Category: Rabbi’s page

“The individual may pray in prose or even in wordless silence; a congregation must sing or disband.” Israel Abrahams, Poetry and Religion (1920)

Music has always been a part of Judaism. From the Levites who sang the Psalms and played instruments on the steps leading to the Temple in Jerusalem, to the ancient system of cantillation, a special way to chant the Torah; from the melodic way of studying and memorizing rabbinic texts of Mishnah and Talmud to the Hassidic niggunim, often simple melodies that were credited with being as powerful as the most well-composed prayers. There are numerous Hassidic sayings about the significance of melody, as the Zohar (foundational work of Jewish mystical thought) puts it, in “opening those heavenly gates that are firmly shut except to song and tears…”

Music stirs our souls in a way that words often cannot, activating emotions within us that we did not know existed… Music is such a strong presence in Temple Emanuel’s worship style that it is almost unimaginable without it! Yet music in worship (especially instrumental music) has a complicated history in Judaism. Following the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE the rabbis placed a ban on the use of music in general, especially in worship, as a sign of mourning. It is not hard to imagine that having witnessed the devastation, the last thing they wanted to do was sing… Another complication was the prohibition against playing musical instruments on Shabbat – not because the act itself is a violation of Shabbat (it was permitted in the Temple in Jerusalem), but out of much more technical considerations (to prevent the carrying of the instrument, its tuning or repair, if needed, all of which were considered violations of Shabbat). Even the shofar blowing on Rosh Hashanah was suspended if it fell on Shabbat!

From the very beginning, the Reform Movement insisted on bringing the music back to worship, back to the synagogue, back to Shabbat. Music and joy were always part of Judaism, and now they were making a comeback! Synagogues installed pipe organs and commissioned talented and popular composers of the time to write music settings for services in the synagogue, giving us the profoundly inspiring music of Lewandowski, Bloch, Sulzer, and many others. The music they wrote for the services was spiritual and uplifting. It was also very modern and reflective of the 19th-century popular music styles.

As the popular music styles changed in the second half of the 20^th century, a new kind of music entered the world of the synagogue worship. The pipe organs were joined (and often replaced) by guitars and electric pianos. Temple Emanuel, founded in 1962, is a true ‘child’ of that era – from the very beginning, our services were accompanied by guitar music, with the entire congregation singing along, rather than relying on a powerful pipe organ and a professional cantor or choir to provide music for the worship experience. In fact, it is probably safe to argue that music has been one of the main defining features of the new congregation, as well as many others that appeared in the 1960s and 1970s around the country.

For more than a decade now the TE band has been a part of a further experiment with music at TE services – and what an incredible experience this has been! Under Laurel Shader’s wonderful leadership up to 22 TE members of different ages, from middle school to retirees, have played together on various occasions, giving a new meaning to ‘musical Shabbat’ at Temple Emanuel!

As we continue to bring music to our worship, with the full TE band and with small groups of musicians, with a solo guitar and even a cappella – allowing the music to nurture our souls and lift our prayers straight to heaven – I am delighted to remind you that we have an amazing musical program coming up on November 4^th! A world-renowned singer and composer, Elana Arian, is coming to Temple Emanuel! We know and love Elana’s music; it has enriched our worship at TE over the last few years, and we look forward to welcoming Elana as our Shir Magic performer this year! Shir Magic is the Annual TE Concert in loving memory of Rabbi Jerry Brieger z”l

You can get your tickets in advance right here. Please spread the word, and I look forward to enjoying this special musical evening together. The TE band will of course make an appearance, and you can hear it next at Shabbat Chanukkah on December 8^th!

P.S. Play an instrument? Want to join the band? Speak to Laurel Shader or Rabbi Farbman!

Oops, Help, Thanks & Wow!

At one point or another, all of us have said these short words. Often, multiple times a day! As you read this column shortly before the start of High Holy Days, you are most likely concentrating on the ‘oops’ part – that is the nature of ‘accounting of our soul’, or cheshbon hanefesh. This time of year we are encouraged to take stock of our lives and our actions, acknowledge our failings and seek ways to perform teshuvah, ‘return’ to the vision of ourselves that we aspire to be… And while this time between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, and this process of teshuvah is extremely important, I am always mindful of the fact that we should pay even more attention to our actions between Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah!

So how do we do this? How do we elevate our daily and weekly experiences to allow for such thoughtful action? One of the traditional answers to this question is to rely on the structure of services and both individual and communal prayer. Our prayerbook, also known as the Siddur, is a sacred and essential tool that guides the individual and communal worship practices. This meticulously crafted compilation of prayers, blessings, and liturgical texts serves as a gateway for expressing gratitude, seeking guidance, and fostering a deep spiritual connection with each other and with the divine.

Temple Emanuel has its own prayerbook, Seder Tefilot Emanuel. This wonderful and warm book has inspired generations of TE members – and continues to do so! It began as a loose-leaf collection of prayers in the early TE years, then became a ‘Yellow Prayerbook’ and eventually took shape that we know and love over 20 years ago. It has survived two reprints and has served our community as a truly magnificent tool. In addition, after a few years of exploration and discovery, we have adopted the Reform Prayerbook ‘Mishkan Tefilah’, to be used alongside ‘Seder Tefilot Emanuel’. Although quite different in design and content, these two wonderful books help shape the worship at Temple Emanuel. In 2018 we adopted the recently published Mishkan HaNefesh as our High Holy Days machzor, and it has enriched our experience of the High Holy Days in a profound way.

This fall we will once again get together to explore the Jewish Liturgy. In this enriching journey, we will delve into the profound world of Jewish prayer and explore the intricate tapestry of rituals, texts, and melodies that have woven the fabric of Jewish worship for centuries. From the heartfelt expressions of gratitude to the introspective moments of self-reflection, Jewish liturgy offers a remarkable insight into the spiritual essence of the Jewish people. Join us as we uncover the history, significance, and deep connections that make up the mosaic of Jewish liturgical traditions. Whether you are a curious learner or seeking to deepen your understanding, this course promises to illuminate the beauty and meaning embedded in every word, every note, and every gesture of Jewish prayer.

The new course begins on October 8^th and will run on Sundays at 11 am. Advance registration is required, please follow this link to sign up!

It’s been over a year of the war in Ukraine when we boarded our flight to Spain to support Ukrainian refugees in Europe as part of the JFNA’s Global Volunteer Hub Initiative. It was a third such trip for Rabbi and a first for Olga.

A year is a long time. In April 2022 (Rabbi’s first trip to Poland) people were utterly disoriented by the physical and emotional ordeal they have just survived. The war was real and devastating, the people were hurting and shaken, there was shock, disbelief, and a hope that the war will be over and they were going home soon. In August 2022 the immediate pain and shock felt more distant, and people were facing the reality that their lives were not going to be the same again, and they had to make some choices and long-term decisions. They needed help, reassurance, and support as they were trying to figure out their next steps. They needed someone to take care of their kids while they were navigating bureaucracies and looking for work. They needed to hear from those who went through the immigrant experience themselves that they will be OK someday. In April 2023 the reality is different once again. People are learning Spanish and are starting to have basic daily interactions in supermarkets and corner stores with more confidence. Kids are navigating school, people have moved on from temporary housing (Red Cross hotels and shelters) into rented accommodations. Many are securing jobs and continue to find ways to keep in touch with friends they made during the worst of it, supporting each other still. As the basic needs of their lives are beginning to slowly fall into place, their need for community, support and camaraderie becomes more focused – the early childhood center, the women’s Club, the Spanish lessons, the hiking group, the teen art project continue to be life savers. There’s a sense of ‘new normal’, where the same person simultaneously invited us to visit her again in her new home in Spain AND in her beloved Odessa, Ukraine (someday soon, we all hope)!

We brought with us iPads for the preschool program, matzo ball mix and chocolate covered matzah (a huge hit!), Passover snacks and a PJ library book in Ukrainian, your generosity and our desire to help. It was all put to such great use every step of the way. We shopped and cooked and hosted a Passover Seder, we taught and shared, we played with kids and read stories with adults, we took people on walks and trips and picnics. We sang and prayed and laughed and cried together. There was a lot of hugging. We talked about the pain that people carry, we talked about freedom and hopes for the future.  We listened – A LOT. The importance of speaking the same language is the key and cannot be overstated! We gave a lot. It was not enough – it can never be enough. 

As we return home we try to process our experiences and take account of what we are coming back with. We bring with us the stories and names and faces. We bring a sense of devastation and of hope. We bring lessons of resilience and optimism. Most of all we are returning filled with gratitude to TE for recognizing this urge we have to try and play a small role in making this world a little friendlier for people whose lives have been turned upside down. We couldn’t have done any of this without your love and support – THANK YOU!

“In every generation we must see ourselves as if we personally have come out of Egypt…” Pesachim 116b, Passover Haggadah

As we approach the one-year anniversary of the war in Ukraine, we continue to look at the events unfolding with utter disbelief. After the initial shock wore off, like so many others we responded by offering financial support to the efforts on the ground. Shortly after a call came from the JDC for Russian-speaking clergy to volunteer during Pesach,  I traveled to Poland to help. Later in the summer I traveled to support the Barcelona reform community’s refugee resettlement efforts, this time as part of a father-son team with Samuel.  The TE support during both of these trips has been invaluable and inspiring, the work was impactful, the connections forged were powerful. 

Many of you know about these efforts already and have generously supported the work. What you may not know is that Olga has been involved in these efforts from day one as part of her work at the Jewish Federations of North America. It became crystal clear within the first few days of the war, that many Jewish organizations assisting refugees on the ground in Europe, meeting them at the borders, offering the housing, food, medical care, and mental health support to those fleeing the conflict zone, were facing the major challenge – shortage of people speaking the language. Olga was tasked with leading the Pan-American communal effort of creating Global Volunteer Hub to recruit, train, and deploy Russian/Ukrainian speaking American and Canadian volunteers in Poland, Hungary, Moldova, Czech Republic, Spain, and beyond. Olga’s phone continues to buzz day and night with messages from teams of volunteers serving all around the world, exchanging stories and pictures, offering support to each other as they serve the displaced Ukrainian refugees trying to make sense of the unfolding tragedy. For almost a year Olga’s work has been coordinating so much of this gargantuan task that she had to put on hold her personal desire to be on the ground and volunteer herself. 

One year later, it is clear that the current conflict and the suffering and displacement it has unleashed is anything but temporary. We were recently blessed with the opportunity to welcome a Ukrainian family here in Connecticut, with JCARR offering its support and expertise to make this transition as smooth as possible. (Please see the interview with Morozov family in this issue of the Shofar). In fact, many of you have met the family at our Shabbat services where they have become regulars.  

As we approach Pesach once again, the two of us (Olga and myself) will be traveling to Spain to support the incredible efforts of the local Jewish community and other volunteers. We will celebrate Passover seders here with our family and TE community, and then will set out to bring the message of freedom and hope to the refugees. Our professional training and years of experience in community building are very much needed. And yet, as we prepare for this journey, we are well aware that as native speakers we are best equipped to respond to the needs on the ground. We are not doing this alone – we are volunteering on behalf of everyone at Temple Emanuel. We will be sharing our journey with all of you, as I have done in the past. If you would like to support our efforts, please feel free to make a donation to Rabbi’s Discretionary Fund at TE, please mark it “Support Ukraine”. 

As we celebrate our freedom at the Passover seder, may we remember those who struggle for their own.

When I stand on the bimah next to a young person celebrating their arrival at the age of taking responsibility for observance of mitzvot, I often say something like this: ‘as you arrive at this moment of celebration, please remember that this is not the end of the journey of Jewish learning – quite the opposite! Becoming a Jewish adult is embarking on a journey of life-long learning and Jewish discovery’. I know that in that moment it may be hard for the 13 year old to grasp the full meaning of this charge, but I hope that they remember this as they continue to grow, mature and become the true Jewish adults. Learning is NOT just for kids. In fact, Jewish learning that we offer our children is just a handful of tools and concepts that they will be able to use to continue to engage with Jewish texts, services, festivals and celebrations, as well as many customs and traditions of our people.

Over the course of the year we make sure that all of our religious school families enjoy some family learning – grades 3 and up have an annual Shabbaton, and we run school-wide programs a few times a year. Parents of our 7^th graders are offered a B’nai Mitzvah Parents class every year, allowing them to explore our traditions in depth, just as their kids prepare for their big day. This year we once again offered an Adult Hebrew Class on Sundays – many thanks to TE’s own Eyal Yazdi for volunteering to teach this group of dedicated learners!

Our weekly Torah Study group has returned in person (as well as online) with renewed sense of excitement. For the first time in the 13 years that I have been leading this study group we have decided to engage in a slow reading of the Torah text – rather than following the traditional weekly portion schedule, we go through the narrative a few verses at a time, delving deeper and not moving to the next verse until we are ready. So far we have managed to get to Noah, and the conversations have been so rewarding! If you have not yet tried it, why not spend 90 minutes on Saturday morning engaging with a little Jewish learning, cup of coffee in hand?

One of the highlights of the year is TE’s Annual Scholar in Residence program. Over the past few covid years, while we were not able to have our traditional weekend-long programs, complete with meals and a chance to spend quality time with our scholar in residence, we have experimented with a few different modalities online.

I am delighted to announce that our Scholar program this year will be offered by Professor Michal Bar-Asher Siegal, a Horace Goldsmith Visiting Professor in Judaic Studies at Yale University. Stories portraying Jesus and heretics (‘minim’) in rabbinic literature are a central site of rabbinic engagement with the ‘other’. We will use previously untapped Christian materials to arrive at new interpretations of familiar texts and illuminate the complex relationship between Jews and Christians in Late Antiquity. Whether you took the TE class on co-existence of Jews and Christians in ancient times back in 2019-20, or you are completely new to this topic, I promise you an incredible journey of exciting learning! Since prof. Bar-Asher Siegal is based in New Haven this year, the three sessions will be offered on January 24, 31 and March 1 – come to one or come to all! (And yes, we will also be streaming on zoom, to make it more accessible to those who are not comfortable driving at night!). A huge thank you to our anonymous donor who continues to make these learning opportunities available to all TE members.

As our Adult Hebrew learners are conquering the alef-bet, we will soon be ready to begin our Adult B’nei Mitzvah class – so please continue to check the Shofar Blast for more info coming soon. 5783 is shaping up to be a year of great Jewish learning at TE!

Wow.

Let me say that again: wow.

From the amazing High Holy Days season, back in the sanctuary for the first time in 3 years, to the Gala celebrating Temple Emanuel’s 60^th anniversary, my heart is full of gratitude for the blessings bestowed on us all and on this cherished community of ours. A huge THANK YOU to the Gala committee and so many volunteers that helped make it a night to remember!

The vision of our founders lives on. The community they so lovingly built continues to be maintained and sustained by the new generations of TE members, even as many of the founders and the ‘early adopters’ continue to bless our community with their love and support. Our Religious School continues to provide the opportunities for children and parents to learn and to grow – both Jewishly and personally. Our teens step up to engage not just with each other, but also with the next generation of students. Our expanded building is once again abuzz with excitement of learning. My heart overflows with gratitude.

Our world is far from perfect – and yet we continue to respond the best way we know how: by supporting those in need, by loving our neighbors and our friends, by comforting the bereaved, by supporting those who struggle with illness, by rejoicing any time we have something to celebrate: a wedding, a baby naming, a coming of age to fulfillment of mitzvot… We celebrate and we mourn, we support and surround with love, we continue to engage with the modern world while holding fast to traditions that go back centuries.

At 60, we are young and vibrant. We look back with the gratitude for our past, and with excitement for our future. Mazal Tov, TE!

As many of you know, I have just returned from spending a week in Poland as a volunteer. The Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA) and American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) had asked for Russian and Ukrainian speaking clergy to travel to Poland, Hungary and Moldova to support the Jews fleeing war in Ukraine, to help them celebrate Passover, and lift their spirits. I have spent a week on the ground, visiting multiple refugee centers, running programs for adults, playing with kids, sharing simple meals, and listening to stories. I have also tried, as much as I could, to offer some support to the volunteers and professionals on the ground, helping to run the response to this humanitarian crisis unprecedented in Europe since WWII.

Armed with a credit card and your incredible generosity, I also went shopping multiple times in different towns for clothing, shoes, medications, general supplies, washing powder, plates and cups, toilet paper, snacks and sweets and treats, board games for kids and adults, shampoo and body wash, handheld tablets and a printer/scanner; not to mention the small toys, clothing and art supplies that were collected prior to my departure – each center had their own needs, and I followed the lead of the local volunteers. The needs are great and varied, and while all of this is but a drop in the ocean, every little helps.

Most of my time was spent in the safety and relative calm of hotels and residential centers – with few exceptions, most people had escaped the war weeks ago, and had a chance to recover from the ordeals of bomb shelters and crammed trains and walking, sometimes for days, across the border. One could easily be fooled by the “normalcy” of our interactions, but most of it was paper-thin, as people clutched their phones, checking in regularly with their loved ones who were left behind – some in the army and territorial defense units, others (especially men 18-60) simply unable to leave the country. The news and personal stories came flooding in, people hearing from friends and neighbors, anxious and desperate for some good news. There was a lot of waiting and trying to figure out what comes next: do they wait for the war to end and go home, do they have family they can join elsewhere in the west, or is it time to consider a more permanent form of immigration?

Most of the volunteers and coordinators of this work, as well as psychologists working to help people cope with all this trauma, are themselves refugees! Two months ago, all of these people have lived comfortable and modern lives – they had jobs, and homes, and families. They were college students and professionals; their lives subject to normal challenges and tensions. Some were better off than others, of course; some lived in big cities and others in small towns and villages; some relied on public transport and others owned big homes and comfortable cars; some worked two jobs and some went on regular family vacations. Most had mere hours to pack; some didn’t even get a chance to go home – when the bombs started falling, people ran for safety. All of the stories of people running from war and violence with nothing but a shirt on their backs were no longer the stuff of family lore – these are the stories of today. A young mother entertains a cutie pie 1-year-old boy (who is so sweet and smiles a lot!) – and I am suddenly overwhelmed by the generational trauma, thinking back to my father as a 1-year-old, headed east on a train in 1941, never to see his father alive again… I smile and offer some support, and a small toy – and I pray that this boy and his family are kept safe from harm.

I am struck by the resilience of the people who can put aside their own trauma and go help others – it’s easier to navigate your own uncertainty when you are busy helping someone else.

I get a chance to celebrate Shabbat with this multitude of people – Jews, non-Jews, some joyfully singing along to familiar melodies, others encountering Shabbat and any form of Jewish observance for the first time. I can sense that there is a small measure of comfort and spiritual support that people receive from our gathering, and I am grateful for the opportunity to be there for them – and for myself. I return home, to my family and to TE, grateful for the opportunity to serve, knowing that I will carry these stories with me for the rest of my life.