In This Moment for August 20

In This Moment

YIsrael's two Olympic gold medal winners, gymnasts Artem Dolgolpyat, whose mother bemoaned that he cannot marry in Israel because he is not halachically Jewish and who in this headline is said to have "touched the heavens" with his winning floor exercise; and Linoy Ashram (the headline above calls her "Wonder Woman"), the first female Israeli ever to win a gold medal. Israel television had the perfect only-in-Israel reaction to her win: "We are as dreamers!" quoting Psalm 126.

And watch Linoy Ashram's winning routine, done to the tune of, naturally, Hava Nagila

Shabbat Shalom Although the Shabbat-O-Gram usually takes the entire summer off, there's no excuse for delaying when a need cries out. And this week there is a crying need to help both in Haiti, recovering from yet another devastating earthquake, and Afghanistan, where we have a special moral duty to assist those seeking to escape and find safety elsewhere. The American Jewish World Service is rushing relief to Haiti. Also you can read about what is being done through USAID and Reliefweb. As for Afghan refugees, check out IRIS - Integrated Refugee & Immigrant Services. There are lots of ways you can help, from donating money and supplies to temporarily offering up space in your home to providing a rental. Air miles donated also go a long way. Even though there are limited flights going out of Kabul, refugees and asylum-seekers will travel by any means necessary to get to safety, facing 6+ month sojourns across half a dozen countries. See https://miles4migrants.org. Our congregation has a longstanding relationship with HIAS, which is also providing assistance to refugees. And we may have an opportunity to help resettle a refugee in our community, through the efforts of Stamford Interfaith Refugee Settlement (S.I.R.S). While there are far more serious and tragic aspects to this story, it is interesting to read the stories now coming out about the last Jew in Afghanistan, and why he is choosing to remain there when an escape to israel is possible. Also, you can read here about how the Conservative Movement is dealing with a sex abuse scandal that has rocked its youth programs. And this update as more victims have come forward. it should be noted that although these incidents are horrific wherever they occurred, none involved personnel in our Connecticut region. See an array of commentaries on this week's Torah portion of Ki Tetze, which includes over 70 of the 613 Mitzvot, including important ones dealing with family relationships. See also the Etz Hayyim Commentary for this portion. Into polls? Here are a few interesting ones that came out recently: U.S. Jews Are Most Pro-vaccine Religious Group in America, Poll Finds and American Jews more critical of Israel, new poll finds. While our carefully calibrated High Holiday plans still seem to be holding at the moment, the article below indicates just how fragile any plans can be. I for one am hoping that our safety measures, combined with our high-quality live-stream plans, will enable us to deliver a spiritually uplifting hybrid experience for all. Meanwhile, I continue to call on everyone to get vaccinated, follow CDC guidelines and do all that we can to save lives and beat this virus. Read here how other communities are being impacted by the delta variant, particularly in the south, and see this article: Synagogues hoped to be in person this year. Now they’re not so sure.(RNS) A flood of new cases fueled by the highly contagious delta variant is putting increased pressure on synagogue leaders to scale back High Holy Days services. See also: As Jewish High Holidays approach, we must reform our plans again Jerusalem Fire is a Wake-Up Call for Israel (Ha'aretz)

This week's wildfire in the Jerusalem hills: Credit: Emil Salman Sunday in the Jerusalem Hills was a standard hot summer day; somewhat dry and with strong winds, but nothing unusual. Nevertheless, the fire behaved in an unprecedented way. “Flames of 50 meters, red clouds, it looked like the end of the world. In Ramat Raziel you saw a fire whirl, where the fire creates the wind itself, these are things we never saw in the past,” said an official involved in putting out the fire. Intense forest fires like this one occur mostly when the weather is especially dry and strong winds blow. Famous Jewish Henris... As we wait for Henri to potentially become the first hurricane to hit New England (early next week) since Bob in 1991, I ask, who is the most famous Jewish Henri of all times? Is it Bernard-Henri Lévy, an explorer of anti-Semitism and Jewish identity? Or Henri Bergson, who helped us understand the nature of reality? Henri Toulouse-Lautrec was not Jewish, but he did create a lithograph called The Prayer of the Polish Jews, from Au Pied du Sinai. It's definitely not Henri Ford! Inducting a Jew into the Hall of Fame on Rosh Hashanah? What is MLB Thinking? (Joshua Hammerman, R.N.S) See also Marvin Miller, the influential Jewish MLB union chief, will finally get his Hall of Fame induction — on Rosh Hashanah (JTA). Looking for an Elul thought for the day to enhance your preparations for the High Holidays (what we call Heshbon Ha-Nefesh - soul searching). Try Jewels of Elul, or The Shofar Project, Also this upcoming Jewish year is a seventh year, a Sabbatical, also called Shmita Year. Read about it and participate in the Shmita Project. The Shmita Project is working to expand awareness about the biblical Sabbatical tradition, and to bring the values of this practice to life today to support healthier, more sustainable Jewish communities. The Shmita Project works across the Jewish landscape to elevate the role that shmita- the year of rest in a seven year cycle of Jewish life- plays in today’s society. The Shmita Year invites us to rethink the world that we live in and to tune into the ways in which we can actively make a difference. During this seventh year, God commands us to let the land rest, release debts, resolve disputes, and to open our hands and hearts to those in need. But how do we bring this tradition alive in an era when we no longer rely on the rhythms and harvest of our fields to survive. Rabbis are supposed to offer hope on the high holidays. What if I can't? Women of the Wall pray at Kotel, harassed by Orthodox (Jerusalem Post) See photo below from the celebration of Rosh Hodesh Elul at the Kotel.

The Women of the Wall prayer service at the Western Wall on Monday morning passed off relatively quietly despite a promise by hard-line religious-Zionist activists to protest against the group. The group faced jeers and other mild forms of harassment by other women praying in the women’s section, as well as similar activity by small groups of Orthodox children harassing a group of men praying in solidarity with the Women of the Wall. I hope you all have had a good summer thus far. In July, the Hammerman clan mourned the loss of our 17 year old canine matriarch, Chloe, a loss that we still feel acutely. We've been comforted by a bundle of puppy energy that we managed to sit still long enough to take the photo below. We welcome Cobie Hammerman to the TBE community. To everyone, Shabbat Shalom and let's all gather our strength and summon our optimism for a great new year, which is so close at hand, just two weeks away. Shabbat Shalom! Rabbi Joshua Hammerman

Temple Beth El 350 Roxbury Road Stamford, Connecticut 06902 203-322-6901 | www.tbe.org    A Conservative, Inclusive, Spiritual Community

Haiti Concert This Monday!

Haitian proverbs:

http://www.webster.edu/~corbetre/haiti/literature/folktale.htm

Haiti is a non-literate culture. 80% or more of the people neither read nor write. Consequently, wisdom is oral. There are no detailed philosophical systems in Haiti. People hand down their knowledge and express it in proverbs. In the rural areas hardly 5 or 6 sentences can pass in any serious conversation without someone throwing in a proverb as defense of some idea. There are hundreds of proverbs. One very famous one is:


Piti, piti, wazo fe nich li.
Little by little the bird builds its nest

Bondye Bon
God is good.
(This is a proverb of optimism and fatalism. Whatever happens is what God does, and what God does is for the best. There is another similar proverb that translates as: The pencil of God has no eraser).


Dye mon, gen mon
Beyond the mountain is another mountain (A proverb of both patience and the recognition of how difficult life in Haiti is.)

Emerging from Narrow Places...SINGING

Photo credit: Paul Jeffrey, ACT alliance

The Hebrew word for Egypt, Mitzrayim, represents hardship, distress, oppression, a narrow place or straits etc. (see here for more on this). This week and next week, we read in the Torah of the Israelites' emergence from these narrow places, from the fear and from the danger - and amazingly they emerge from it in song.

The woman above, Anna Zizi,
was rescued on Tuesday from the wreckage of a priest's residence at the main Roman Catholic Cathedral in Port-au-Prince. When she emerged, she was singing.

On Wednesday, Laurie Bickel, one of the administrators of God’s Littlest Angels Orphanage, updated the Today show on the more than 100 orphans in her care:

“You get to the playground areas and the kids are just playing. They’re enjoying today; they’re enjoying that moment, and that’s how the Haitian people are,” Bickel said. “In the face of all of this, they’ve been singing and just praising God that they survived, and they are here and they will get through this.”

And see this incredible story, first reported on NBC Nightly News. Another woman emerges, singing:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Now, when we read of Moses and Miriam's song following that excruciating passage through the birth canal known as the Red Sea, we can imagine these Haitians and their escape from the bloody doorposts of their collapsed homes/tombs, evading miraculously the clutches of the angel of death. There was no passing over their homes last week, but there were narrow straits, there were enclosed places aplenty. And when they came out of it, all they could do was sing.

Hindsight, as they say, is 20-20. But imagine the terror of the person who sees those enormous walls of water on both sides, whose only hind-sight is the rampaging Egyptians in the rear view mirror. And then she looks ahead and sees only barren desert.

When barren desert is the best case scenario - and you've neglected to pack the water bottles - death seems all but a certainty.

That's what it is like for so many in Haiti these days - those who escaped the collapsing walls, and those still underneath. Narrow places.

We were in Mitzrayim too. And that is precisely why the Jewish community worldwide, here and especially in Israel, have rushed to the side of the victims. We are all too familiar with their plight.

And their song.

Israel's "Disproportionate" Response

Israel's Disproportionate Response

THE EVIDENCE IS POURING IN THAT ISRAEL'S RESPONSE TO THE HAITIAN DISASTER HAS BEEN FAR MORE THAN SIMPLY BEYOND THE CALL OF DUTY. THEY ARE SETTING AN EXAMPLE FOR THE ENTIRE WORLD:

1) See (Forward): The Grief, Misery and Moments of Joy at Israel's Haiti Hospital

2) See this VIDEO - Harvard doctor in Haiti: "No one except the Israeli hospital has taken any of our patients" www.cnn.com CNN's Elizabeth Cohen visits a Haiti hospital where patients are desperate for better medical care.

3) Haiti: A View from the Middle East (Huffington Post)

4) Jerusalem Post Israel to the rescue

5) A feature on NBC Nightly News:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

6) Read this by Peggy Shapiro, from the American Thinker:

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2010/01/israels_disproportionate_respo.html

In the midst of the tragedy and chaos in the Haitian capital, Israeli doctors, part of IsraAID -F.I.R.S.T. (the Israel Forum for International Aid), delivered a healthy baby boy in an IDF field hospital. When the baby's grateful mother, Gubilande Jean Michel saw her newborn son, alive and well, she named him Israel in gratitude to the people and nation who brought her this blessing.

Little Israel is one of the hundreds who have been saved by Israeli doctors or rescue teams. A search and rescue team from the ZAKA Israel's International Rescue Unit pulled eight Haitian college students from a collapsed eight-story university building. Despite its small size, Israel sent a large contingent of highly-trained aid workers to quake-stricken Haiti. Two jumbo jets carrying more than 220 doctors, nurses, civil engineers, and other Israeli army personnel, including a rescue team and field hospital, were among the first rescue teams to arrive in Haiti. In fact, they were the first foreign backup team to set up medical treatment at the partially collapsed main hospital in Port-au-Prince. Yigal Palmor, Israel's Foreign Ministry spokesman said, "It's a large delegation and we're prepared to send more."

The international agencies that condemn Israel for its "disproportionate response" when it is attacked are not mentioning Israel's disproportionate response to human suffering. The U.S. has pledged 100 million and sent supplies and personnel. The U.K. pledged $10 million and sent 64 firemen and 8 volunteers.China, a country with a population of 1,325,639,982 compared to Israel's 7.5 million sent 50 rescuers and seven journalists. The 25 Arab League nations sent nothing. Read more

A Prayer for Haiti: What We Can Do

Here is a quick summary of what Jewish groups are doing for Haiti, from the website Repair the World (http://www.werepair.org/) :


The tragic earthquake that struck Haiti just two days ago has captured our attentions and left us aching for the ability to help. As the scope of the devastation becomes more clear, so does the urgent need for funds.

With our colleagues in the aid community and partners from the Jewish world, we have identified a number of legitimate, top-quality organizations that can take donations and ensure that they are put to the best possible use. These include:


Partners in Health, with a long history of working to provide medical services in Haiti

American Jewish World Service, provides grants and on-the-ground service around the world to alleviate hunger, poverty and disease

American Joint Distribution Committee, nearly 100 years of experience in emergency relief, both in the Jewish community and beyond

Yele Haiti, working on the ground before the latest tragedy to build capacity and raise awareness about Haiti

In addition, the Conservative movement has established dedicated funds to support the relief efforts.

At this stage, for most of us, donating money is the best way to help. That said, Partners in Health and the State Department have both said that there is an urgent need for skilled medical personnel, particularly surgeons, ER doctors and nurses, and full surgical teams. Please take a moment to think of those in your community who might have those vital skills, and pass the request along to them.

For the rest of us, please give - and if you're interested to hear about ways to volunteer when it becomes appropriate, please sign up to be contacted as those opportunities emerge.

The next days and weeks will be challenging for so many people. Please keep them in your thoughts and prayers

A Prayer for Haiti: Solid Ground (Beliefnet)

By Holly Lebowitz Rossi, Current Events

May the earth that crumbled beneath feet and homes and schools once again become solid ground for walking and loving and learning.

May worried families and friends discover their loved ones safely spared waiting for them on solid ground.

May those who are trapped amid the rubble feel the solid power of love and healing that the world is sending their way.


May we who are so far away from the devastation find a way to share some of the solid ground of our full lives with those who have lost so much.

May the solid ground of this simple prayer become a foundation on which Haiti can rebuild.