In This Moment, Dec. 30: Is Covid finally nearing the end (and other messages of hope); Va-era and Voting

 

In This Moment A special thank you to all helped in our annual Christmas Eve assistance at local homeless shelters, and a very special thanks to Amy Temple for once again coordinating the effort. Amy reports that TBE provided meals, drinks, gifts, desserts to over 200 people at three different shelters on Christmas Eve. Well over 60 TBE families were involved. Although our efforts were noted in local media, this is for us a pure mitzvah, done not to assist in marketing our brand, but in order to repair the world. That is the spirit behind the many community service and social justice projects that we are involved in, from feeding the hungry and homeless, to welcoming refugees, to combating hate. Why do we do this? As Amy noted, "It is to provide for people in our community that need a hand during difficult times. It is to perform tzedakah. It is to remind ourselves what is important in life and to make sure we keep perspective on things which is not always easy to do in Fairfield County." To all who helped, thank you for setting such a wonderful example and shining a light for us all. Next year, may we be Covid free and ready to resume all our Christmas Eve volunteer activities. Shabbat Shalom and Happy 2022! These past few weeks, Covid hasn't been the only thing that has been spiking. Readership of the Shabbat-O-Gram has been too, to record levels. This despite holiday travel and lots of end-of-year email solicitations filling our in-boxes. For me this means that people are hungry for hopeful and meaningful messages, and they're looking to connect. The work of a congregation like ours is more relevant than ever. Once again, our Shabbat evening and morning services will both be on Zoom only. Find the link in our Shabbat Announcements. In honor of New Years Eve, come aboard with something festive - an outfit, balloons, or a background showing New Years Eve (or Day) somewhere in the world. Or how about bringing your New Year's prayers for the world, or sharing your resolutions. I know that many will have to forego their planned celebrations, so let's celebrate together at services. Rabbi Ginsburg will deliver the d'var Torah on Shabbat morning and Leo Mahler will join me as guest musician on Friday night. As we head into January, we're going to constantly revisit Covid protocols, but for the next couple of weeks at least, services will continue to be exclusively online. A reminder that due to the spread of the Omicron variant, community clergy will no longer be able to visit congregants at Stamford Hospital until this surge is under control. If you would like one of the chaplains to visit, please contact the main hospital phone number at 203-276-1000 and ask to speak to the on call chaplain.  Please also contact me at rabbi@tbe.org so that I might call patients and include them in our daily healing prayers. No one should be going through illness alone. I think we need a new TBE Club, the "Wiped-out-by-Covid-club." Well, we have one - it's called services. We come together to kvetch and kvell every day at 1 (or at 7 PM and 10 AM on Shabbat), but I'm also more than happy to set up a one-on-one conversation (on Zoom or phone for now). Email me at rabbi@tbe.org to schedule. Is Covid finally nearing the end? I find the website Israel 21c to provide lots of feel-good news. So now experts are suggesting that Omicron may be Covid's last act before it finally flames out. “Usually, viruses that are very aggressive are not very infectious, and viruses that are very infectious are not very aggressive,” said Tzvika Granot, who heads a developmental biology and cancer research lab at Hebrew University. Signs are indeed pointing in that direction. Meanwhile, Israeli scientists are turning their attention to other things as well, like discovering the mechanism that causes nerve destruction in ALS and in their spare time, growing affordable cultivated steak. Licorice Pizza's Homage to Jewish Beauty and The Forward's Homage to Cohen's "Hallelujah." Here are some interesting reads to spice up your New Year's weekend. In his season finale to Curb Your Enthusiasm, Larry David once again challenged the ultimate Jewish comedy taboo, by stealing shoes from a Holocaust museum to protect his feet during a rainstorm. I'd love to hear how viewers reacted. Did it go too far? Or did you laugh? See the Forward's review, "In ‘Curb,’ not even Alexander Vindman is safe from Larry David’s warped worldview." The Jewish Way to Make New Year's Resolutions" (MyJewishLearning). Ancient Jewish wisdom offers some sage advice for helping us attain our goals. A Jewish life, anchored in the rhythms of the year, can help us set benchmarks and assess our progress. While the Gregorian calendar marks only one new year’s, the Jewish calendar marks four such occasions. The flow of the year is literally built on the tides of renewal. CLJS Update on Abortion. The Commission on Jewish Law and Standards of the Conservative movement came out with an important statement this week, responding to the grave concerns over the future of abortion rights in America. They state that in Jewish law, "neither viability nor a woman's right to choose is the basis of Jewish law on abortion, although they play a role only indirectly; what matters in Jewish law is the woman's life and health, both physical and mental." Fouda's season 4 trailer is here! (Kveller) "38% of U.S. Pastors Have Thought About Quitting Full-Time Ministry in the Past Year" - Recent data collected from Barna’s pastor poll indicate that U.S. pastors are currently in crisis and at risk of burnout. Notably, in 2021 alone, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of pastors who are thinking about quitting ministry entirely. See also, "How COVID-19 has made the lives of aspiring clergy more daunting" (R.N.S.) The increasing stressors of being a pastor in a pandemic are affecting how many seminarians are thinking about their mental health and their careers. The global appeal of "Take Me Home, Country Roads" - The 50th anniversary of this classic song gave rise to a moving tribute on CBS's Sunday Morning. The composer (not John Denver) comes from from Massachusetts, not West Virginia, but the message about yearning for home is universal, and the song's impact has been global. West Virginia Univ. asst. professor Sarah Morris explains, "One of the things that I've been thinking about is a Welsh concept called hiraeth – this deep longing for someplace that you can't quite name, that's home but maybe more. It's maybe a place that you've never been, or the home that you've only dreamed of. It's this deep pull toward place." What Jew cannot relate to that? It's something to think about as we make a hasty (though partial) retreat back into our homes for safety or to quarantine or recover from Covid. But can we go home again? Thomas Wolfe didn't think so, when he wrote: “You can’t go back home to your family, back home to your childhood, back home to romantic love, back home to a young man’s dreams of glory and of fame, back home to exile, to escape to Europe and some foreign land, back home to lyricism, to singing just for singing’s sake, back home to aestheticism, to one’s youthful idea of ‘the artist’ and the all-sufficiency of ‘art’ and ‘beauty’ and ‘love,’ back home to the ivory tower, back home to places in the country, to the cottage in Bermuda, away from all the strife and conflict of the world, back home to the father you have lost and have been looking for, back home to someone who can help you, save you, ease the burden for you, back home to the old forms and systems of things which once seemed everlasting but which are changing all the time–back home to the escapes of Time and Memory.” I don't know whether or not we can go home again, but either way, we can never stop yearning for it. I haven't had the chance to see the film "Licorice Pizza" yet, but it's generating quite a bit of Oscar - and Jewish - buzz. See this piece from JTA ("Licorice Pizza’ captures the moment when pop culture finally started to see Jewish women as beautiful") about how the film reflects societal changes in regards to Jewish women. Judaism is "not just a belief system. It’s an innate part of you, affecting everything from your hair to your nose to your genitals. It can make you be perceived as ugly in one decade, and a bombshell in the next." Check out "How Jewish is Leonard Cohen’s ‘Hallelujah?’ A Forward investigation in 9 verses." According to the piece, Cohen had second thoughts about the song’s biblical references, l But for all of his tinkering, he ended his live versions like this: “Even though it all went wrong/I’ll stand before the lord of song/with nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah.” “It’s a rather joyous song,” Cohen said, and, he argued often, a secular one, the article asserts. He wanted to push the words of praise back to Earth, “to indicate that Hallelujah can come out of things that have nothing to do with religion.” But in his final interview, with David Remnick of the New Yorker in 2016, at age 81 and a few months from his death, his comments had everything to do with religion: “One of the great themes of Kabbalistic thought is the thrust of Jewish activity, is the repair of God,” Cohen said. “God, in creating the world, dispersed itself. The creation is a catastrophe. There are pieces of him or her or it that are everywhere. And the specific task of the Jew is to repair the face of God. The prayers are to remind God that it was once a harmonious unity.” But now it is not. God is broken; Creation is broken; humanity is broken. There's so much to fix. And that's why this song resonates everywhere. The Forward article contains a number of versions. For Jews (Including this lovely Hebrew version sung by Israeli soldiers), Christians and green ogres, secular and religious alike. This song is now recited at countless memorial services AND weddings - and bar mitzvahs too. Oh yes, and the occasional Lecha Dodi on Friday nights. It's everywhere, and that is itself a statement of the ultimate Unity that we we seek to forge. A world where weddings and funerals are two sides of the same experience, where broken appearances mask a deep rooted healing. The healing is happening; it just can't be seen. This shattered song makes us all feel less broken. This is what voter suppression looks like Check out this little quiz on the left. It's based on this week's Torah portion of Va-era, which picks up the Exodus narrative from last week's portion. Now. imagine that TBE wants to be sure that you are up to the task of full TBE citizenship before granting you the right to vote. In order to pass - and vote - you have to get ALL of these questions correct. Tell you what - I'm going to give you a huge advantage by making this an open-book test. You can find the portion here. Now, click on the questions to the left to see them more clearly - or click here. Remember, you need to get them all correct. And you have ten minutes to do it. Once you've finished that, check the rest of the pdf to find actual literacy tests given during the Jim Crow era, and see if you would have been able to qualify to vote back then, depending, of course, on your pigmentation. These tests aren't just difficult, they are impossible. With each question from these actual tests, it becomes clearer and clearer just how cynical and diabolical these voter suppression tactics were. They are no less diabolical now. Click here to find 61 current examples of voter suppression. And the enemies of democracy have gotten more bold since this list was compiled. Here is a recent summary, compiled by the ACLU; and here's the Brennan Center for Justice's roundup of new voter suppression laws that have been enacted or are in the works. I mentioned last week that I proudly signed on to a letter endorsed by 800 faith leaders asking the political leadership to prioritize voting rights this coming year. "Faith has always powered civil rights movements, from the 1960s to today," Arndrea Waters King said in a statement from Deliver for Voting Rights about the letter. "Now — as always — the faith community is standing up and making it clear: We simply will not stop until voting rights become a reality,” she added. See the faith leaders' letter here (signatures are alphabetical by first name). The fact that we have slid back to Jim Crow-like tactics is outrageous enough. That these repressive initiatives are being fueled by a Big Lie compounds the sin. Those who cherish our fragile democracy will need to roll up our sleeves as we enter 2022. There is much work ahead of us. As for the Va-era literacy test, you can find the answers here. If you got them all correct, Mazal Tov! Get ready for Bo, Beshallach and Yitro, coming soon to a boarded up polling station near you.  Two Songs of Hope Remember how much we looked forward to turning the page from 2020? As we end 2021, the year that was supposed to be better than 2020 - we're saying the same thing. "Good Riddance Day" was marked this week. But rather than harping on the negative, let's end on a note of hope. Here's David Broza's hit Yihye Tov ("It Will Be Good"), written during the hopeful days of Anwar Sadat and Camp David; it's one of the classic Hebrew songs of all time. And next to it is Amanda Gorman's brand new poem, New Day's Lyric, just released yesterday and uploaded to YouTube only a few hours ago - and just in the nick of time. Read the one while listening to the other; and then reverse them. You'll be doubly vaccinated, and boosted, with hope. It will be better (יהיה טוב) I look out of the window and it makes me very sad, spring has left who knows when it will return. the clown has become a king the prophet has become a clown and I have forgotten the way but I am still here   And it will be better it will be better, yes though I break down sometimes but tonight oh, tonight, I will stay with you.   Children wear wings and fly off to the army and after two years they return without an answer. People live under stress looking for a reason to breathe and between hatred and murder they talk about peace.   And all will be better...   Up there in the sky clouds are learning how to fly and I look up and see a hijacked airplane.   The government and the generals divide the land, into "theirs" and "ours" when will we see the end? Here comes the prince of Egypt oh how I rejoiced for him there are pyramids in (our) eyes and peace in his pipe and we said let's complete (it) and we'll live as brothers and he then said (let's) advance, just go out from the territories.   And all will be better...   I look out of my window to see if all this is real I look out of my window and muttered my prayer more advocacy for wolf and lamb the leopard shall lay down with the goat But in the meantime you keep by the palm of your hand   And all will be better...   I look out of my window maybe a new day will come https://lyricstranslate.com “New Day’s Lyric” May this be the day We come together. Mourning, we come to mend, Withered, we come to weather, Torn, we come to tend, Battered, we come to better. Tethered by this year of yearning, We are learning That though we weren’t ready for this, We have been readied by it. We steadily vow that no matter How we are weighed down, We must always pave a way forward. This hope is our door, our portal. Even if we never get back to normal, Someday we can venture beyond it, To leave the known and take the first steps. So let us not return to what was normal, But reach toward what is next. What was cursed, we will cure. What was plagued, we will prove pure. Where we tend to argue, we will try to agree, Those fortunes we forswore, now the future we foresee, Where we weren’t aware, we’re now awake; Those moments we missed Are now these moments we make, The moments we meet, And our hearts, once all together beaten, Now all together beat. Come, look up with kindness yet, For even solace can be sourced from sorrow. We remember, not just for the sake of yesterday, But to take on tomorrow. We heed this old spirit, In a new day’s lyric, In our hearts, we hear it: For auld lang syne, my dear, For auld lang syne. Be bold, sang Time this year, Be bold, sang Time, For when you honor yesterday, Tomorrow ye will find. Know what we’ve fought Need not be forgot nor for none. It defines us, binds us as one, Come over, join this day just begun. For wherever we come together, We will forever overcome. Have a Shabbat Shalom, and a Happy, Healthy and Hopeful New Year.  Rabbi Joshua Hammerman Temple Beth El 350 Roxbury Road Stamford, Connecticut 06902 203-322-6901 | www.tbe.org    A Conservative, Inclusive, Spiritual Community

Shabbat-O-Gram for January 27

Shabbat-O-Gram

     

Cantor Fishman teaching the art of spiritual chant (niggun) to the TBE Discussion Group havurah last Sunday evening.  For our entire winter album, click here

Shabbat Shalom

This evening, we bring in Shabbat and also enter the month of Shevat, a time to begin literally planting the seeds in anticipation of Spring.  This week's to do list:

- Have you gotten your Temple Rock reservations in yet?

- Join us for services this evening, with guest musician Cantor Ellen Arad joining Cantor Fishman, Assaf Gleizner and myself.

- Join us tomorrow for our main service at 9:30, Shabbat School and Shababimbam, culminating in lunch for everyone!

An Oasis in the Sky

   

Carol King, James Taylor and the Drifters all knew what to do "when this ol' world starts a getting you down." They found comfort and calm "Up on the Roof."  And now, so do I - in the most ironic places: a hospital.  The new Stamford Hospital's upper floors are not entirely placid, and there's a good deal of sadness and pain in those rooms.  But look out the window and see Stamford unfold before you - and then over at the Sound, and the New York skyline in the distance.  The view of Manhattan was other-worldly yesterday afternoon - the photo above doesn't begin to capture how the cloud-directed rays of light from the late afternoon sun turned the miniature, distant skyline into what looked more like a gateway to heaven.  There are also quiet rooms on those upper floors, meant for families and the occasionally hassled clergy, complete with a massage chair.  So thank you to the new Stamford Hospital, and the oasis that can be found up-on-the-top-floors.

Recommended Reads

• This week brought sad news of the passing of TV icon Mary Tyler Moore.  Read how her shows turned the world on to fully imagined Jewish characters.

• Big news from Israel this week: they are moving toward decriminalizing cannabis use. 

• On the other hand, the ultra-Orthodox Shas party has introduced a bill that would lead to the jailing of the Women of the Wall and others who try to pray at the Kotel in a manner not authorized by the ultra-Orthodox rabbinate. Read the Woman of the Wall's response and sign a petition for Prime Minister Netanyahu.

• See also my latest Jewish Week column, "The Elephant in the Room" looks at the demise of Ringling Bros. Circus, which saw attendance decline once they succumbed to pressures brought on by animal rights groups over their treatment of elephants.  Contrast this to the success of elephant-free Cirque du Soleil, which expanded to a Broadway musical this month.  Ringling Bros.' demise is further proof that the power of the purse can prove decisive in asserting values of mutual respect, a reverence for innocence and an unconditional love for the most vulnerable among us. Even for the elephant in the room.

Four Oscar Contenders, One Overwhelming Moral Message

A couple of weeks ago, I announced my Jos-car nominations in this space, looking at the year's best films from a Jewish lens.  I followed up with an analysis of "La La Land," a film often called escapist that is in truth aspirational and transcendent, much like Judaism itself.

Now let's take a look at four other acclaimed films that could not be more timely: "Moonlight," "Hidden Figures," "Loving," and "Fences."

The Academy Awards' diversity problem was somewhat alleviated, as six African American actors received nominations this week, and several films addressing institutional racism both past and present were recognized with major nominations. 

In films like "Moonlight," "Hidden Figures," "Loving," and "Fences," we confront the significant social obstacles faced by a young gay African American coming of age in Miami, three extraordinarily qualified female scientists-of-color in 1960's Virginia, an interracial couple in 1960's Virginia (Virginia evidently, wasn't for Lovers until later) and a hall-of-fame caliber black baseball player from Pittsburgh (Virginia gets a reprieve here) who was denied a chance to fulfill his dreams.

In some cases, these protagonists prevail over the overwhelming odds, and in others, their tragic predicament overwhelms them.  There is biblical precedent for this.

This week's Torah portion of Va-era funnels us through the experience of Israelite slaves struggling to surmount the burdens of unremitting servitude, which, in the words of the Ostrovtzer Rebbe, left the Israelites depressed, drained of their desire for hope and freedom.  They were beaten down, body and soul.  This early twentieth-century rebbe understood the ravages of suffering.  He rejected nearly all of life's pleasures - and fasted for forty years.  The Ten Plagues, seven of which are found in this portion, were intended to instill confidence, lifting the spirits of the Israelites every bit as much as they knocked the Egyptians down to size.

Racism has crushed the American spirit in a similar manner, rendering us numb and helpless as we grope to address a problem that just never seems to go away.  Time never has been able to heal the searing pain from that wound.  The pain exists on all sides.  The wrongs can never totally be righted.

In this new era, where the KKK shows up to rally in support of the Attorney General nominee and the "Small-Caps kkk" is now being accepted in polite company, we need to remind ourselves that the rights gained by the Lovings and their contemporaries are fragile indeed. 

At a time when proven facts are being portrayed as annoying nuisances and the Trump Administration is doubling down on the fraudulent claim of mass voter fraud, these Oscar nominees are proving to be a protective barrier for the American conscience, the only wall we really need to be constructing right now.

If an inquiry is needed into voting irregularities, as President Trump now suggests, then the investigator's eye should be focusing on voter suppression and the fraying Voting Rights Act, rather than on spreading falsehoods about undocumented immigrants.

For that landmark 1965 legislation is all that separates us from a return to the days of rampant discrimination. Take a look at this nearly impossible Louisiana literacy test from 1964, which prevented legions of minorities from being able to vote.  Literacy tests, along with poll taxes and other forms of extra-legal intimidation, were used to deny voting rights to African Americans.  A number of these tests can be found online. 

I'll bet not even the whiz kids of "Hidden Figures" could have passed them.  See how you do.

As Abraham Joshua Heschel pointed out in his landmark address to a conference on religion and race, we read in Genesis that God created different kinds of plants and different kinds of animals. But strikingly, the Creation account does not say that God created different kinds of human beings, of different colors and races; rather it proclaims that God created one single person. From a single human being all are descended, and all humans have been created in God's image.

The pervasive need to address racial discrimination may be an inconvenient truth to some, but, from a Jewish perspective, an overwhelming moral case can be made for vigilance.  And it's a case that cannot be muddled by bogus investigations and "alternative facts."  President Trump likely doesn't realize it, but the fight we are waging is for him and his children - and his grandchildren too. 

Like our ancestors in Egypt, Americans and Jews have lots of emotional scars to overcome.  But the schadenfreude of watching enemies succumb to vermin, frogs and cattle disease will not be nearly enough to save our national soul.  There will be no true victory until all parties can dance together on the shores of the Red Sea.

This quartet of acclaimed films celebrates the indomitable spirit of wounded warriors of an interminable struggle. "Moonlight," "Hidden Figures," "Fences" and "Loving" leave us heartbroken but resolute.  While none of these four movies may be "Best Picture" this year, they are all by far the most indispensable.

View and Share this on Times of Israel site

Shabbat Shalom!

Rabbi Joshua Hammerman

"The King's Speech" - and Moses'

I had the opportunity recently to see the excellent new film, "The King's Speech," detailing the struggles of Britain's King George VI to overcome a serious speech impediment as he asserted himself as England'a new leader just before World War Two. The movie was fascinating on a number of levels, not the least being the parallels to the story of Moses' speech-related struggles as documented in this past week's Torah portion, especially his comment that he is handicapped by "uncircumcised lips" (Exodus 6:12).

I put together a discussion packet which you can access here. We used the packet last week at services. The discussion was illumined by several speech and mental health professionals present. Included in the material I distributed is a collection of traditional and contemporary commentaries, along with a selection from Avivah Zornberg's masterful work on Exodus, "The Particulars of Rapture." Zornberg talks about the "Exile of the Word" regarding how divine messages are received - or not - by the people.

There is a case to be made that it is better for leaders not to be articulate, as it protects the people from succumbing to demagoguery. But at a time when King George needed to go toe to toe with Hitler, who used the power of speech to advance his agenda, the world didn;t have the luxury of a stammering-but-humble British King.

Zornberg brings in an Oedipal dimension to the disability and the parallels between Moses' desire not to displace his older brother Aaron and the crises in the royal family leading to King Edward's abdication are striking. Also we see the lonely struggle of the royal outsider (which Moses was too, as a child) trying to speak in a language his people can understand. The parallels abound. But in the end, kings, prophets, rabbis and all leaders need to find a way to distill the Cry of their generation, the divine imperative, into language that will inform and motivate, unite and galvanize, comfort and cajole, the people.

Text as Art: Wordles

Wordles are word clouds that give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with your friends.

I've created a Wordle for part of this week's portion, Va-Era. Exodus, chapter 8.  The portion covers many of the ten plagues. Once you click on it to enlarge, you'll be able to see the key words clearly and beautifully displayed.  God's name is in the lower left and Moses' up top.  Pharaoh is in light brown and Egypt (Mitzrayim) diagonally down and to the right.  But the word that appears most in the portion, the largest one of all here, is neither God nor Moses nor Pharaoh.  It's Vayomer - "And he said."  The negotiations may have broken down - often! - but they never stopped talking.  Let that be a lesson to all of us.  BTW, frogs (Tzefard'im) are in light blue, just over God's name.

If you look at other Wordles in the gallery, you'll agree with me that the Hebrew language far outshines English in its graphic beauty. If you want to make a Hebrew Wordle of your own, go to http://www.wordle.net/create and paste in a chapter of the Bible, which you can find at http://www.mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt0.htm. When you've created a Wordle, save it to the gallery and let me know where to find it, so we can share it with the congregation. What a great thing to do with your Bar Mitzvah portion! Enjoy!

Meanwhile you can also learn about this portion with our weekly G-dcast. A rousing "Let my people go" kicks of weeks of frogs and hail and boils, but Rabbi Katie Mizrahi explains that those weren't even the REAL plagues.




Parshat Va'eira from G-dcast.com

More Torah cartoons at www.g-dcast.com