Author: Rabbi Michael Farbman

Happy New year! May 2012 bring you all much joy and happiness – and a little fewer snow days than last year! 🙂

Together with Lew Shaffer and Bruce Spiewak I have recently attended the Union for Reform Judaism biennial in Washington, DC. The program was absolutely terrific, as always – with multiple engaging sessions, services, music and camaraderie of some 6000 reform Jews from all over the United States, as well as Israel and the UK. For the first time in our movement’s history, President Obama addressed the gathering – and if you haven’t seen his address yourself, I strongly recommend taking a look at urj.org/biennial11 – the website where videos of many of the main sessions are available.

One of the main initiatives unveiled at this historic meeting was the Campaign for Youth Engagement. It is a comprehensive attempt to address the continued trend of disengagement of teens from Jewish life and the synagogue past their bar/bat mitzvah. The campaign will attempt to better understand the reality – and to address it directly. It will not be easy. It will not be simple. It will most likely not be straight forward… But unless we address this issue head on, we are ignoring one of the biggest threats to the Jewish community in the 21^st century.

I am extremely proud of our movement and I look forward to engaging with members and leaders at Temple Emanuel in trying to find ways to better serve our teens and our families. It is not a secret that I have a dream that we will once again have a very strong and vibrant, self-dependant youth group soon. Much has already been achieved and I am very proud of all our teens and parent volunteers have accomplished in the last two years, but we still have a long way to go.

One of the strongest Jewish identity builders in children is Jewish camp. Study after study shows that a few weeks at camp often do more to foster a positive Jewish identity than many other things we do. Needless to say, a summer spent at Jewish camp combined with Jewish education received at the synagogue and involvement in the life of the community throughout the year is an excellent idea! As you know, for the past two years I have served on the faculty of Camp Eisner – most rabbis, cantors and educators take turns in spending 2 weeks at camp, teaching the kids and providing wonderful Jewish experiences. Last year 4 kids from Temple Emanuel attended the Eisner/Crane Lake camps, all returning home with renewed sense of Jewish belonging and I am hoping that this year the numbers will be even greater.

First time campers are eligible for a $1000 incentive grant from the Foundation for Jewish Camping and Temple Emanuel offers additional scholarship through the David Nevis Fund. If you are interested in sending your children to a sleep-away Jewish camp, please speak to me or pick up a brochure at the Temple. I would also like to encourage those of you who would like to support the TE kids going to Jewish camp in the summer to consider the David Nevis Fund when making your next donation in honor or in memory of someone. Whether it is through Camp Eisner/Crane Lake, or a local Camp Laurelwood, I sincerely hope that you will start dreaming of a Jewish camp – even though it’s only January!

There is a wonderful Chasidic story about a boy who did not know how to pray – so the rabbi advised him to recite the letters of the Hebrew alef bet. When someone protested that this would not help, the rabbi suggested that as long as the boy said the letters and put his heart and his soul in it, then God will surely put the letters in the right order… Our tradition constantly reminds us that we have to try and have both the kavannah, the intention to pray, and the keva, the formal liturgy. We struggle to bring both together, realizing that it is not always possible – and yet we try… In today’s world we also struggle with having the right balance of Hebrew and English, of music and readings, of stories and intellectual lessons. Sometimes the balance comes naturally to us, yet so often we have to make an effort to get it right.

Over the last two years I have heard many stories about various services with Rabbi Jerry at Temple Emanuel – especially from those who grew up in the congregation and attended the family services. As is often the case, there were plenty of adults who made sure they came on Friday of the family service – to hear the story, to see the wonder in the eyes of the children, to experience the joy of Shabbat in a slightly different way. As our school welcomes new young children, as we begin to have babies and young children around once again, the ritual committee has asked me to re-institute the Inter-generational Family Services at Temple Emanuel. This innovative service will be child-centered, and not just child-welcoming (as all TE services are, of course). It will be a little shorter, introduce the ‘visual tefilah’ that we have been using at our Hebrew school with much success, and will contain a story in place of a sermon – but it will also retain the full service structure and allow the mourners to say kaddish at the end. It will begin at 6.30pm, to allow more families with young children to come. To make it easier to remember when this special Shabbat service occurs, it will take place on the first Friday of every month, beginning on January 6, 2012 at 6.30 pm. (This will be the new ‘early service’, the second week of the month will return to the regular 8pm time as of January). If you have young children or grandchildren – this service is for you! I look forward to seeing you and your descendants at least once a month J. If you don’t have little children – please don’t feel that you have to stay away – the young children NEED to see adults praying, and the adults NEED to see the children learn their way around the synagogue.

As you may have noticed, our wonderful new prayerbook, MIshkan Tefilah, has arrived! We have used it for Sukkot and Simchat Torah services, as well as for Shabbat between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur – and now we are ready to start using it on a regular basis. As you may remember from my previous columns, the Mishkan Tefilah is not a replacement for TE ‘blue’ prayerbook, but is a wonderful addition that will enhance our prayer experience alongside our current siddur. After a thoughtful discussion at the recent Ritual Committee meeting, a following schedule has been agreed: on the first and the third Shabbat of the month we will use Mishkan Tefilah, on the second and fourth Shabbat we will use the ‘blue’ TE prayerbook. We will also continue to use the loose-leaf prayerbook for the musical Shabbat services! I suggest that to avoid confusion we will keep the Mishkan Tefilah (MT) prayerbooks on the shelf outside the sanctuary and bring them in for the assigned services, while the ‘blue’ books will remain in the usual place inside the chairs. If you are not too sure what book to use – just ask your neighbor! J Just remember – the book is only there to help us along the journey of prayer, so no matter what book you are holding on any given Shabbat, it is your voices and your prayers that matter the most!

I would like to wish you all a happy and joyous Chanukah and I look forward to celebrating it with you on December 23^rd with our phenomenal Musical Shabbat Chanukah!