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Strength—Gevurah

IMG_9867-001“Hazak Hazak V’nit Hazek”

“Be strong, be strong, and let us be strengthened”

This is the phrase we say when we reach the end of each book in the Torah. It is also this month’s Mussar trait. What is strength? Some definitions include: endurance, resistance, capacity for exertion, power, force, might, vigor, potency, energy or fire power.

At this moment, the strength that concerns me is not the power to move mountains, but the strength one needs to overcome our greatest challenges. In Mussar thought, this would be an inward look at the self. But what does this mean for a congregation?  I believe this is the strength to overcome obstacles, to develop an awareness of what needs to be done and then to change things as a result of that understanding. We are in the midst of great change at TE. Adding new families and a new addition to the sanctuary building is a huge and exciting amount of change to take in. It means there will be times when everything doesn’t go as smoothly as it should or that things have to be adapted to the situation at hand. It means keeping track of all the details. It means that not everyone will agree on the details of where we go next.    I am confident that we have the strength to get through these changes if we do it as a community – together.

A form of the word gevurah – gibor – means “hero” in Hebrew. This next year at Temple Emanuel is going to challenge us all to be heroes who turn our obstacles into strengths. I will be looking for TE’s heroes to help me meet these challenges.

With apologies to Dwight D. Eisenhower:  “The spirit of man is more important than mere physical strength, and the spiritual fiber of a congregation more than its wealth.”

Family Shabbat Dinner at TE – Friday, February 13 at 6 pm.

SHABBAT reception BEGINS AT 6:00PM, dinner will be served at 6:30 pm followed by Shabbat Service at 8. (Please note that there will be a Tot Shabbat Service for our youngest members and their families at 5:30, allowing all generations of TE families to have Shabbat dinner together!)

Please fill out the form below by February 9th.
No family will pay more than $45 to attend. Children 5 and under are free.

A Taste of Honey – an evening of inspired learning and teaching- Saturday, January 31 – 7:00 pm at the JCC, featuring TE band and choirs!

Taste_of_Honey_Header_resize1524__1_1Community learning at its sweetest.

Join us for the 19th annual A Taste of Honey, a community-wide celebration of Jewish learning that includes fascinating sessions, havdallah, keynote speaker

Debbie Friedman

 New York Times film critic A.O. Scott, plus the Debbie Friedman Memorial Tribute Concert with the TE band and inter-generational choir. Cost $18; Students/Seniors $12.
Online registration and entire schedule coming soon at http://www.jccnh.org/taste-of-honey

RESCHEDULED – NEW DATE! Adult Education Part II Prayer: Discussion and reaction to changes in the new Reform prayer book.

IMG_1575Adult Education Part II
Prayer: Discussion and reaction to changes in the new Reform prayer book.  Come and join the learning and conversations facilitated by Rabbi Steven Steinberg.  The second in the adult ed series will be held at the home of  Jim and Jean Silk on Saturday, February 28 from 3:00-4:30 pm.  Everyone is welcome; no need to have attended Part I.

mishkanWe will look at Mishkan Tefilah and consider it in the light of previous Reform prayer books. Why is it so heavy–what conclusions can we draw from its new physical manifestation? What prayers do or do not resonate for you in the prayer book? Is it a meditation text? Should one follow the text or wander into the alternative readings? At several places at the bottom of a page it gives the reader a choice of what to read or how to move one’s body and comments, “For those who choose.” How does its “pietism” compare to the current Reform Platform? How does the prayer book define Shabbat in contrast to the traditional understanding of Shabbat? What does it suggest about Reform worship and how we might pray as Reform Jews?

POSTPONED: TE's First Annual Coffee House – February 21, 7:30-10 pm

Chase Away the Winter Blues At a Temple Emanuel Coffee House

Come listen to our own local musicians, support our own artists. An adult evening with friends, food, entertainment & art!

Saturday, February 21, 2015, 7:30 – 10 PM

Coffee and Desserts (BYOB)

Joy/”Simcha”

IMG_9867-001“Real joy comes not from ease or riches, or from the praise of man, but from doing something worthwhile.” — Sir Wilfred Grenfell (1865-1940), English medical missionary

 

January’s trait is “joy”.  Amazingly when one starts to look into this character trait, Christian wisdom literature seems to have more to say than the Jewish view.  But Jewish tradition encourages us to cultivate the conditions that will lead to more joy, more often. “Ivdu et HaShem ba’simcha”—serve God in joy.  Alan Morinis says this of joy:  “Moments come when the heart dances in the light. So much more than the experience of fun or even happiness, joy erupts when the inner sphere scintillates in its completeness. An experience touches us to the depths of our souls, and in that moment we are graced with a vision—if only fleetingly—of the flawless wholeness and perfection of it all. Then the heart fills and flows over, even amid the brokenness of this world.”

Joy is not syrupy or sappy, sentimental or seasonal.  Joy is not happiness, because happiness depends on what happens to you. Joy is also not the absence of sorrow. Joy is a vivid emotion of pleasure or the state of being highly delighted:  the birth of a child, marriage. Joy is dependent on spiritual insight and connection. Joy occurs when we close the gap between the high ideals we hold in mind and the living truth of how we act in life.

So, how does a congregation know joy?  By being together for life-cycle events, by healing the world, by creating a joyful noise unto the Lord (as the Psalmist says).  Our projects are off to a fabulous start this year: wonderful music with our children’s choir, a fabulous Chanukah basket project, a re-energized  look at Tikkun Olam. On that note, last month the TE Board approved a renewed commitment to help the hungry by supporting MAZON. Founded in 1985, MAZON: A Jewish Response to Hunger is a national nonprofit organization working to end hunger among people of all faiths and backgrounds in the United States and Israel. MAZON began soliciting donations by encouraging American Jews to donate a portion of the cost of life-cycle celebrations (weddings, bar/bat mitzvahs, anniversaries, and other joyous occasions), a modern interpretation of the ancient rabbinical tradition of not allowing a celebration to begin until the community’s poor and hungry were seated and fed.

Beginning in January, TE will send MAZON 3% of the total spent on the food for any event that occurs at TE. We used to do this regularly in the past. We commit to do this now. We join nearly 1,000 synagogues and tens of thousands of individual donors, all of whom share our commitment to ending hunger once and for all.

This month, come experience the joy at TE.

The power of music and the legacy of Debbie Friedman

IMG_0425 - Version 2Music 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 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, and 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 is sing…IMG_0470

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 service 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.

Never a dull moment!
Never a dull moment!

As the popular music styles changed in the second half of the 20th 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.

debbie4blogThe music of Debbie Friedman had defined that generation – and after some four decades it continues to touch the souls of so many Jews all around the world. But it’s not only her music and her talent that has completely transformed the music in the synagogue – Debbie, along with Jeff Klepper and a few others, had ignited the spark of creativity in generations of young Jews. She inspired them, she nurtured them, she challenged them – and they have completely transformed Jewish worship and Jewish music. Every year since Debbie’s untimely passing in 2011 we gather for a Debbie Friedman memorial concert around her yahrzeit. We sing and we play and we honor her legacy. This year please join me and the TE band as we honor Debbie’s legacy with our annual concert as part of the “Taste of Honey”, a community-wide celebration of Jewish learning at the JCC on January 31st at 7pm. I can think of no better way to honor her legacy than to share our gift of music with the wider community.

 

Chanukah Gift Giving Program a big success!

IMG_0843Temple Emanuel was abuzz with activity on Sunday, December 14th. Our religious school children and parents enjoyed an asephah filled with Chanukah songs and learning, followed by an adult study of the origins of Chanukah story with Rabbi Farbman, while the children went back to school for an hour. Then we gathered back together with other members of the congregation for a snack and to pack over 100 gift baskets filled with books, toys, art supplies, hats, scarves and gloves as well as baby items. These baskets will be distributed by ‘r kids Family Center, Fair Haven Community Health Center, Cornell Scott Hill Health Center and Jewish Family Services. Many members contributed items for the baskets, and there was a wonderful feeling of cooperation and giving in the social hall. Hopefully we have touched the lives of a number of children with these baskets. Thanks to all who participated!

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Matt McDermott from CONECT, Sunday Dec 21 , 10AM

Matt McDermottMatt McDermott, CONECT’s lead organizer, will return to TE  on Sunday, Dec 21st at 10 am, to engage in a deeper conversation about Tikkun Olam with TE members, following his very engaging talk at TE on Friday, Dec 12.

CONECT (Congregations Organized for a New Connecticut) is a non-partisan, multi-faith organization of 27 congregations in Southern CT that through building grass-roots relational culture fosters a powerful civic moral voice to affect change in the areas of social and economic justice and for the common good.

December 13 at 4PM. TE Adult Education series presents: The Territory, 2013 (USA/Israel), 42 min. Russian, Hebrew, Arabic with English subtitles.

me at esh kodeshThe Territory is an intimate look into the lives of Israelis from the former Soviet Union who made their new home in the West Bank settlements. While some residents move to the settlements looking for cheaper housing, others are motivated by Zionist ideology; and all are influenced by their past experience of being an oppressed minority in the Soviet Union.
Trailer: https://vimeo.com/50307975
Dmitriy Khavin began his film career at the Odessa Film Studios in Ukraine. Since 1992 he has lived in the US, where he works as a director, editor and cinematographer. Dmitriy will join us for discussion of the film and share his insights as part of the screening.