I often talk about the importance of transitions in Judaism: the threshold marked with a mezuza, the start of Shabbat marked with candles and kiddush, the end of Shabbat marked with Havdalah ceremony and so on. The new beginnings are to be celebrated with much joy and excitement, but so are the endings! In fact it’s the endings that often deserve that much more joy. A siyum is the completion of any unit of Torah study, or book of the Mishnah or Talmud. A siyum is usually followed by a celebratory meal – the joy of reaching a certain moment surely deserves a party!
As most of you know, this year we have engaged in a very special project: restoring the Temple Emanuel Holocaust Memorial Torah Scroll. This has been a humbling experience, as we researched the history of the town of Horazdovici and its Jewish community, raised funds necessary for the restoration and the upkeep of our Torah scrolls, and helped dozens and dozens of TE families experience the joy of assisting the scribe in restoring the damaged letters in the scroll, one by one. This has been a remarkable project, and I am delighted to report that we are nearing the end! With the scroll restoration nearly complete, the scribe will return to Temple Emanuel on March 22, allowing 40 plus additional families to take a personal part in restoration all throughout the day.
The most important moment will come at the end of the day at 6:00pm, as we celebrate the Siyum – a completion of the restoration process. The scribe will write the final letters and affix the final stitches, we will sing and dance with the Torah, carrying it not only around our sanctuary, as we do during the Torah service, but also outside and around our building (weather permitting, of course), before we joyously place the Torah into the Ark where it will now reside once again. There will be music from our band, and lots of joy to go around, and food, and a chance to say l’chayim to the completion of this sacred task.
There will
be more information coming your way in the Shofar blast over the next few
weeks, but in the meantime please make sure you mark your calendars for the
evening of March 22 – just write ‘siyum’ and get ready to celebrate one of the
most special things we ever get to do as a community.
Five thousand Jews talking, singing and praying together in a convention center in Chicago. More Jewish music than you can imagine. The Second City Chicago improvisational comedy theater group, which kept us rolling in our seats. The Union of Reform Judaism Biennial conference was all this and more.
I have just returned from 5 days in Chicago, along with 8
other TE members. At the Biennial I learned more about governance and
leadership, met with other Temple presidents and heard their struggles and
triumphs, and gained insights into how to become a more audaciously hospitable
congregation. I learned about the impact we can have by voting in the World Zionist
Congress elections, which will influence policy and funding for Jewish
institutions in Israel and around the world. I learned about the wonderful social
justice work of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism (RAC), and of the
exciting work by IRAC, the Israel Religious Action Center, working for equality
for all Israelis, including marginalized groups like Ethiopian Jews, Mizrachi
Jews and Arab citizens. I also learned that the Jewish community needs to
change with the times to include the next generation, many of whom don’t see
congregational membership in the same way past generations have.
For those of us at TE who enjoy being a musical
congregation, the music at the Biennial is itself a reason to attend. One could
spend the entire 5 days just listening to music! The Jewish Rock Radio stage
(check it out on Facebook) features different musicians every half hour. Many
of the musicians who have performed at TE were onstage, and we spent time listening
to who we might invite next. Every service has music, every plenary session has
music and every night there was a variety of performances to choose between,
from rock and roll, to singing blindfolded on the floor, to bluegrass.
The experience of Shabbat at the Biennial touched me deeply.
Imagine praying along with 5,000 other Jews in a service whose prayers are
carefully chosen to be meaningful and inspirational. The music was deeply
spiritual and joyfully engaging, and was played by professional musicians.
Torahs from surrounding synagogues were carried throughout the hall while we
danced in the aisles.
The Biennial is a time to feel the strength of our
community. A time to meet Jews from all over North America – baby boomers,
millennials, teens and young adults from NFTY (the Reform Jewish Youth
Movement), and a few babies along with their parents. The URJ is working to
increase inclusivity of groups that have been marginalized in society and
welcomed the LGBTQ community, Jews of color and people with disabilities. The Biennial
was a wonderful time for those of us from Temple Emanuel to connect. The Rabbi,
Melissa Perkal, Janet Adams, Doug and Karen Fenichel, Vlad Katsovich, Laurel
Shader, and Anna Zonderman all joined me in Chicago. We shared meals, sessions,
worship, concerts, travel and grew closer. Thanks to Janet Adams, our Hadracha
program that trains our teens to be madrichim and teachers, was featured in a
poster session of innovations within the reform community.
The Biennial confirmed for me what a special congregation we have, and how much we are already doing to be warm and welcoming, and to educate the next generation. Those of us who went to Chicago returned to TE energized and eager to put into action what we learned. We look forward to an even larger TE delegation at Biennial 2021 in Washington DC.
Speak to the Israelite people and instruct them to make for themselves fringes (tzitzit) on the corners of their garments throughout the ages; let them attach a cord of blue to the fringe (tzitzit) at each corner. That shall be your fringe (tzitzit); look at it and recall all the commandments of Adonai and observe them, so that you do not follow your heart and eyes in your lustful urge. Thus you shall be reminded to observe all My commandments and to be holy to your God. (Numbers 15:38-40.)
This paragraph from the Torah may be very familiar to you –
or perhaps only a portion of it is. It describes the Divine commandment to wear
tzitzit, or fringes, on the corners of our garments as permanent
reminders to follow and observe the mitzvot, commandments of the Torah.
The text in full appears as part of the third paragraph of Shema in the
prayerbook, restored to full length of the text in the Mishkan Tefilah and
Mishkan haNefesh from the shortened versions that have been standard in
American Reform siddurim, where tzitzit was not mentioned, even though
the reminder to follow God’s commandments was very much retained.
So what is tzitzit? The rabbis of the Mishnah looked
for ways to define and codify what these words were referring to, and so the tzitzit
that consists of strings (8) and knots (5) was designed to remind us of the 613
commandments (with Hebrew tzitzit adding up to 600 in gematria). But the
knots and strings are mostly there to remind us of something bigger – Judaism,
commandments/mitzvot, rituals and observance. It’s a mnemonic device, a
reminder – when your eye catches it, you will remember. My teacher Rabbi Lionel
Blue (alav hashalom) used to describe tying knots in the handkerchief as a
child, to remember something – and tzitzit is exactly that!
In more traditional settings, Jews interpret the commandment
of tzitzit as something constantly required – the ‘tallit katan’ is an
undergarment that contains tzitzit and is worn at all times as part of
clothing. For non-orthodox Jews the tallit, a prayer shawl, is the garment that
has tzitzit attached to it, and is worn at specific ritual moments. The
traditional rules of tallit specify that it is worn during the daytime hours –
so usually only for the morning and afternoon services, with exception of Yom
Kippur which is treated as one long day, and hence the tallit is worn for Kol
Nidrei (evening service) and then for the entire day of Yom Kippur. In
addition, Shaliach Tzibbur, the person leading prayer, often wears the tallit
even when leading services at night – that is why you will always see me
wearing a tallit on the bimah, night or day, but not if I simply attend the
evening service led by others. Traditionally women are considered exempt from
the mitzvah of wearing tallit, since it is considered a time-bound mitzvah –
but contrary to some popular beliefs, nowhere does it prohibit women from
wearing a tallit, and so the non-orthodox movements have embraced the practice
of women and men wearing the tallitot as a sacred ritual.
Our ritual committee recently discussed the wearing of tallitot and kippot on the bimah at TE. It opted against creating any kind of formal policy on the matter, reflecting the long held reform tradition of informed choice. It has also decided to encourage all those coming up to the bimah, especially as part of the Torah service, to wear a tallit where appropriate. (Following a wide-spread minhag (custom), we reserve the wearing of tallit to Jewish adults, or teens who have reached the age of majority, having celebrated their bar or bat mitzvah). Tallitot have always been available by the entrance into our sanctuary, but moving forward we will also make some available right by the bimah in case you are offered a mitzvah in the service or an Aliya to the Torah. If you have never experienced wearing a tallit, please let me know and I will gladly help you recite a blessing for donning the tallit. If you own one, please bring it with you next time you sign up for an Aliya on Friday night, or when you come to Shabbat Morning minyan or a bar/bat mitzvah ceremony. Then we can chant the words of the Shema together and fulfill this ancient Jewish tradition! Let me know if you have any questions, and I look forward to seeing you on the bimah, wearing your tallit, soon!
Earlier this year a Torah scribe visited TE to inspect our Torah scrolls, provide minor repairs and to teach our students and our teachers a little about the scribal art. In the process of his visit, we discovered a few minor fixes that were required for two of our scrolls – which were properly performed. We also discovered that one of our Torah scrolls will need a number of serious and costly repairs, rendering the scroll not kosher. But there was also a piece of amazingly good news: the Holocaust Memorial Scroll #1178, the first-ever TE Torah scroll which has been part of every Bar and Bat Mitzvah at Temple Emanuel from 1967 until 2007 while badly damaged, is NOT beyond repair! The skilled scribe can repair and restore this very special Torah! It will take time and money, but we can reclaim this Torah scroll, and bring it back to serve the Jewish people in the best way it knows how – by using it to share the words of Torah with people gathered in this sanctuary to celebrate Shabbat and special occasions.
As many of you heard me explain on Rosh Hashanah, I read
from this very special, currently non-kosher scroll on that morning. But I did
so with a mission: to invite you all to join me in a sacred task of repairing
and restoring this Torah scroll, to reclaim a wonderful TE tradition, and to
renew our commitment to keeping the memory of the Jews of Horazdovice alive –
not just by seeing their Torah (as it is currently displayed in a special glass
cabinet in our lobby), but by reading from their Torah.
On Sunday, November 24 the Torah scribe will return to Temple Emanuel, this time to begin a process of restoration. Every TE family will have an opportunity to help restore this scroll – literally by writing in individual letters (with the help of the scribe, of course). Every TE family will have an opportunity to schedule a personal ‘Torah restoration appointment’ – we really do want EVERY member of TE to have this sacred opportunity. As we restore this sacred scroll together, we will make every effort not just to honor its long, and at times painful history, but to also remember the joy of community that wrote it, and the joy of our community that has used it over the last 50 years. Our 7th graders, inspired and supported by the Barbara Rosenthal memorial fund, lovingly created by the Weber family right here at TE, already began a special project of researching the history of the Jewish community of Horazdovice, and will present their findings on November 24th.
Next year we plan to use this Torah scroll again during the High Holy Days, with all its symbolism, and all its history. Next year it will be kosher. THIS is how we respond to hatred: by building a strong Jewish community, by raising Jews with a strong Jewish identity. By continuing to invest in the JOY of being Jewish – not the OY. THIS is how we keep Judaism alive.
Financial Requirements for the TE Torah Restoration
Project
There are 3 areas that will require financial support:
1. Restoration
of the Holocaust Scroll (including the actual cost of Scribal repair and restoration,
as well as the cost of special visit(s) from the scribe to Temple Emanuel,
enabling us all to participate in the sacred task of restoration
2. Repair of
Temple Emanuel’s other Torah Scrolls and maintenance of all our scrolls,
including the Holocaust Memorial Scroll #1178.
3. Holocaust
education for our religious school and for adults.
Several generous donors have already reached out to support these activities. We are soliciting funds to assure we can do all of these tasks in relation to our Torah scrolls and Holocaust education as a combined project.
Our fundraising goal for this project is $50,000. We have
already secured nearly $30,000 toward that goal, part of which is an $8,000
matching challenge – – matching dollar for dollar contributions that other TE
families will commit.
If you would like to discuss any of these details or offer your generous support to this special project, please speak to Alan Kliger or Melissa Perkal.
“Temple Emanuel is a warm, caring, and open
community. As
a small but growing Reform synagogue, our members have the opportunity to know
one another and to have meaningful input into how our synagogue operates.
Temple Emanuel is a participatory, diverse, non-judgmental, and intellectually
vibrant congregation. Our membership comes from many towns in the greater New
Haven area, and the Valley, adding to the diversity of our congregation.”
This paragraph
comes from the homepage of our website. Much of what I love about Temple
Emanuel is embodied in these words. We are warm, caring and open. We are a
participatory congregation, diverse in many ways. We work hard to welcome new
members and visitors. Temple Emanuel embraces other values dear to my heart.
Again from our website: “Tikkun Olam (healing
the world), social action, and social justice are important values of the
modern Reform movement and a priority at Temple Emanuel.”
With all
of this in mind I often think about how TE can do even better on these fronts.
How could we welcome members or guests who cannot walk up the steps to the
bimah to accept an aliyah? How could we welcome those who don’t feel
comfortable using a bathroom gendered male or female? My wife Barb and I have
worked hard in our lives to be visible and proud lesbian parents, making sure
that our kids feel comfortable with their family and accepted in their
community. Do others feel as comfortable at Temple Emanuel being who they are?
Do Jews of color feel at home at TE?
Being
welcoming and inclusive, and being sensitive to people who are outside the
majority, are values I feel strongly about. The Union of Reform Judaism (URJ),
the umbrella organization for North American Reform Judaism, has an initiative
to embrace the diversity of the Jewish community. This initiative is called
Audacious Hospitality, “… a
transformative spiritual practice rooted in the belief that we will be a
stronger, more vibrant Jewish community when we fully welcome and incorporate
the diversity that is the reality of modern Jewish life.” The URJ has developed
a number of resources for member congregations, including an Audacious
Hospitality toolkit. This educational program helps congregations examine the
welcome they give and helps to strengthen the relationships we have with one
another.
Temple Emanuel is a wonderful congregation. I feel joy when I sit down at services or join families at the asephah and feel the connection and warmth of our community. I would like to go even further to make every household feel that they have been seen and heard, and that their voices are important to the whole. I invite everyone who is interested to join in a discussion about how TE might become more audaciously hospitable. We will meet on Sunday, November 10th at 10 am. If you are interested but cannot attend that date, please let me know. As always, I am interested in your thoughts and ideas, and can be contacted at president@tegnh.org
5:30 pm – Pizza and Salad dinner (free- please register!): Schmooze and catch up with friends 6:00 pm – Meeting and voting In the Social Hall The Annual Meeting Notice, the Board Slate, and Proposed Budget have been sent to all the members of the congregation via email. If you did NOT receive a notice, or if you would like a paper copy, please let Ruth know ASAP.
Torah scrolls are very special. It is an incredible honor
and privilege to read from the Torah scroll in front of the congregation. It
requires skill and effort, and lots of preparation for each such occasion – a
labor of love on behalf of the community and of the Jewish people. Holding the
Torah scroll does not require a special skill (perhaps some strength is
useful), but it can be a truly moving, emotional experience. When holding the
Torah, whether for the first time as a bar or bat mitzvah, or for the 100th
time, we cannot help but be in awe of the incredible chain of tradition, of
hundreds upon hundreds of generations of Jews that cherished their Torah, and
passed it on, leaving a small mark that perhaps cannot be seen, but can be felt
by us as we accept the Torah from their hands and carry it forward. The sense
of continuity, of importance of ritual and of connection with our people’s past
is palpable whenever one holds the Torah — a truly awe-inspiring feeling.
As I held TE’s Holocaust Memorial Scroll #1178, and as I
marched in a quiet procession of over 70 Czech memorial scrolls, I was
overwhelmed for a moment by a different kind of emotion. In my arms I held not
only an incredible treasure of the Jewish people that was created and lovingly
maintained by previous generations of Jews I did not know, but a scroll that
belonged to the destroyed Jewish community of Horazdovice, a community that
perished in the flames of the Holocaust. This was not just the Torah connecting
me to the Jewish past – this was a moment to acknowledge, once again, that the
future of this Torah’s Jewish community of Horazdovice was wiped out by the
cruelty of hate and yet somehow, miraculously, the orphaned Torah has survived and
found its way into the loving hands of our community, right here in Orange, CT.
Scroll after scroll paraded through the room packed with over 800 people from
some 80+ synagogues in the Tri-State area, honoring the painful past – and
celebrating the miraculous survival of Judaism. I will never forget this moment
and this feeling.
TE delegation at the gathering of Holocaust Memorial Scrolls.
I have invited other members of TE who were able to attend to
share some of their experiences from that day. I hope that their words can help
you experience some of that special occasion:
“Tuesday, February 5th was truly a spiritually and personally meaningful experience for me. Watching the processional of more than 70 Czechoslovakian Holocaust scrolls, with our rabbi carrying our 1850 scroll, was a moving sight. To be there with a group of folks from my TE family made everything even more special and exciting, starting with the difficulty of parking at the train station to our rolling, sometimes party-like conversations on the train back and forth, and our long walks from Grand Central Station to Temple Emanu-El and back. It is such a privilege for our congregation to have been entrusted with one of these rescued, restored scrolls. In addition, it now appears that the scroll we retired in 2007 (to be only displayed) may indeed be able to be restored and put back into use. As one of those lucky enough to have chanted from that scroll during the retirement service, I would feel even more fortunate to once again chant from it in the near future. Any such opportunity would enhance my feeling of connection to those who perished for their beliefs and heritage, and for whom I may speak when chanting.” — Barbara Berkowitz
“Having convinced myself that one of the Czech scrolls must
surely have come from the shul of my grandmother Adele Kolish Reyman, I felt
that I needed to be at this rare reunion of the Czech scrolls residing in the Tri-State
area. Reading and hearing about these scrolls, gently touching the covers,
viewing the IDs affixed to the wood, and seeing the solemn walk with the Torahs
were profoundly moving experiences.
Who can say that Adele, her four older brothers and their parents did not see one of these very scrolls I was seeing? No one can say it is not there, so it is. I needed to be there.” — Barbara Miller
“Awesome, proud, sad, memorable, honored, humbled, grateful.
These are some of the emotions that the ten Temple Emanuel
members felt as they saw the parade of more than 70 Czech Holocaust scrolls
from all over the United States come down the aisle at Temple Emanu-El in New
York City on February 5th. This was the largest gathering of the
Czech scrolls ever in one place. The Memorial Scroll Trust has 1,564 scrolls on
permanent loan to congregations throughout the world. Temple Emanuel’s scroll
from Horazdovice came to the Temple Emanuel congregation in 1966 under the leadership
of then-Presidents Lois and Paul Levine. It has been used in countless Friday
night services, b’nai mitzvah services and High Holy Day services over the last
50 years.
During World War II, the Jews of Bohemia and Moravia were wiped out. The people had been lost, but amazingly 1,564 Torah Scrolls from more than 122 congregations had been saved. Westminster Synagogue became the home to these Czech Scrolls in February of 1964. There they were stored, restored and then sent back out into the world by the Memorial Trust Fund. The evening of February 5th brought 70 of these scrolls and their congregants together for the first time.” — Melissa Perkal
Joan and I recently heard a string quartet concert devoted
entirely to elegies. The music was so moving, the audience so quiet, I thought
about how we give voice to support each other at the time of loss.
At TE, our custom is to stand together alongside mourners,
and recite the Kaddish together. This ancient prayer was written in Aramaic,
the common language in Talmudic times, so that everyone would understand what
was being said. It is a prayer of praise for Adonai. In most traditional
congregations, reciting the Kaddish is an obligation of a male mourner, or
close male relatives. Others are not obligated to recite the Kaddish, but TE’s
custom is for all to stand with the bereaved, in memory of the departed, and in
support of those remaining.
In our wider culture, the elegiac tradition recognizes that
mourners, sometimes wordless, receive critical support from others who stand
together and share the sorrow. Elegiac poems and music move each of us as we
think about the one who has died, our own mortality and beyond to the miracle
of our short lives.
Mary Frye wrote this elegiac poem for a Jewish girl who had
fled the holocaust, only to receive news that her mother had died in Germany.
Frye saw this girl weeping inconsolably because she could not visit her
mother’s grave to share her tears of love and bereavement.
