Chai Lines
International Northeast Region
Women's League
for Conservative Judaism
Networking to Engage, Enrich, and Empower Conservative Jewish Women
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September 19, 2019 Volume 3, Issue 29
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FROM THE REGION PRESIDENT--JOAN LOWENSTEIN
This week we spotlight our guest columnist, Region Torah Fund Vice President, Marilyn Cohen.
Marilyn has shared some thoughts with us about the High Holyday season as well as some important information about Torah Fund.
We are fortunate to have Marilyn in our region as she is as dedicated as they come. Thank you for all of your hard work, Marilyn.
Wishing you all a meaningful and peaceful Shabbat and Selichot,
Joan
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FROM THE TORAH FUND V.P. -- MARILYN COHEN
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The 2019-2020 Torah Fund Campaign,
Chesed,
Is Underway
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Well, summer is almost officially over, and we are anxiously looking forward to our High Holiday season. We are now into the Hebrew month of Elul, which is the last month of the Jewish year and the final month prior to Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. Elul is the month in which to spiritually prepare for the High Holidays through reflection and repentance.
It is traditionally a time of introspection and personal stock-taking, known in Hebrew as
cheshbon hanefesh - literally "an accounting of the soul." This process is conducted in preparation for Rosh Hashanah when, Jewish tradition teaches, all of humanity is called to account and a divine judgment is issued. The customs associated with Elul are all intended to help cultivate the proper mindset for this preparation.
Elul is also a time to begin the process of asking forgiveness for wrongs done to other people. As we begin a new year, the positive side of the Elul experience is deepening relationships and recommitting to family and friends. The yearly process of forgiveness is one requirement that allows these relationships to grow and mature.
Perhaps the best-known Elul tradition is the blowing of the
shofar every weekday after morning services. As on Rosh Hashanah, the daily
shofar blasts are intended to rouse us from complacency and jolt us into repentance.
It is also customary to recite Psalm 27, which speaks of the assurance of God's protection and includes a plea that God not forsake his people, daily during the month of Elul.
Some Jewish communities also begin reciting the penitential prayers known as
Selichot at the beginning of Elul, though the most common Ashkenazi custom is to recite them only in the days immediately preceding Rosh Hashanah.
One of the best-known teachings about Elul is that the four Hebrew letters of the month's name are an acronym from the verse in Song of Songs:
Ani l'dodi v'dodi li ("I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine."). Song of Songs is understood to be an allegory in which the lovers are God and Israel. Elul is thus understood to be a time of recommitting to our relationship with God.
It is also a time to recommitting to our goal of supporting our Conservative/Masorti institutions of higher learning and their students, through our Torah Fund Campaign.
The best way to do this is at the higher levels of Torah Fund donations for which one receives a Torah Fund Pin as a gift of thanks.
The 5780 (2019-2020) Torah Fund pin depicts a heart surrounded by three circles, one larger than the rest. This symbolizes the heart of kindness (
Chesed), which Jews enact in ever-widening realms of generosity: from family, to community, to the larger world; from North America, to Israel, to the world; or from Sisterhood, to Region, to the larger world of Women's League for Conservative Judaism. And as it says in Psalm 89, "may we build a world of kindness."
Torah Fund Chairs and Sisterhood Presidents - please encourage your members to proudly wear the Chesed Torah Fund pin at High Holiday services and every Shabbat thereafter. Pins may be given out prior to the holidays and the money can be collected later. Whether your members pay in installments or all at once doesn't matter as long as accurate records are kept of all pledges and payments. Don't forget to call last year's higher donors to thank them for their past gift and ask if they will support Torah Fund again this year.
Torah Fund Chairs: Have you included the picture and explanation of the Chesed pin along you're your contact information in your synagogue bulletin? You can order printed materials, Tribute Cards, brochures, etc. from the Torah Fund office and have them readily available at all meetings or programs. The website
www.jts.edu/torahfund has been updated with an array of Torah Fund materials that you can download. Be sure to refer to the Torah Fund Campaign Guide 2019-2020 which is very useful. It includes everything you need to know about the Torah Fund Campaign including a timeline, sample speeches and solicitation letters and how to request a student speaker from JTS.
It has been a pleasure speaking with all the Torah Fund Chairs in our International Northeast Region. Please let me know of any upcoming Torah Fund events that I might be able to attend and say a few words about our annual campaign and how vital it is in supporting our five Conservative seminaries around the world.
I would like to wish all the dedicated women in our region a happy and healthy New Year and a very successful Torah Fund year ahead.
Shanah Tovah U'Metukah,
Marilyn Cohen, Torah Fund VP
International Northeast Region
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FROM WOMEN'S LEAGUE FOR
CONSERVATIVE
JUDAISM
Networking to engage,
enrich and empower
Conservative Jewish Women
Shabbat Message:"Three Funerals and a Birth"
By Agnes Emert, WLCJ Vice President
 Two of my relatives passed away in the past two months. As he was 5 years older, my cousin and I did not interact much growing up, but I did spend many years of summers and holidays with his younger siblings and their mother, well into our young adulthood. Then life, distance, and procrastination intervened. At the time of his funeral, about 15 years had passed since any of us had seen or spoken to one another. I learned many things about the life my cousin led. He was a good friend and boss, a loving husband and father to whom family meant everything. His sons and son-in-laws worked with him and would now carry on his legacy. Some of his siblings I did not recognize. There were husbands, children and grandchildren I had never met. We hugged and kissed, exchanged emails, and promised to keep in touch. Will we? I don't know. For some days, I felt simultaneously very sad - heartache-y - and glad. Melancholy as memories of shared occasions long, long ago fought with all the times never shared. Glad because it was so very nice to know they were.
As we live in the same city, we only chatted with my cousin (thrice removed) at major events of my distant relatives, most recently at a wedding over a year ago. When we heard he was in the hospital, my husband convinced me we should go. Both he and his wife were very surprised but appreciative to see us. While I didn't really want to go to his funeral, again, my husband pressed. I was glad. Most of his relatives were out of town and so few of us were in attendance.
Most recently, a very dear acquaintance passed away suddenly. That is, it was sudden for me, as I did not know she had been ill - I was not a friend. I did know her to be soft spoken and direct, caring, honest, supportive, and genuine as she counseled me from time to time. I was not surprised at the capacity-filled chapel, I was not surprised by the outpouring of love and honor as Rabbis, Cantors, relatives, and friends spoke. I learned many things about the life she led - her passion for the Dodgers, family, friends, and shul (I think, in that order); her no-nonsense advice that everyone sought; her generosity of time, money, and heart. She was dearly beloved. Selfishly, I reflected on the life I lived.
My husband asked me what I was writing about for this article. I told him "funerals and how they evoke the past." "Oh good," he said, "I think funerals look to the future, our tradition has a wonderful way of keeping alive our past - naming our children." And he's right. Our grandson's Hebrew name is Yitzhak, my father-in-law of blessed memory. Levi will know his great-grandfather - that, although he lost his first wife and children and was held prisoner during the War, he never lost his faith and love of Judaism; how he kept the holidays and traditions, privately, in their apartment in Russia when it was dangerous to do so; his courage and strength to emigrate in his 60s so his son can have a better life, marry, have children and grandchildren - Levi.
I look forward to Yom Kippur. While considered the holiest and most solemn day of the year, for me, it is one of hope and joy, of contentment and peace. Now is the time to reflect on the life I live. Now is the time to take stock of all my "sins," especially those of omissions, those unsaid and undone. Now is the time to mourn our lost friends and family - yes, lost conservations, lost hugs, lost memories to make. Now is the time to mourn lost opportunities for kindness, understanding, and assistance. And, no matter how difficult, beforehand, I must ask forgiveness and forgive in return.
God willing, afterward, I am at peace with the world and of my place in it. I am content with the "content" of my blessed life. I am filled with joy for the sparkling clean, pure New Year, and bursting with hope for the possibilities.
Convention 2020 is Coming!
Mishnah Berakhot THURSDAY!
 Rabbi Pamela Barmash, Ph.D., has served on the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards of the Rabbinical Assembly since 2003 and on the Joint Beit Din of the Conservative Movement since 2008. She is co-chair of the new Disabilities Inclusion Committee of the Rabbinical Assembly. She served as the rabbi at Temple Shaare Tefilah, Norwood, Massachusetts, for eight years, and she taught at the Conservative Yeshiva in Jerusalem for many summers. She received her B.A. from Yale, rabbinic ordination from the Jewish Theological Seminary, and Ph.D. from Harvard. Rabbi Barmash is professor of Hebrew Bible at Washington University in St. Louis and has served as director of Jewish, Islamic and Near Eastern Studies there. She has been a fellow at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, and at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton. In her rabbinic writing, she wants to inspire more Jews to observe more mitzvot, and she is the author of teshuvot (rabbinic papers) on contemporary issues in Judaism. In her academic scholarship, she addresses issues of law and justice in her book Homicide in the Biblical World and shows how Jews have transformed the story of the Exodus and the celebration of Passover to meet changing needs and concerns in Exodus in the Jewish Experience: Echoes and Reverberations.
No previous study will be needed to join the Zoom calls, just prior registration. Call-in information will be sent upon registering - Please refrain from joining the call until a half hour before the session. This program is open to registered Women's League members only.
Not a member yet? Become an Individual Member here!
Make sure to register for all individual sessions in order to take the full course.
Mishnah Berakhot, Chapter Four: Livin' on a Prayer with Rabbi Ellen S. Wolintz-Fields will be on Thursday, November 21, 2019, 8:00 p.m., EST - Register for this session here!
Just Announced! THREE new sessions have been added to Listen, Pray, Think: A Journey through Mishnah Berakhot!
Videos of all previous sessions are available under the Members Only section of our website.
Women's League Reads
 We are pleased to announce that The Flight Portfolio, a historical novel set in 1940 in occupied France, will be the next featured selection of Women's League Reads.
Members are invited to our Live-Interview with the author,
Julie Orringer,
on
Monday, November 18, 2019,
at
12 Noon,
EST. (Instructions to join the Zoom conference call will be sent in advance. The interview will be recorded.)
A surprising Holocaust hero, Varian Fry, isn't well known, although he has left a memoir, had a biographer, and was the first American to be recognized by Yad Vashem as a "Righteous Gentile." He is credited with saving more than 1,000 lives. With vivid characters and cloak-and-dagger plot twists, the novel relates Fry's mission, as agent for the U.S-based Emergency Rescue Committee, to find safe passage for important Jewish artists and philosophers who have fled Germany or Poland to occupied France, yet remain under imminent threat of handoff by the Vichy regime to the Nazis.
Fry shelters a group of artists at a run-down villa near Marseille, and plans the flight to safety of Marc and Bella Chagall, Hannah Arendt, and hundreds more on his "list" by bribing, counterfeiting, and plotting for their escapes through Spain or Lisbon to distant ports. The young Fry, age 32, must contend with some who are reluctant to be saved, making the risky bet that their fame will protect them - and with the U.S. State Department, which, save for one rogue official, is at odds with Fry and resists granting visas to those who need to enter.
Resourceful "real" figures such as Peggy Guggenheim help through their wealth and connections, and his motley crew of clever staff and allies outsmart the French, the Nazis, and the U.S. government, while tragically losing a few clients. Many of the female characters who aid and abet him, mostly real historic figures, are terrifically clever and outspoken.
Within the larger drama are internal struggles: Fry as a closeted and married gay man (the author's educated guess) is pictured in a fraught romantic relationship. Fry also is challenged to admit to the moral ambiguity of his rescue mission, which ranks people as worthy of being saved as correlated to their perceived brilliance and fame.
The novel, published by Knopf in May 2019, is 575 pages in hardcover, and available in e-reader and audible formats.
Ms Orringer is an oft-awarded writer of short stories and a prior Holocaust-themed novel,
The Invisible Bridge, a New York Times best-seller.
WL Reads is a member-benefit program of Women's League. Those who have joined the group will receive directions for the Live Interview several weeks ahead. To join, write to Lois Silverman at lsilverman@wlcj.org with your Sisterhood name or individual WLCJ member ID.
Personal Conversation with WLCJ and Sharsheret
When Life Gets Interrupted: Offering Support to Someone Facing Illness - Tuesday, September 24, 2019, at 7:30 p.m., Eastern time. Register here!
Join Women's League and Sharsheret for a Personal Conversation on how to offer support to a loved one facing illness on Tuesday, September 24, at 7:30 p.m., Eastern time. Call-in information will be sent upon registering.
 Melissa K. Rosen, Sharsheret's Director of National Outreach, has a master's degree in Jewish Communal Service from Brandeis University and has been working in the non-profit sector for 30 years. Her professional experience includes informal education, advocacy, and community outreach. Melissa's work has allowed her to facilitate unique and lasting connections among organizations in the diverse American Jewish community.
Melissa oversees outreach efforts throughout the country, amplifying Sharsheret's reach and connecting as many as possible to the support and resources of Sharsheret. Herself a breast cancer survivor, she is passionate about the Jewish community and cancer support and advocacy.
5780 Calendar Diary
Rosh Hashanah 5780 begins September 30 - don't forget to purchase your copy of our 5780 Calendar Diary for just $10!
Weekly Words of Torah goes PC (Parashah and Chesed) - Parashat Ki Tavo
The topics discussed in this week's Torah Reading,
P
arashat Ki Tavo, are the following: Moses instructed the Israelites on how to build the Altar; commandment to write a Sefer Torah, Torah scroll; the blessings and curses.
Parashat Ki Tavo, in Deuteronomy 26:12, reminds us of obligation to take care of "the stranger, the parent-less, and the widow." A Chesed idea for Parashat Ki Tavo is to raise awareness of Neve Hanna, in Kiryat Gat, established in 1973 under the dynamic leadership of Hanni Ullman, a veteran Israeli educator and recipient of the prestigious President's Award for Volunteerism. Neve Hanna is named for Hanna Kaplan, a Holocaust survivor who bequeathed money to Hanni to create a family-style home for children in distress. Neve Hanna is a home for children who were removed from their homes due to physical and psychological violence, neglect and sexual abuse, and now live in family-like units grouped according to age. The current co-Presidents of American Friends of Neve Hanna are our very own Women's League International Past President, Janet Tobin, and her husband Irwin Tobin. (Ironically, Parashat Ki Tavo teaches the mitzvah that one should write one's own Torah, and Neve Hanna has recently embarked on a project to write a Sefer Torah for Neve Hanna.) Parashat Ki Tavo speaks about welcoming the stranger: for example, one who is not familiar with the community. Make a phone tree to call all the new Sisterhood members and synagogue members who have joined your community over the last two years. Reaching out to new people in your Sisterhood and synagogue are important acts of Chesed. Also, for Parashat Ki Tavo, a Chesed idea is to see what is being done for immigrants in your community. Find out if there is a program run by HIAS, Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society in your area that your sisterhood can get involved in.
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MORE GOOD NEWS WANTED
Toot your own horn.
Tell us what is going on in your Sisterhood.
Tell us what is successful in your Sisterhood.
Email Lois Silverman, Chai Line editor, at
and she'll share your news.
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NEED HELP?
HELP IS AVAILABLE ON THE WLCJ WEBSITE.
Programs, membership ideas, education material, and more available at wlcj.org
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