HaKol The Voice of the Pelham Jewish Center
January, 2022 Tevet/Shvat 5782
|
|
 |
Leadership Messages
Rabbi Resnick
Education Director
Ana Turkienicz
President's Message
David Haft
Editor's Message
Barbara Saunders-Adams
|
|
|
|
Congregant News
& Donations
Book Notes
Barbara Saunders-Adams
Food For Thought
Share a Simcha
High Holiday Donations
Tributes & Donations
|
|
|
|
Like all venerable institutions, the Jewish Theological Seminary -- where I was ordained -- is rich with lore. One of the more poignant tales I know of concerns the 1968 birthday of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel. Heschel, who died only four years later, was -- among many other things -- a very important figure at the Seminary, and so the Seminary’s leadership wanted to throw him a birthday party. When they asked him what he would like them to do in his honor, Heschel said that all he wanted was for the Seminary to invite his friend and colleague,
Martin Luther King, to speak to the students and faculty. And so it was. King spoke at the Seminary in January (Heschel was born on January 11) – an event that, sadly, was likely somewhat controversial at the time. The friends celebrated together, no doubt strengthening their bond and recommitting themselves to their shared goals. But, King would be assassinated three months after that. And the Seminary turned out to be the last place he spoke in public. Or so the story goes at JTS.
Admittedly, I don’t know if this is strictly accurate. Like a lot of Seminary stories, it has a certain mythic ring to it. It is certainly the case that Heschel and King were friends, and it is also true that King spoke at the Seminary in honor of Heschel’s birthday in January of 1968, shortly before his death. Whether or not Heschel’s birthday party was -- in fact -- his final speaking engagement, I’m not sure.
It has always seemed likely to me that a busy person like King would’ve had other events on the calendar between January and April, and I remember thinking about it when I first heard the story. However, like a lot of tales, this one follows its own, idiosyncratic logic. Over several years of sporadic investigations, I have been unable to confirm it one way or the other. But it is a story told with reverence at JTS, a mark of pride that ours was -- tragically -- the final institution to elevate King’s voice. And I do like to think that if King was to be silenced early, he got to speak one last time at place so thoroughly animated by the prophets he loved, at a great bastion of the ancient visionaries, our ancestors, who said, “Let justice roll on like water, righteousness like an unfailing stream!”
Speaking five years earlier, Heschel famously said:
"At the first conference on religion and race, the main participants were Pharaoh and Moses. Moses’ words were: 'Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, let My people go that they may celebrate a feast to Me.' While Pharaoh retorted: 'Who is the Lord, that I should heed this voice and let Israel go? I do not know the Lord, and moreover I will not let Israel go.' The outcome of that summit meeting has not come to an end. Pharaoh is not ready to capitulate. The exodus began, but is far from having been completed. In fact, it was easier for the children of Israel to cross the Red Sea than for a Negro to cross certain university campuses. Let us dodge no issues. Let us yield no inch to bigotry, let us make no compromise with callousness."
While it is true that progress has been made since then, it is also true that much blood has been spilled. While it is true that Pharaoh may in some ways be weakened, it is also true that he has by no means been vanquished. Our vigilance must continue. Our conversations must continue. And, like Heschel and King, we need to always tighten the bonds of our friendships with those who are like us -- and with those who are different from us -- with our neighbors and with those who live thousands of miles away. These bonds may fray, they may be assailed by forces of violence and prejudice and myopia, but they must never be broken. And we must always recommit ourselves. We must say early and often, “We will not let them break.”
This year, the PJC will join with St. John Paul and Clement Episcopal Church on Thursday, January 27th, at 6:15 p.m. to celebrate the legacy of friendship left behind by Heschel and King. Rev. Petero Sabune will be in conversation with one another about their life and work, and we will all have the opportunity to deepen our relationship with our good friends in Mt. Vernon, with whom we march every year in honor of Michael Schwerner. I hope you will join us on Zoom for Building Bridges of Friendship.
Brachot,
Rabbi Benjamin Resnick
Ben
|
|
Education Director's Message |
|
וְהִגַּדְתָּ֣ לְבִנְךָ֔ בַּיּ֥וֹם הַה֖וּא לֵאמֹ֑ר בַּעֲב֣וּר זֶ֗ה עָשָׂ֤ה יְהֹוָה֙ לִ֔י בְּצֵאתִ֖י מִמִּצְרָֽיִם׃
And you shall explain to your child on that day, ‘It is because of what the LORD did for me when I went free from Egypt.’ (Exodus 13:8-9)
At the Learning Center’s Monthly Faculty Meetings, we begin by studying the weekly Torah Portion. In our last meeting, the Faculty looked into this verse, from Parashat Bo. We grappled with the question: Why do we remember the Exodus from Egypt - Yetzyiat Mitzrayim - so many times during our daily prayers as well as in our Kiddush for Shabbat? Why is the Exodus story, and especially the liberation from slavery, from Mitzrayim (which can also be translated as our narrow places) such a central focus in Judaism and in Jewish Liturgy?
The LC teachers shared insights from their own personal lives - such as overcoming profound challenges and looking back and feeling grateful for being alive or experiencing family gatherings and personal moments of joy. The teachers added: “We are always leaving Mitzrayim, Egypt, in a certain way. This helps us empathize with others: we were slaves in Egypt, we cannot forget that”. The teachers also noted the different approaches in our liturgy to two pivotal moments in our narrative: the moment of liberation, Yetziat Mitzrayim - leaving Egypt - and Matan Torah - receiving the Torah. Somehow our liturgy recalls with more frequency the liberation moment - as if the idea of "coming out from Egypt" receives more emphasis than the moment of receiving the Torah. Perhaps that teaches us to be more compassionate, and always remember: we once were slaves and strangers in a strange land.
For our students and their families, the pandemic is a kind of Mitzrayim, a narrow place - and the end of the pandemic might resemble the feeling of coming out of Egypt. The Israelites needed to be free in order to be able to serve G-d - and then receive the Torah. We are commanded to value our freedom and our ability to celebrate our traditions, strengthen our community and teach our children to appreciate what we have. Inspired by our texts and our ancestors, we celebrate our freedom, and pass along our traditions and values.
This text study framed our conversation about the importance of teaching our students about MLK Day as well as about the great friendship between Abraham Joshua Heschel and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Rabbi Heschel was a Jewish theologian and philosopher
with a social conscience that led him to participate in the civil rights movement. Considered “one of the truly great men of his day” and a “great prophet” by Reverend
Martin Luther King, A.J. Heschel articulated to many Jewish Americans and African Americans the notion that they had a responsibility for each other’s liberation and for the plight of all suffering fellow humans around the world (“Conversation with Martin Luther King,” 2).
As we educate the new generation for the future of Judaism in the world - in Israel and in America - we want to take on the values that inspired A.J Heschel and others in his
generation, including Mike Schwerner, a Pelham native, to fight for equal justice and against any form of racism. Our Youth group, Gesher, under the leadership of Itai Shrell-Fox, will be devoting a day of learning about the plight of African Americans as well as of the Jews of Color, both in the US and in Israel. Recently, our Lomdim B’Yachad students learned from Morah Linda Rosenblatt about the history of the Jewish Community of Ethiopia and cooked one of their kitchen staples, Atakilt Wat. They also learned about the strong connection between one of the PJC’s founding members, Graenum Berger, and his efforts to help bring the Ethiopian Jews to Israel. The students saw an authentic and ancient Ethiopian Book of Psalms, handwritten on goat skin in Amharic, which was originally gifted by a representative from the Ethiopian community to Graenum Berger and passed onto our community after his death.
Our BMitzvah students, Josie Kagan, Daniela Haberman and Madison Glick, learned about and created a powerful presentation about Rabbi A.J. Heschel and
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and their work together as leaders in the Civil Rights Movement. They connected the discrimination we have faced as Jews throughout history, to the racism Blacks have faced in our country. They will present their work to the whole LC in our commemoration of MLK Day during the whole-school Kabbalat Shabbat. The presentation is part of their work towards earning badges on Jewish learning and Jewish leadership.
Inspired by our developing partnership with the Church of Saints John, Paul and Clement, from Mount Vernon, which started from the first Memorial March in honor of
Mike Schwerner two years ago, succeeded by an Interfaith Torah study session on Shavuot last year and a second March this past November, we are looking into ways to expand the connections between the two communities and incorporate more opportunities to grow our relationship with other communities of faith. These will include an upcoming conversation between Rabbi Benjamin Resnick and Reverend Petero Sabune about
Dr Martin Luther King Jr and A.J. Heschel, as well as a possible joint program between the teens of both communities.
One of these initiatives will be leading a new teen interfaith partnership with other faith-based communities in Pelham, facilitated by Project Community, a Pelham based organization. On February 15, we will be launching our first event, a pilot program for juniors and seniors in High School. This first pilot will connect 3-4 teens from each community of faith to learn about self awareness, and management of anxiety, issues affecting teens and young adults in all communities. Teens will learn how through raising self-awareness they can identify key issues they are facing in their own communities and step up for themselves and others. We are looking for juniors and seniors that could form the first cohort of this interfaith initiative, and will lead the way for others.
We are looking forward to continued collaboration with our neighboring communities of faith as we help each other navigate the new challenges we encounter while living through a two-year pandemic and the rising tensions between different groups in our country.
As a spiritual community, we believe that we can find paths of understanding and join forces to equip our children, youth and families with tools to be resilient and strengthened. There is more that connects us than what divides us, and the ancestral message of Judaism - V'ahavta l’reacha Kamocha - Love your neighbor as yourself - stands with us as we continue to strive for a better world for future generations. Our children and teens' lives have been substantially impacted by the ongoing pandemic, and the consequences of it are yet to be determined; what we know is that the social isolation and the loneliness caused by the pandemic are greatly impacting their mental health and social skills development.
When reflecting about our teen years, how we spent our time and enjoyed our friendships, we can imagine how our teens’ lives have been upended by the constant need to keep socially distanced and interact while having their faces covered with masks, fearing for their health and of their grandparents and friends, among other issues. We are now just touching the tip of the iceberg that will have dire consequences for this generation in the future. That’s why we are partnering with Project Community and other neighboring faith-based organizations hoping that together we can help our teens gain tools to manage and improve their mental health and become wellness ambassadors for their friends, in school and in college. If you know a teen that could be a good candidate for our first cohort, please let us know.
The Learning Center strongly believes in the power of community to build resiliency and improve the mental health of all our families and children. We strive to offer a safe and welcoming environment where our children can grow, make new friendships and learn about the power of Jewish tradition to make our lives more meaningful, spiritually richer and our relationships stronger. We are looking forward to increased family participation in our upcoming programs, which include our Shabbat Mishpachah on January 22, and our First Friday Kabbalat Shabbat planned for February 4. Remember: showing up is already 90% of the work!
With that, we would like to offer our deepest gratitude to all who have been supporting our work in these challenging times: Rabbi Ben Resnick, David Haft, PJC President,
Mike Teitelbaum, our Education Chair, Mitch Cepler, our Treasurer,
Dr. Deborah Korenstein, our COVID-19 advisor, Dan Kushnick, the House Chair,
Julia Coss and Adam Bukowski, among many others. And most importantly, to our dedicated and amazing teachers and madrichim, who day in and out look into ways to offer joyful, meaningful and fun Jewish learning for all our children and their families, in person, online and in hybrid form.
Wishing each and everyone much health and joy,
Ana
|
|
Fellow Congregants,
More than anything else, we continue to struggle with the disruptions of the COVID crisis. We are all familiar with these sudden changes in schedules, canceling planned events and the inadequacy of remote learning. It does not need further discussion other than to let you know that Rabbi Resnick and the Executive Committee are reviewing our policies on a weekly basis to protect the health of the congregation and the life of the PJC.
On a positive note, we will be receiving a bequest from the estate of Les Rosenberg z’l. Les was very dedicated to our synagogue and to Jewish life and will continue to contribute to the PJC through this gift. Once it is received, we will be announcing all the details to the congregation. In advance, I want to express for myself and the community our gratitude to the Rosenberg family.
This January, First Friday was canceled due to the advisor on Omicron but we will reschedule for February, so please stay tuned and once the date is set, please come!
David
|
|
A Message from the Editor of HaKol
|
|
Friends,
בשלח
B'Shalach contains one of my favorite poems, "The Song of the Sea". It is one of the oldest parts of the Torah and easy to find because it is indented like a poem. There are three columns, so reading the page seems as if you are crossing the sea from right to left. When I taught at the Learning Center, I liked to point this out to my students both in the siddur and in the Torah scroll.
We sing Shirat HaYam, The Song of the Sea, every Shabbat. A shir is a song or poem. I named my daughter, Shira. In fact, this particular Shabbat is called Shabbat Shira.
Since I was a girl, I've enjoyed reading and writing poetry. One of my 2022 New Year resolutions is to write poetry again. So, this week's parashah, B'Shalach has special meaning for me. I hope you will find it beautiful and meaningful, too.
Tu B'Shvat begins tonight at sundown. Tu B'Shvat, the "birthday" of fruit trees in Israel, is a minor festival. The name is Hebrew for the 15th of the month of Shevat.
Although it is frigid outside, Spring is on the horizon. Happy Tu B'Shvat.
Barbara
|
|
Murder in Jerusalem
by Batya Gur
Batya Gur's sixth and last Inspector
Michael Ohayon mystery, Murder in Jerusalem, introduces a cast of quirky characters in an Israeli television studio. It is a "literary" mystery that brings into question the very ideals upon which Ohayon - and indeed the Israeli nation - was raised. Ideals that may have led to murderous crimes.
The cleverness in solving the investigation of the deaths at Israel Television is the least of the strengths of this rich, novelistic mystery.
The focus is on character and motivation -- Inspector Michael Ohayon's inner conflicts, his griping competitive team, the egos of journalists, actors, writers, directors and editors of the newsroom. Taken together, the narrative becomes an excavation into the different layers of Israeli society.
Another important aspect of Murder in Jerusalem is the emphasis on the loyalty of childhood friendships and the ties that bind friends who have fought together in the IDF - the Israeli Defense forces. It plays a crucial role in solving the crimes at Israel television.
Barbara
|
|
Tikkun Olam
Repair the World
If you see what needs to be repaired
and how to repair it,
then you have found a piece of the world
that God has left for you to complete.
But, if you only see what is wrong and
what is ugly in the world,
then it is you yourself that needs repair.
-- Menachem Mendel Schneerson
|
|
"Share a Simcha" allows congregants to share their news with our PJC community. Please submit news about family members -- engagements, births, job updates, kid achievements, community acknowledgements and any other milestones -- to our Communications Director, Barbara Saunders-Adams.
. Wishing the whole PJC Community health, happiness and friendship in 2022.
Simcha is a regular HaKol feature, so keep your news and updates coming!
|
|
Donations to the PJC from...
- Martin Dvorkin, in honor of Michael & Michelle Dvorkin
- Adam & Jennifer Gerber, in memory of Jennifer's grandmother -- and Ava & Max's great-grandmother -- Marie Fong
- Donald & Marie Amoruso, in memory of their long-time friend, Les Rosenberg
Donations to the Rabbi's Discretionary Fund from...
- Martin & Meryl Druckerman, in honor of the engagement of Ed & Paula Geller's daughter, Heather
- Martin & Meryl Druckerman, in honor of Jack Klebanow becoming a grandfather
- Dana Wellesly-Stein & Bradley Levine, in support of the PJC's projects and programs
-
Daniel Rubock & Amy Hersh, in memory of the first Yahrzeit of Dan's father, Samuel Rubock
At any time, if you wish to pay by check, please make it payable to "The Pelham Jewish Center" and mail it to our bookkeeping firm at: The Pelham Jewish Center, P.O. Box 418, Montvale, NJ 07645.
All donations to the Rabbi's Discretionary Fund, at any time throughout the year, should be made payable to "The Pelham Jewish Center -- Rabbi's Discretionary Fund" and mailed directly to Julia Coss at the PJC office. Thank you!
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
