In This Moment: Dec 17: The Power of Words; Remembering the Homeless

 

In This Moment Never to be forgotten: Victims of Sandy Hook On Tuesday we will be hosting for the first time the community's annual service for National Homeless Person's Memorial Day. A number of clergy (including myself and Cantor Kaplan), public officials and agency heads will participate, as well as clients who will speak of their personal experiences. Mayor Caroline Simmons will deliver the keynote address. Join us, in person or via Livestream at 6 PM. While TBE will still be involved in serving the needs of our homeless on Christmas Eve (and my personal thanks to all who are participating), the situation with Covid as well as the fact that Christmas Eve coincides with Shabbat will make it harder for us to be as "hands on" as usual. All of which makes this memorial an excellent opportunity to raise our consciousness to this ongoing - and increasing - social and moral concern. Shabbat Shalom! Join us for Kabbalat Shabbat services on Friday at 7, where we will hear from Abdallah Salha. Abdallah is a Palestinian from the Gaza Strip. He has joined multiple peace building programs including the Jerusalem PeaceBuilders and Creating Friendships for Peace. He's now studying in the US after finishing high school in Norway and spending two gap years first in Senegal and then in Gaza.  He will be appearing in person, and the service will also be available on Livestream. Check our weekly announcements for the link. Given the alarming spike in Covid transmission these past few weeks, my recommendation is to lean to the side of caution if you are wondering whether to attend services (or any large group activity) in person. Services for the following two Friday nights (Dec 24 and 31) will be Zoom-only. Shabbat morning and daily minyans continue to be Zoom only. Let's pray for a quick turnaround to this wave - and let this be another reminder to schedule a booster shot if you haven't gotten one. Here's some news and notes.... 'No more excuses': Conservative Movement slams shelving of Western Wall compromise Related: Why is Israel Once Again Abandoning the Solomonic Wisdom of the Western Wall Compromise? (Times of Israel - David Horowitz) ADL Joins in January 6 Lawsuit Against Hate Groups. The Flying Nones The "nones" are on the rise. The latest Pew Research Center survey of the U.S. religious composition finds the religiously unaffiliated share of the public is 6 percentage points higher than it was five years ago and 10 points higher than a decade ago. About three-in-ten U.S. adults (29%) now are religious “nones” – people who describe themselves as atheists, agnostics or “nothing in particular” when asked about their religious identity. Self-identified Christians of all varieties (including Protestants, Catholics, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and Orthodox Christians) make up 63% of the adult population, down from 75% a decade ago. In addition, the share of U.S. adults who say they pray daily has been trending downward, as has the share who say religion is “very important” in their lives. Few Americans Blame God or Say Faith Has Been Shaken Amid Pandemic, Other Tragedies. Video of my Jewish Canon class on the impact of Harold Kushner's "When Bad Things Happen to Good People." Next class will be on Jan. 4. Alana Haim is true to life in coming-of-age flick 'Licorice Pizza,' set in 1970s LA Watch this ’70s ad for Bernstein on Essex to feel nostalgic for a lost New York (JTA) The Fast of Tevet, commemorated this week, commemorates an obscure event in Jewish history that doesn't seem to tragic at all - the translation of the Torah into Greek, known as the Septuagint, in Alexandria, in the 3rd century BCE. Rabbi Jeffrey Salkin explains why it is considered a tragedy: "The sages made that act of translation another reason for the fast of the Tenth of Tevet. In their eyes, “the day when the Torah was written in Greek was as unfortunate for Israel as the day of the Golden Calf” (Soferim 1:7). Why? According to William Kolbrener, the fast was not because of the translation itself, but rather, because of what Ptolemy did with the translation. He put that translation into the library in Alexandria. To quote Kolbrener: “Ptolemy gave the Torah the Hellenist version of a Library of Congress call number, and in so doing gave it the same status as other books in the Greek library. ‘Study the Bible in the university library,’ Ptolemy says, ‘but do not learn Torah in the House of Study.” Two things here. First, Ptolemy basically said that there is nothing terribly special, or sacred, about the biblical text. It goes into the same library as every other book. As such, it is a matter of choice what books you will read as sources of wisdom. Pretty modern of him, come to think of it. Second, when Ptolemy removed the biblical text from the House of Study, the sacred precincts of Jewish learning, he was basically saying: This is about your head, not your heart; your intellect, not your soul." "Devash" Family Magazine for the Portion of Vayechi (Mechion Hadar) At last Friday night's service, Dr. Fran Ginsburg spoke about the importance of the Chevra Kadisha (traditional name of the Jewish community's burial society) and her work for the local Chevra. A focus on that work is especially appropriate for this week's portion of Vayechi, which contrasts Jewish burial practices (for Jacob and Joseph) with Egyptian ones. We had some audio issues with Fran's presentation on our livestream last week, so it is with pleasure that I include the full transcript of Fran's words in this Shabbat-O-Gram: This week’s Torah portion is Va-Yiggash, full of the usual Genesis drama: betrayal, forgiveness, famine, reunion, the beginning of the Golden Era in Egypt—and none of that is what I am going to talk about today. I am actually skipping to next week’s parsha, Va-Yehi, which deals with the events leading up to Jacobs’s death and his burial. Why, you might ask, am I skipping? Well, Va-Yehi is traditionally when members of the Chevrah Kedisha, or burial society, speak about their customs and mission. As an active Chevrah participant from TBE, I was asked to speak next week, when I will be away. This topic is too important to skip, so here I am—a week early. If people have any image of the Chevrah, it seems to be that of a secret society whose members scurry around during the night performing mysterious deeds. I am here to clarify who we are and what we do—and hope to interest some of you into considering joining in our mission. The Chevrah Kadisha, loosely translated as “sacred society”, has the task of preparing bodies of deceased Jews for burial according to Jewish tradition and to protect the bodies from desecration until burial. To find out more about why we generally talk about the Chevrah on Shabbat Va-Yehi, I went back to the Tanakh to see if I could find inspiration in Jacob’s story. Instead, I found something I had not realized—he was embalmed in the Egyptian way. In general, Jews are not embalmed but are prepared to again become one with the land—dust to dust. The explanation I found is that embalming is very rare but is permissible if the body will have to travel long distances, as was done in the case of Jacob. While most aspects of the details of how the body is prepared are long-standing traditions, some small modifications may be local customs. In any event, two requirements are never compromised—showing proper respect for the body and the ritual cleansing and subsequent dressing for burial, known as Tahara. In our community, all the members are volunteers. Women’s bodies are prepared by women and men’s by men. When the point person in our Chevra is informed of the need for a tahara, we are very modern—an email is sent to request three or four volunteers. Since Jewish burial is very soon, it might mean that volunteers are needed for that day—usually in the evening. In Stamford, both Gallaghers and Sholom Chapel at Cognettas are equipped for Tahara. The Chevrah team will gather, with one taking on the role of lead. All don full PPE. One member recites the appropriate prayers. There is no small talk during the procedure. The body is first thoroughly cleansed and then is ritually purified by immersion in a mikveh, or with a continuous flow of water from the head over the entire body.  The body is dressed in tachrichim, or shrouds, of white pure muslin or linen garments made up of ten pieces for a male and twelve for a female, which are identical for each Jew and which symbolically recalls the garments worn by the Kohen Gadol (High Priest). Once the body is shrouded, the casket is closed. The casket, as many of you know, is supposed to be a simple pine box. All Jews, regardless of wealth, are equal at death and are dressed and buried in the same manner. After closure, the Chevra team places their hands on the casket and prays individually that each of us showed the respect that the person deserves as she starts her final journey. In some areas, the society may also provide shomrim, or watchers, to guard the body and recite psalms until the funeral. In Stamford, most shomrim are paid. While most of the Chevra volunteers are from the more orthodox parts of our community, all are welcome. The Tahara fell out of favor in the past century as Jews became more modern, but in our area, probably most Conservative and many Reform families are requesting this service. For the last tahara I was involved in, the call was sent out on erev Thanksgiving Sue Plutzer and I went as did one other person—probably the only time the women have been represented by a Conservative majority. I know that when I was starting medical school, I went into my human anatomy lab with great trepidation, but the professors emphasized the importance of our mission, and my fears—and squeamishness melted away. The task of the chevra kadisha is considered a laudable one, as tending to the dead is a favor that the recipient cannot return, making it devoid of ulterior motives. Our Chevra always needs new members, and I invite any who are interested to come with me to observe a Tahara. The Power (and Coarsening) of Words In this week's portion of Vayechi, Jacob, on his deathbed, curses two of his sons, Shimon and Levi (and is pretty rough with some of the others as well). These curses raise some interesting questions about how we choose our words. See this excerpt from this week's edition of Devash, by Mechon Hadar: This is terrific material for your Shabbat table - and I'll also bring some of this to our service on Shabbat morning. But the need to choose our words carefully at times of anger has taken on an added significance of late. Our families always depend on it - and now, so does our civilization as a whole. The last several years have seen an all-out frontal attack on truth. It has been well documented that over 30,000 falsities were invoked in the prior administration. The attack on truth continues, of course. But there is a related consequence that has been less noticed, but may be of equal importance: the coarsening of language. When lies are weaponized, words become tools of aggression. And linguistic nihilism can take different forms. Timothy Snyder writes about this in his best selling book, "On Tyranny." A key to reserving democracy is to maintain control of our use of words. One of his chapters has this heading: Take a look at last week's headline in Israel's leading newspaper, Yediot Achronot: Israelis woke up to this front page, describing the former US president's disappointment in the former Israeli prime minister because Bibi woke up to the truth, well after most other world leaders, and he congratulated the actual, proven winner of the 2020 US elections. You may have noticed that I blacked out one of the letters from that front page. That "u" was not blacked out on the thousands of papers that hit the streets; but I was trying to preserve a modicum of decency when so few filters seem to shield us and our news media from profanity anymore. The article quoted from journalist Barak Ravid's book (you can read the pertinent quotes in English by clicking here). Even when one takes into account that profanity in a foreign language seems somehow less profane, undoubtedly Israelis were shocked simply to see these supposed BFFs at odds. In fact, it can be argued that this use of profanity is a mortal blow for any Netanyahu hopes of a comeback, but that's another subject. As amusing as it has been to watch this catfight, profanity has found its way into our own America media with great frequency this week. As the text messages from January 6 were flung across the halls of Congress, one found its way to front page of the NY Daily News. At least the editors of the Daily News did us the courtesy of not one, but two asterisks. It used to be that cursing our leaders was reserved for special occasions. Now it's become a game - and a profitable one at that - to use thinly disguised euphemisms like the inane "Let's Go, Brandon" thing that someone evidently thought was funny. But most would rather just go out and hurl F-bombs in a direct frontal attack. Now all the Brandons of our world can take their place alongside all the perfectly innocent Karens as collateral damage in the War on Language. Baby namers will have to lie low on those two names for a while. So what is "linguistic nihilism"? Nihilism is defined as, "the rejection of all religious and moral principles, in the belief that life is meaningless." The rejection of objective truth, morality, values and meaning is precisely what autocrats seek. Timothy Snyder speaks of how, today, "enemies of liberal democracy tend not to have ideas, visions, or goals. They just want to “burn it down.” They are nihilists and destroyers. Below is a brief excerpt from "On Tyranny" about the dummying down of language: I know it's profoundly uncool to speak of excrement as "number two," and F-bombs seem to have no problem crossing the aisle - they are used with alacrity by both progressives and conservatives. Heck, even David Ortiz found a great time to unleash the power of his tongue, channeling the emotions of a city after the Boston Marathon bombings. Simon Critchley wrote in the New York Times, "We know swear words are literally meaningless... Yet they carry a force that compels us." Most of all, they are easy and cheap. You don't need to think up a creative way to express anger when a miraculous bodily function can be cheapened. When your whole philosophy is to minimize thinking and glorify impulse, the power of the curse is irresistible. Thousands of years ago, the author of Leviticus said essentially the same thing. In chapter 24, two Israelites are having a fight. One had an Egyptian father, which may have been the cause of some resentment or friction between the two. Who knows? But the end result was that one of them blasphemed, and the punishment was determined to be stoning.  ​On the face of it, the whole thing seems absurd, like the scene right out of Monty Python. Come to think of it, it WAS a scene from a Monty Python film.  But the deeper message of this passage, and of the entire book of Leviticus, is that words matter, and angry words matter even more. Jewish tradition compares the one who gossips to a murderer. The very next verse, in fact, deals with the laws of murder, making this comparison most explicit, not just for the idle gossiper, but specifically for the one who curses God. ​For what does it mean to curse God's name? If, as we read in Genesis, every human being is created in God's image, that divine part of us that is the essence of our humanity. To insult God is to debase our own innate godliness, our human capacity for goodness and kindness.  Everything that we hold sacred came into the world through divine speech. And now we are losing the sanctity of speech.  We should not at all be surprised that Trump threw Bibi some F-bombs, or that Democratic presidents have sworn too. Even our founders were not immune. John Adams once called John Dickinson "a piddling genius" for refusing to go along with the Declaration of Independence, and I hear "piddling" was quite outrageous for its day. But no one would have been able to call Adams an autocratic nihilist for his use of language. It was, in fact, the opposite of a mind-numbing curse. It was more like Jacob's from our portion, in fact. It was a curse designed to teach and prod, not to burn everything down. The illiberal autocrat wannabees of our day want to burn everything down: our words, our thoughts, our truths, and finally our rights to self expression and the vote. Sometimes it's not just how many lies you utter, but how you say 'em that matters as well. Let's put a filter on the cussing. Whenever you are tempted to make like the cover of the Daily News with uncontrolled use of language, think of those who will be most thrilled with each piece of s**t hitting the fan. Temple Beth El 350 Roxbury Road Stamford, Connecticut 06902 203-322-6901 | www.tbe.org    A Conservative, Inclusive, Spiritual Community

Excerpts from 1989 s High Holidays Sermon on Loneliness, the Homeless and the Origins of Beth El Cares

Modern American life segregates us, unlike any society in history.  People lose one another.  Grandparents find themselves thousands of miles from their grandchildren.  The torah says, “Love your neighbor,” but many of us don’t even know who are neighbors are.  We have become atomized.  Where once extended families lived on the same block  -  cousins, second cousins, and Reb Nachum the beggar, now there are only husbands and wives, a friend or two, and if they’re lucky, maybe some live-in help.  What an incredible strain to put on a marriage  -  to expect your spouse to be your community as well.  That is what America has become.  Sweet land of loneliness.  All those lonely people.  Where do they all come from?

One doesn’t have to visit a homeless shelter to see the face of American loneliness close-up, but it helps.  If one can see the faces at all, that is.

Christmas Eve:  1987.  I joined several of you at the local homeless shelter, allowing the Christian volunteers a night off.  Since this is the day for confessions, here’s one of mine.  Were it not for the tug of my profession, I might well have stayed home.  I’m no saint and my body was not sorely needed.  I’ve no doubt that I would have found some excuse to sit by the TV and watch the black and white version of “It’s a Wonderful Life.”  But I felt I belonged at the shelter.  So I went  -  and did not regret it.

At first I felt useless.  By the time I arrived the food was ready to be served and fifty or so had already come in from the cold and lined up to receive their dinner, cafeteria-style.  I managed to make myself useful by dishing out stuffing from an aluminum tin.

As the guests passed by I would say “Stuffing?” and they’d nod, eyes glued to the floor.  Half a dozen went by, maybe more.  Then came this small girl of six  -  or seven at the most, escorted by a guardian.  I couldn’t let her pass the same way, just another faceless encounter.  A little girl, without a family on Christmas.  As she walked past, I dished out some stuffing, and searching for the right thing to say, blurted out, “Merry Christmas.”  And what I suddenly witnessed were the two brightest thank-you-Santa eyes I’ve ever seen. There is a line in the finale of the musical version of “Les Miserables,” “To love another person is to see the face of God.”  I was never crazy about it at first, but when I think of that girl’s face, suddenly the line takes on a whole new meaning for me.

That one moment encapsulates all that makes my job worthwhile.  All the committee meetings, the 3,000 piece mailings; it all suddenly became worth it.  To ease another person’s loneliness is to ease one’s own.  I was able to understand why the word “religion” comes from the Latin, meaning “to bind.”  For that girl and I were at that moment bound by religion, both hers and mine.

That little girl’s case is extreme, but each of us in his or her own way can feel the same numbing, overwhelming emptiness she must have been feeling.  We all at times feel that no one cares.  We all feel forgotten.  We all are lonely.

Let us invite others to share in the wellspring of life that exists within us, contained within our solitude.  That is where true relationship begins, where the I meets the Thou.  And the sounds that will come forth from such an encounter are not be the sounds of silence, but the sweet sounds of children at play, the buzzes and murmurs of men and women praying together, learning together, bound together as the very term religion implies, bound by a shared commitment and a community, bound by prayer and the triumphant blast of the shofar.

Coming together as concerned individuals, we can demonstrate that Temple Beth El cares for individuals.

Beth El cares  -  about the hungry and homeless of Stamford, as we’ve demonstrated many times over, and as we’ve shown again this Yom Kippur, with our food collection last night.

Beth El cares  -  about those who are part of the Temple family.  All of them.  All individuals.  As an example, I’m proud to announce today that we are in the process of establishing a support group for single-parent families, with the first meeting to be held in the next two months and the first program being a special Hanukkah party.

Beth El cares  -  about our new Soviet Jewish immigrants, many who are attending a Yom Kippur service for the first time, here today, by special invitation.  To all of them I say, “Dobro  -  Pojaolovart,” “Welcome!”

Beth El cares  -  about the particular loneliness of parents and teens.  A number of our members have been at the forefront of community-wide efforts to address this crucial issue.  We are proud of our association with the Adult Council for Jewish Youth, and we urge you to support it, and to attend the program series that has been planned.

This is our Temple, as it is and as it can be.

At the outset I discussed the Shma Kolenu prayer.  In truth, this prayer is not a cry of desperation uttered from a broken human being to a distant God.  It is a cry uttered from the depths of man himself, from his afflicted soul, from his loneliness.  And the cry is directed not at God, but inward.

We must hear that cry, our own cry from within.  And we must hear the cries of others.  For the sake of that little girl at the shelter, for the sakes of all the lost and forgotten, the living and the dying, the widowed, the divorced, the single and the married.  The children with one parent, with no parents, with two, three or four.  The children with AIDS or drug dependency.  The unemployed and the overworked.  The homesick college freshman and the home-bound senior citizen.  The child prodigy, pushed to excel, and the mentally challenged adult, pushed aside.

SHMA KOLENU!  -  they say  -  “Hear Our Voices!”

SHMA KOLENU!  -  the cry also comes from within.

V’AL TA’AZVENU!  “Do not abandon us.”

We must not be afraid of our loneliness.  We must hear its cry and embrace it  -  so that we can embrace others.  There is so much work to do.

Walt Whitman wrote:

            I saw in Louisiana a live oak growing

            All alone stood it and the moss hung down from the branches.

            Without any companion it grew there uttering leaves of dark green.

            And its look  --  rude, unbending, lusty, made me think of myself.

            But I wondered how it could utter joyous leaves,

            Standing there alone without its friends near.

            For I knew I could not.

Whitman understood that the oak drew its strength and majesty from within.  It needs no other trees in order to utter joyous leaves.  But he realized that without other people around him he would not be able to flourish like the oak, for he would want to share that strength with others.

Let us try to be like the oak, drawing strength from within.

Let us be like the poet, sharing that strength with others.

Let us never close ourselves off from others.

But most of all, let us never be afraid to be alone.

Shabbat-O-Gram March 29

  

Click here for an explanation of this Kabbalistic Omer Counting Calendar 

 Source: Velveteen Rabbi blog.  

Shabbat Shalom and Happy Last Half of Passover:

  

Passover Services

Join us for services on Friday night at 7:30 and again on Shabbat morning. we will be in the lobby for both services (in those comfy blue chairs).  On the intermediate Shabbat of the festival, it's customary to read from the Song of Songs, that exquisite bit of biblical erotica.  Here's a background article about the Song and why we read it this week.  

Pesach concludes on Monday and Tuesday mornings with festival services at 9:30 AM(Yizkor's on Tuesday).  Because some of our regulars are away for the holiday, please make a special effort to attend on either or both of these mornings!  It is so appreciated!  There is no 7:30 minyan on those two days.

Special Mitzvah for a Congregant

I'm delighted at the response I received recently when I asked for some help in finding odd jobs for a young congregant struggling to meet rent expenses.  I have one more request, this time on behalf of a congregant in his 60s who recently was required to vacate his apartment through no fault of his own.  Because he is living alone and on a fixed income, housing options are limited.  If anyone in the congregation has a mother-in-law suite, vacant carriage house or something similar that could be rented for below market value, that would be ideal.  I know this person very well and can vouch for his trustworthiness.

A few years ago, during the worst of the economic collapse, I used this space to help match congregants with job opportunities and we also ran a number of seminars.  We serve congregants in need of everything from rides to friendly visitors to baby sitters to shiva meals to hurricane relief.  That's what a congregation does for one another and for its community.  That's what happened once again this week as TBE congregants led a Seder at Atria.  See the photo below and, in the spirit of the holiday, click here for our 2013 Passover album, including our Interfaith Seder and Religious School activity day.  

     

See also Aaron Patashnik's Bar Mitzvah d'var Torah from last Shabbat, and the booklet of source materials from our Interfaith Seder, including quotes from Martin Luther King, Gandhi, Lau Tzu, the Quran, the New Testament and of course, many Jewish sources.  And click here for the study packet on whether it's OK to eat legumes on Passover ("Give Peas a Chance"). It's the most thorough explanation of the issues that you will find. You can read why some of the great rabbis ages gone by thought that avoiding lentils on Passover was "idiotic."  And yet the custom has persisted for 700 years.  And now, the main reason to keep it is that it has been around for 700 years! For some, with a plate full of rice, Passover would simply not be Passover anymore.  

But old traditions sometimes change, as they discussed this week at the Supreme Court...

DOMA and Beyond

In light of yesterday's gripping Supreme Court arguments, I share once again the column I wrote when New York State legalized gay marriage; I make the case for gay marriage as the right Jewish moral choice, even for those who might have issues with homosexuality.  While the article focuses on equal protection within the state, the argument can extend to federal protections as well, as they were doing yesterday at the Supreme Court.

"All Who Are Hungry, Come and Eat" Homelessness in Stamford

Last week I had the chance to meet Jason Shaplan, CEO of Inspirica, which used to be known as St. Lukes Lifeworks.  This non-denominational agency has been doing fabulous work and I saw it in action at their remodeled Franklin St. headquarters. Homelessness is up by 57% in suburban and rural areas over the past three years.  In 2011, more than 16,000 people used Connecticut's homeless shelters, including 2,700 children.  The good news is that Inspirica is doing something about it, helping to break the cycle of poverty, joblessness and homelessness in significant ways.  I plan to bring Jason here in the near future, but in the meantime, go on their website to see how you can volunteer, and let me know how you might wish to organize a group from TBE to volunteer together. 

And speaking of volunteering, thank you to all who contributed 200 bags to the JFS Passover food drive.

Obama's Visit and Anne Frank's Chestnut Tree

It's been a week since President Obama's return from Israel, but it will not soon be forgotten - both the images and the words.   Images like the welcome at the airport, his being serenaded by children singing "Tomorrow" in Hebrew, English and Arabic, the address to Israeli students in Jerusalem, and last but most certainly not least, the speech at Yad Vashem.

Those words spoken there will have a very long shelf life.  If you have not heard or read the President's speech at Yad Vashem, take a few moments to read it.  Here are a few excerpts:

For here we learn that we are never powerless.  In our lives we always have choices.  To succumb to our worst instincts or to summon the better angels of our nature.  To be indifferent to suffering to wherever it may be, whoever it may be visited upon, or to display the empathy that is at the core of our humanity.  We have the choice to acquiesce to evil or make real our solemn vow -- "never again."  We have the choice to ignore what happens to others, or to act on behalf of others and to continually examine in ourselves whatever dark places there may be that might lead to such actions or inactions.  This is our obligation -- not simply to bear witness, but to act....

...Here we pray that we all can be better; that we can all grow, like the sapling near the Children's Memorial -- a sapling from a chestnut tree that Anne Frank could see from her window.  The last time she described it in her diary, she wrote: "Our chestnut tree is in full bloom.  It's covered with leaves and is even more beautiful than last year."  That's a reminder of who we can be.  But we have to work for it.  We have to work for it here in Israel.  We have to work for it in America.  We have to work for it around the world -- to tend the light and the brightness as opposed to our worst instincts.

So may God bless the memory of the millions.  May their souls be bound up in the bond of eternal life.  And may each spring bring a full bloom even more beautiful than the last. 

The story of Anne Frank's chestnut tree is inspiring.  The tree outside her old house in Amsterdam  died recently, but its saplings were harvested and are being planted at sites all over the world, among them 11 sites in the US.  The venues are deeply symbolic; one sapling that will be planted just outside Central High School in Little Rock, Ark., where African American students braved angry mobs in the fall of 1957 to integrate the school.  Boston Common is another site, where American aspirations for liberty first bore fruit.

The closest site to us is at the Liberty Park 9/11 Memorial.  But we at TBE have our own living memorial.  The Holocaust memorial garden planted just outside our sanctuary windows by a group of 7^th graders a half dozen years ago is once again beginning to bloom.  The kids in the photo below are now freshmen in college, but this garden is a reminder of their lasting contribution to the memory of the Holocaust and of their dedication to their synagogue. (Can you recognize who they are? See more photos here). It should be in full flower just in time for the community Yom HaShoah program here next weekend.

  

   

Minyan Mastery

What does the word "daven" mean?  Why do we need ten for a minyan?  With our current emphasis on building up our morning minyan,  here is a link to our "Minyan Mastery" feature, with all the minyan material that's fit to print.

Shabbat Shalom!  A Sweet Pesach!

Rabbi Joshua Hammerman

Check out our Purim photo album, our Temple Rock  album and our fall-winter album too.