In This Moment: "We don't have to live this way" - Guns, "Fear itself" and the driven leaf; Gaza again

In This Moment  A dire warning from this week's Torah portion is becoming frightfully real in our violence-infested world. Shellshocked people running from even the most minute whoosh of a leaf floating in the breeze But we don't have to live like this. That's the message readers of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution saw in the wake of their recent mass murder. And now another has happened near Dallas. And another. And another. Leviticus reminds us with these warnings never to assume that we are somehow insulated from calamity. And therefore we should never become numb to the calamities of others. And we should never simply run and hide or succumb to the fear of what appears inevitable. It is not. See the warning below and Rashi's commentary and check out Leviticus 26. It's called the Tochecha - the "Great Scolding." The Tochecha seems to be implying that, with all the horrific things that can happen, the most dangerous fear is fear itself. We all fall victim to it from time to time - even Moses, arguably the most brazen figure in Jewish history, who killed the taskmaster and led the people through the Red Sea. But before he fought the imposing King Og of Bashan, God had to remind him, "Do not fear" (Numbers 21:34). We've now convinced ourselves that gun violence is unpreventable. That numbs us and becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. We're afraid even to bring up the subject each time there is an attack - there are so many. Leviticus is saying that doesn't have to be the case, and that the solution begins with the conquest of fear itself, which can bring about the end of our paralysis. One way to overcome fear the next time you find yourself running and hiding from whooshing leaves (an image that inspired the classic novel, "As a Driven Leaf" - though as described in Job 13:25 - by Rabbi Milton Steinberg), try the final verse of one of our most familiar prayers: Into God’s hands I entrust my spirit, when I sleep and when I wake; and with my spirit, my body also:  Adonai is with me, I will not fear. (Last stanza of Adon Olam , composed by Solomon ibn Gabirol) But we do live this way And children are dying Fulfilling those dire warnings of Leviticus.... How do we respond? See this article from the Forward, suggesting that to end gun violence, we should look to the economics that helped end racial segregation. See also this from the Religious Action Center. Israelis should not have to live this way... With hundreds of rockets fired indiscriminately into Israel this week (which also featured the first use of the new David's Sling defense system) and a synagogue attacked in Tunisia. Jews should not have to live this way... The shooting occurred at Africa's oldest synagogue. See also ‘Jewish life goes on’: Djerba Jews and their supporters show resilience after deadly attack (JTA); and see Tunisia’s Jewish pilgrimage and Tuesday’s shooting, explained (JTA) - The shooting at the synagogue in Djerba, an island in Tunisia, is the deadliest attack on the holy site in more than 20 years. It brought tragedy to a public celebration of Jewish life at Africa’s oldest Jewish house of worship. Here’s an introduction to the Jews of Tunisia, the annual pilgrimage to Djerba and how the community is reacting to Tuesday’s attack.  See a photo essay on that ancient community. This just in... Action Alert for Jewish Institutions from ADL Overview:  During the first week of May, multiple Jewish institutions across the country received threatening antisemitic messages via their online contact forms. These messages included references to Zyklon B tablets, the name of the poison used by Nazi Germany to murder more than one million people – most of them Jews – in the death camps during the Holocaust. These incidents mirrored incidents that occurred in January 2023 and the Fall of 2022. At this time, there is no known credible threat emanating from these messages, and the FBI is actively investigating.      Background: As noted in the 2022 Audit of Antisemitic Incidents, Jewish institutions across the country received twenty threatening messages through the contact form on their websites in what appeared to be a coordinated campaign. The threatening and harassing messages were all sent between September and November and featured similar language, including references to Zyklon B tablets. Another similarity is that in most of the cases, the sender(s) completed the contact forms using the names of various so-called First Amendment auditors — individuals who film themselves “testing” the constitutional knowledge of government employees. It is believed that these individuals’ names were used to misdirect attention away from the responsible parties. Although some First Amendment auditors have been known to harass synagogues, antisemitism is not a routine part of most auditors’ activity.       Recommendations for the Community:   If at any time you feel that you may be in danger, contact law enforcement immediately.  If you receive a threat through your institution’s online contact form, please notify ADL, via your regional office or through the online incident reporting portal at https://www.adl.org/report-incident.  Take screen captures in order to memorialize the information.    Contact your IT department or web provider in order to obtain IP address information on the sender of these messages. This will assist our law enforcement partners in their efforts to identify the sender.   ADL is here to support the community during these incidents and for any other matters relating. Recommended Reading For more on Gaza Israeli strikes in Gaza kill 15, including 3 senior commanders of the Islamic Jihad (NPR) And see this op-ed: Israel can nullify the threat of Palestinian Islamic Jihad (TOI). In analyzing Israel’s latest strikes, it is important to recall that the PIJ, recognized as a terrorist organization by the US, EU, UK, Australia, Canada, Japan and others, is one of Iran’s main proxies in the region, funded by Iran to the tune of millions of dollars a year. David’s Sling downs rocket headed for Tel Aviv in first real-world interception Gazan rockets bombard south, hampering ceasefire efforts (TOI) At the root of the latest Gaza-Israel flareup, implacable rejection of Israel For a secure, democratic Israel, the only way is separation from the Palestinians (TOI) - Former security chiefs warn military responses alone are not a longterm answer to looming threats  See also Israel bombs civilians in Gaza. But Israelis don’t want to know (Ha'aretz) - No Israeli official has claimed that those planning the air force mission didn't know that women and children would be killed. On the contrary, the most senior military official in Israel stated flatly that those briefed on the operation knew that family members and neighbors of the three Palestinian Islamic Jihad commanders targeted were in danger, considered the consequences of firing missiles at them, and decided to deem their deaths necessary collateral damage. Today's Israeli Front Pages Yediot Achronot Ha'aretz (English) Jerusalem Post Headline below states, "More than 450 Rockets in 7 Hours" And earlier this week... Yediot's front page from Sunday: Top headline says, "Finally, King!" Below the fold on the left, more harrowing news: "Every 32 hours a person is murdered in Israel." "Three last weekend alone." It's not just terrorism that they are talking about. See this article about an epidemic of gun violence there too, especially in Arab communities. And the right bottom headline notes the "18th week" of mass protests against the judicial coup. Parsha Packets for Behar - Bechukotai The Leviticus Project One must be exceedingly careful to not publicly embarrass their friend, whether a child or adult, nor to call them a name that they are ashamed of, or to say anything in front of them that they may be embarrassed by. - Maimonides Stealing Truth: Is it ever OK to deceive? - The Torah states (Leviticus 25:14): "If you sell something to your neighbor or buy something from your neighbor’s hand, you shall not wrong one another." The Talmud interprets this verse to refer to overcharges and undercharges. Tochecha: The Great Scolding - The “Tochacha” (Rebuke) is read twice a year: once during the forty-nine days of counting the Omer leading to Shavuot which commemorates the giving of the Torah, and again in the month of Elul before the High Holidays, calling us to repentance, to reconsider our paths. See also Tochecha The Art of Rebuke (Hartman curriculum) The case for some climate optimism (Semafor) - Young people, especially those in richer countries, can afford to be more optimistic about the future. There are lots of good-news stories about climate change which don’t get the attention they deserve. Things really have moved in the right direction. One of my very favorite examples is the graph showing the cost of solar panels. Back in 1975, each watt of additional solar capacity cost $100. By 2010, that was less than a dollar. Now it’s 27 cents. Current solar prices are way below what IPCC models predicted they would be in 2050. The price of lithium-ion batteries per kilowatt-hour, meanwhile, fell by 97% between 1991 and 2018. They’re also longer-lasting and higher capacity than they used to be. Join us for our Intro to Judaism class on Kashrut ond Jewish Food Values on Thursday night at 7, on Zoom. Here are the supplementary materials for this topic. "Feast on" these in advance. Jewish Values and Food, Part 1 Jewish Values and Food, Part 2 Click here or below to see Noa Tishby's full Tweet and video Amy Spitalnick Selected as JCPA's Next CEO - Community leaders across the Jewish, civil rights, interfaith, and democracy spaces commended the Jewish Council for Public Affairs (JCPA) for its selection of Amy Spitalnick as its next CEO. Spitalnick – a powerful national voice on issues of democracy, antisemitism, extremism, and hate – will take the helm of JCPA as it enters a new chapter with a sharpened focus on coalition-building to support a just, democratic, and pluralistic society and combat hate, discrimination, and extremism. Spitalnick (who has spoken at TBE) most recently served as the Executive Director of Integrity First for America, which won its historic lawsuit against the neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and hate groups behind the Unite the Right violence in Charlottesville. Israel at 75: A Fifty-Year Retrospective (David Golinkin: Schechter Institute) ; Three topics: the miraculous nature of the birth of the State of Israel in 1948; where we have succeeded; and where we have yet to succeed. The Chief Rabbi reflects on the coronation and his extraordinary Shabbat In Defense of Surrender in Liberal Jewish Life (Sources) - In light of our fear of submitting, how can we embrace surrender?  This question is even more pointed in this time of rising religious extremism, when the destructive and divisive effects of submission to authority are rampant, and amplified in each day’s newspaper. How do we liberal Jews shape a religious life that is engaged and disciplined, that is open to surrender, that allows us to experience a sense of wholeness and unity, and that takes us beyond ourselves?     A New York Jury Says Trump Is a Sexual Abuser. Now What? (Bari Weis asks a spectrum of experts to weigh in - Free Press)  The Wheels of Jewish Language in the New Netflix Show "Rough Diamonds" (Mosaic) - And so Rough Diamonds goes: from episode to episode, from Yiddish to Flemish to French to English, wheel within wheel, as it were, with Yiddish the inner wheel of the ḥasidic community of Antwerp, English the outermost wheel of the wide world, and Flemish and French in between. The Wolfsons spin with these wheels, turning and being turned by them. Rough Diamonds demonstrates how language serves equally as identity and as means of communication, and how it is sometimes one, sometimes the other, and sometimes both. Not, though, when it’s dubbed. Jerusalem Day is next Thursday.  Click here for a map of the battle of Jerusalem and see video below of the historic moment when the Israeli troops liberated the Western Wall. See also a packet of historical maps, poetry and information that I prepared.  For big newspaper fans like me, this site has newspaper front pages and major stories from those fateful days in June. In this L'Chayim interview marking the war's 40th anniversary, about seven minutes in, you can see my personal reflections on how 1967 changed my life. Stones (Shirley Kaufman, 1996) When you live in Jerusalem you begin to feel the weight of stones. You begin to know the word was made stone, not flesh. They dwell among us. They crawl up the hillsides and lie down on each other to build a wall. They don’t care about prayers, the small slips of paper we feed them between the cracks. They stamp at the earth until the air runs out and nothing can grow. They stare at the sun without blinking and when they’ve had enough, make holes in the sky so the rain will run down their faces. They sprawl all over the town with their pitted bodies. They want to be water, but nobody strikes them anymore. Sometimes at night I hear them licking the wind to drive it crazy. There’s a huge rock lying on my chest and I can’t get up.   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

Temple Beth El | 350 Roxbury Road, Stamford, CT 06902

Shabbat-O-Gram for February 16

Shabbat-O-Gram

Attention college students and recent grads:  TBE's Jan Gaines reports from Netanya that her granddaughter Michal Goldstein is leading a Birthright Israel trip this summer and her bus is only half full.  This is a bus especially for unaffiliateds - those not coming with Hillel or Young Judea groups.  Jan writes:  " 

Michal would be happy to welcome anyone to her group and all they have to do is contact Birthright to sign up and to request her name. She's fluent in Hebrew and is an Occupational Therapist which could match someone interested in medicine and science."

 

Shabbat Shalom

With the cantor away this weekend, Beth Styles will be joining me on Friday night. Let's bring in Shabbat together!  What else to do this weekend?  You can honor President's Day, as I do every year, by reading George Washington's historic letter to the Jews of Newport, Rhode Island.... where he speaks of  "a Government, which to bigotry gives no sanction, to persecution no assistance - but generously affording to all Liberty of conscience..."  

Then you can catch up on the complexities of Bibi-Gate with this comprehensive guide put together by Ha'aretz's Allison Kaplan Sommer.  I must admit - and I've been following these scandals closely in the Israeli media for a long time - the bombshell revelation of Yair Lapid's testifying against Netanyahu nearly tossed me off my couch.  While we in the US have to focus on our own increasingly complicated internal situation, and Israel needs to focus also on it's increasingly complex neighborhood, the Prime Minister's pending possible indictment is very important news for all of us.

PARKLAND

Thurs. and Fri. are Rosh Hodesh for the month of Adar, called by the Talmud the most joyous month of the Jewish year.  It is very hard to be joyous, given the horrible events unfolding in Florida.  

If you visit the Gun Violence Archive, you will see that the incident in Parkland was just one of approximately 25 incidents nationwide over the past 72 hours.  There have been 6,573 since Jan 1., resulting in 1,827 deaths and 3,142 injured, including 69 children killed or injured.  No less than 30 of these incidents would be classified as "mass shootings," with four or more shot and/or killed.

 

Jewish sources abound regarding this life-and-death issue.  We can start our conversation with these passages:

Whoever destroys a soul, it is considered as if he destroyed an entire world. And whoever saves a life, it is considered as if he saved an entire world. 

(Mishnah Sanhedrin 4:5; Yerushalmi Talmud 4:9, Babylonian Talmud Sanhedrin 37a) 

The opposite of good is not evil; it is indifference (Elie Wiesel) 

Some are guilty, but all are responsible. (Abraham Joshua Heschel) 

Do not stand idly by the blood of your neighbor (Lev 19:16)

See more resources from a group I've had some involvement with, Rabbis Against Gun Violence.  You can also look at this interesting and nuanced Talmudic passage along with this source sheet, which I'm hoping to use for a discussion on Shabbat morning.  I can't say for sure, though, since that's nearly 48 hours from now, and who knows how many more horrific events will happen between now and then.  Also see this community resource guide prepared by the Religious Action Center, and in particular Rabbi David Saperstein's explanation on why this is a religious issue, which includes this important passage:

Our legislators and the gun lobby want to blame everyone but themselves. The problem, they say, is mental illness. On the one hand, tautologically, mass murderers are emotionally disturbed. On the other, the compelling evidence testifies that the overwhelming percentage of those with mental illness are not violent and those who are violent are far more often a danger to themselves than to others. More compellingly, in Canada and Japan, there are people with the same mental illnesses as here in America but they don't pick up their mother's legally obtained Bushmaster and randomly shoot people.

And for those who wonder why bring up these matters while families in Florida are grieving, I reply with the words of the sage Hillel:

 

CHEVRA KADISHA DINNER @ TBE!

With so much happening, I don't want to "bury the lede" as they say in the news biz.  Next Thursday will be a very big day for us at TBE.  For the first time, we will be hosting the annual dinner of the local Jewish burial society.  

It is Adar 7, traditionally the yahrzeit of Moses (and also his birthday). Some say that the timing has to do with the fact that next week's portion, Tetzave, is the only one in the last four books of the Torah that does not include Moses' name.  

Moses' yahrzeit is also considered a time when communities call attention to the important work done by the local burial society, the Chevra Kadisha.  Why?  The most common explanation: When Moses led the Exodus from Egypt, he carefully brought Joseph's bones out with them. Then in return for that act of kindness (which Judaism considers to be among the greatest acts of kindness of all - a Chesed Shel Emet), tradition says that when Moses died at 120, God Him/Herself served as the Chevra Kadisha for him, preparing his body and burying Moses with love and care.

See more here about the ritual of "tahara," preparing a body for burial.

This Thursday evening, our local Chevra Kadisha will gather for its annual dinner, and for the first time it will be held here, at TBE.  I am proud of the ongoing support TBE lends to this community organization and of the several TBE members who are actively involved in this loving work.  Two of them are being honored this week:

Jim Benjamin and Wendy Miles.  At a time when cross-denominational cooperation is rare, it is wonderful to see our congregation listed right up there on the Stamford Chevra's website. "Love is as strong as death," says the Song of Songs, and for Jews, love extends not only beyond Valentine's Day, but also beyond the grave.

Click here to reserve for the dinner honoring Jim and Wendy, and to support our Chevra Kadisha.

Now for some Old Business from last weekend:

OLYMPICS 

 

I gave a Jewish Winter Olympics quiz last Shabbat morning (and BTW, speaking of Shabbat morning, check out Daniel Goldberg's Bar Mitzvah d'var Torah here).  Click for an enlarged version of the above chart that lists all prior Jewish Winter Olympics medalists.

INDIA SLIDE SHOW

 

 

For those who missed last week's slide presentation 

on my recent trip to Jerusalem, India and Nepal, fear not!  

Here is the link to the album, 

including additional photos and explanatory notes.

RABBI BARB MOSKOW, Z'L

In my tribute to Rabbi Barb Moskow z'l, I spoke of her "Letters to Bubbie and Zaydee."  People often refrain from asking questions because they don't want to sound Jewishly uninformed.  She solved that problem by posing questions to these prototypical Yiddishe grandparents that were in fact, dumber than anything anyone could possibly ask, sort of like Amelia Bedelia meets Yenta the Matchmaker.  Anyway, Mindy Rogoff in our office has compiled a number of the "Ask Bubbie and Zaydee" columns that Barb wrote when she worked here.   So here it is, the definitive edition of  "Bubbie and Zaydee's Guide for the Perplexed...Jewishly."  

Here's a one page example...

HOLY LETTERS, SACRED SCROLLS

Last Friday night I spoke about the symbolic significance of a Torah scroll and the mystical impact of its letters.  I asked whether any of us would be prepared to run into a burning building to save a Torah scroll, as a Druze (not Jewish) firefighter did recently in Israel.  Here is that news story, as well as other recent news items I mentioned,highlighting the Torah's role in contemporary life.   I made reference also to the fascination non Jewish guests always have with the Torah and I related it to the exoticfascination I had watching Buddhist monks at prayer on my recent trip and seeing the strange (yet somehow strangely familiar) Sanskrit of their prayer book.

    

Then I asked, what is most important about the Torah, the words within it, or the scroll itself?    I quoted several Hasidic sources showing that in fact the two are equally holy.  Some of these were taken from Jewish Spiritual Practices, by Yitzchak Buxbaum.

 

The holy letters of the Torah are repositories of divine light - and they  in turn release the light in our soul.  It's enough to rekindle some of the awe that we've often felt about the Torah, but so often we take it for granted.

Finally this week, take a look at the flyer below and come to Rabbi Markus's first class next Wed.  This four sessions course promises to be informative and inspiring, as he is a wonderful teacher!  So let's be "joyish." 

It's Adar, after all.

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Joshua Hammerman