Martin Luther King Jr. and other visionary leaders (many of whom also met violent ends) - and unlike the vast majority of the Israeli and Palestinian leaders who have followed him.

When he received his Nobel Prize, Rabin said, "...of all the memories I have stored up in my 72 years, I now recall the hopes.  Our peoples have chosen us to give them life. Tonight, their eyes are upon us and their hearts are asking: how is the authority vested in these men and women being used? What will they decide? What kind of morning will we rise to tomorrow? A day of peace? Of war? Of laughter or of tears?"

Rabin could have fallen back on his litany of tragic memories, of countless comrades buried, of opportunities wasted, of incessant terror and reprisal, of hatred endlessly regurgitated. He chose instead to "recall hopes," a seeming oxymoron, to retrieve - from his past - a future-focused buoyancy that is at the very core of Zionism, a hope that is its anthem's very name, and to use it to forge a vision of astonishing promise and endless possibility. He chose to go back to the future.

And as we begin to navigate past a traumatic 2020 and painfully divisive period in American history, so must we. What lies before us can either be seen as a wasteland, a huge mess in a bitterly divided landscape, or a glittering opportunity for a fresh start.  

Like Rabin before us, let's lean toward the latter.  Let's posture ourselves in the direction of hope. 

Also on Rabin, See:

25 Years After Rabin - Can Israel be both Jewish and democratic? (webinar from BINA)

The Forward's Special Collection of Essays Marking the 25th Anniversary of the Rabin Assassination

Kristallnacht

This coming week we mark the 72nd anniversary of Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass, when many say the Holocaust really began. Read about those fateful events here.

Shabbat Shalom

Rabbi Joshua Hammerman

TBE Bar/Bat Mitzvah Commentary: Jonah Rosenberg on Vayera

Shabbat Shalom. At the very beginning of my portion, God appears to Abraham, and the first thing that the commentators ask was, why does God choose to visit him right at that time?

If you look at the end of the prior portion, you’ll find out why.  He had just had his circumcision and God was trying to comfort him and help him through his recovery.  Hey, if you were 99 and had just circumcised yourself, you would need comforting too!

It’s important to note that Bikur Holim, visiting the sick, is a major mitzvah, and the first time it is mentioned in the entire Torah is right here.  In fact, God is modeling it.

According to Midrash Leviticus Rabbah, a single visit removes 1/60 of the patient’s suffering.  So just showing up really makes a difference.

I’ve gotten to see how important this mitzvah is first-hand.

            As some of you may know 😊, my dad is a doctor.  From time to time, I go with him to visit patients and I draw pictures for some of them to cheer them up. One patient is a big Knicks and Giants fan, so I drew him a portrait of one of the players.  Judging from the smiles on the faces of the people I’ve given pictures to, it seems like far more than 1/60^th of their pain was removed.

It so happens that one of my favorite books, “Because of Mr. Terupt,” is all about visiting the sick. In the book, a student accidentally hits his teacher with an ice ball, putting him into a coma.  After that, all of the students visit the teacher frequently, for weeks and weeks and those visits help each of them to recover from the shock and changes their lives, and eventually, he wakes up from his coma.  So here again, how we deal with a tragedy involving illness helps to foster real healing for all concerned.

My mitzvah project relates to this same theme.  A while back, my friend Emmet became ill and was hospitalized for many months.  During this time he showed an amazing display of courage and strength.  We Face timed a couple of times, and even though he had been going through tough times, he always asked how we were doing. This shows what an amazing person he was.  I don’t know if my virtual visits removed 1/60^th of the illness but I hope I made his day a little brighter.

Sadly, he passed away in late September.  Since my bar mitzvah is one of the first ones to take place since then, I want to dedicate my mitzvah project to him. In some ways, I feel like I am standing here, representing him. So, for my Mitzvah project, I’ve chosen two charities that were important to him and his family throughout his illness: Be the Match, which runs the national Bone Marrow Registry, and Ronald McDonald House, an organization that provides free housing to families and patients who are receiving care at nearby hospitals. With the help of the amazing community, we have raised over 2,700 dollars for Be the Match and collected around 2,000 pop tabs for the Ronald McDonald house. You can see the collection out in the lobby. I am amazed at how many people donated, from my summer camp division head in Maryland to my parents’ colleagues and friends. Each tab you donated showed your care and compassion towards me and my cause. You also donated items on Ronald McDonald House’s wish-list which will help families set up their temporary apartments.  You can see just some of the many donated items in my bimah baskets. I look forward to delivering the items and tabs to the Ronald McDonald House in New Have next weekend. Your support was immensely important to me, and I am so grateful for your help.

TBE Bar/Bat Mitzvah Commentary: Kyle Nadel on Vayera

Shabbat Shalom,

An important theme of today’s Torah portion, Vayera, is about being tested in life. In this portion, most of these tests center on Abraham to see how loyal he was to God and Judaism.  According to the ancient rabbis, Abraham had to pass ten tests during his lifetime.

Perhaps his greatest test was the last one, where God tested Abraham by instructing him to sacrifice his own young son, Isaac. In the story, Abraham took his son to Mt Moriah to sacrifice him. Just as Abraham was about to kill Isaac, an angel told him, “‘Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.” And so, Isaac was spared.  Abraham was being tested by God to see if he would obey him.

I’ve had to deal with several tests too in my life, some more difficult than others.

When I was about five or six, my mother got sick.  Eventually she had to be hospitalized for long periods of time.  My siblings and I visited her at least twice a week while she was hospitalized. To keep her spirit up, we brought my mother “Get well soon” balloons, flowers, and cake. Our visits probably helped her live longer.

It’s interesting to note that the mitzvah of visiting the sick comes from this portion. On the third day after Abraham’s circumcision he was still suffering and in a lot of pain. God offers kindness by visiting Abraham, and sets an example for the rest of us.

While we did everything we could to keep our mother alive, and although it was not ultimately enough, she is here today in spirit. So we were successful in completing the mitzvah which, according to the Torah portion, was satisfied when we at least assisted in aiding her throughout her illness, and we know that we often put a smile on her face.

When my mother passed away, I was tested again by having to continue life when things were so difficult.

Of course, I was helped by my father, assisted by other adults, such as babysitters and my grandparents, but it was a very difficult time to go through, especially as the oldest child, and I had to stay strong. This sad, challenging experience taught me not to take my life for granted, and so I try to make every day count.

There have been other tests in my life experience as well.  Moving to the US was a big test.  When my mom became ill, we needed to be pulled out of school in Japan, and we moved to this area to get her the best medical care.

When we moved back to the New York area, my parents didn’t want me to forget my Japanese, so they sent me to a Japanese school in Greenwich, Ct.  There, I was the only completely American student, excluding my siblings. I looked and felt very different from my peers. I was challenged when I had trouble making many friends because I was the “new kid”.  

Also, being the only American student, I spoke and understood less of the Japanese language than the other children, and, at the very beginning, I did not do too well in Kanji tests, which are the Japanese characters.  Eventually though, I passed more of these “tests,” as I started to study more.  Slowly, I overcame the test of socialization by becoming friendly with a few peers in the classes.

I have been physically tested as well. Some of you may already know that I have broken, at separate times, my arm and my leg from one sport: skiing.  My parents decided I was just “unlucky” both times, so I was forced, against my will, to keep trying. Again, here, I was tested to persevere at something at which I had already failed twice in my mind.  Although I am physically healed by now, I am still a bit scared to go on trails with many trees.   Sometimes, I am forced to face this challenge, and my fears are subsiding.   Just for the record – I still enjoy skiing a lot. 

A separate test for me family-wise was getting to know my new mother, Jill, who has adopted all of us.  I became used to not having more than one parent for period of time, and so when my father said that he was getting remarried, I had to, yet again, get used to a new, significant change in my life with someone I didn’t know as well.  With any relationship, it takes some time to get to know the other person. Jill’s love, warmth, kindness, and support, not to mention her efforts in helping me in school and for this bar-mitzvah, make me feel that I truly have a mother again.   I am very blessed.

For the past year, my patience has also been tested in preparation for this very day. I have probably spent more than 150 hours to arrive here– so that’s 30 minutes a day for about nine months, times four weeks per month, which equals 126 hours, but there are more than 28 days per month, except for February, plus extra time over the past month, and then there’s the 7 extra minutes to do these calculations.

I have thought many times, “Ugh, this is too much work.” Or, “I want to give up,” but I knew those were not practical answers, so I kept on going, despite how demanding it was and how much effort it took.  By the time I hit October, I felt well-prepared.

As challenging as my tests have been, other kids face far greater challenges.  For my Mitzvah project, I want to help less fortunate kids have access to technology.  You can read about my project, “One Laptop per Child,” in my Bar Mitzvah booklet.