From the pages of Kadima, the newsletter of Congregation Adas Emuno:

A Message From Our President

Dr. Lance Strate

Winter is Coming

If you're familiar with the popular HBO series, Game of Thrones, then you no doubt know that the phrase, winter is coming, is the motto of the much-beleaguered Stark family. And if you have no idea what I'm talking about, I imagine that you still understand the sense of that sentence. Winter is coming, so we better prepare for it, and we better get ready to hunker down.

When the weather report says a blizzard or hurricane is coming, many of us go to the supermarket to stock up on food and water, just in case. Maybe you make sure you have candles and flashlights ready, in case the power goes out. Some of you may have even bought generators, just in case there's no electricity.

We hope for the best, but prepare for the worst. Just in case. The old Jewish saying, always keep one bag packed, may not seem all that relevant for us, living in 21st century America, but over the past two decades we have also borne witness to events that have been entirely unanticipated and without precedent. The future is always unpredictable, but maybe now a little bit more than before?

Maybe you saw the 2005 movie, March of the Penguins? What is striking about the documentary is the way in which

they huddle together to survive temperatures close to 80° below zero, protecting their eggs, and taking turns bearing the onslaught of the cold. In the Antarctic, winter is always coming.

The lesson is one of cooperation. Everyone contributes to the survival of the group. Strength comes from community.

We don't know whether the next winter will be a mild one, or one that is exceptionally cold, or how much snow will accumulate. But we know that winter is coming, and we know that some winters are worse than others.

This may all sound uncharacteristically gloomy. Usually I go on about all the wonderful things that Congregation Adas Emuno has to offer, all of our achievements, triumphs, and celebrations. And indeed these remain truly significant reasons why our congregation deserves your support. Let us count our blessings, and show our gratitude in any and every way possible.

But let us never forget that, in addition to all of the good reasons for us to choose to be affiliated with a shul, to be members of Adas Emuno, and to contribute to its survival and success, there are also reasons why we need our congregation. There are reasons why we need the warmth and the light that only Adas Emuno can provide for us. Because, sooner or later, winter is coming.

 

From the pages of Kadima, the newsletter of Congregation Adas Emuno:

A Message From Our President

Dr. Lance Strate

Questions for the New Year

For students, teachers, and parents, September signals the start of a new school year. And for Jews all around the world, it is a reminder that our New Year is right around the corner (although this year a bit further down the bend than usual).

It's a busy time of year, the end of summer, the beginning of autumn, but then again, maybe it seems like we're busy all year around? That every day of the week is filled with activities? That we fill every moment of every day with some obligation or entertainment or distraction?

Do you feel saturated? Do you think you may be over-stimulated? And importantly, are you satisfied?

Do you allow yourself much time to let your mind wander? To daydream? To get lost in your thoughts? To just be alone with yourself? To meditate? And yes, to pray?

Do you find time to spend with others, with family, friends, community, without an agenda, without pressure to get something done or get somewhere on time, open-ended time just to relate to one another, engage in real conversation, heart to heart, or join together with others in ways that take you out of your routines and expectations?

What is the meaning and purpose of life? What is it that you really would like to accomplish? In the short term and the long term? Are you doing what you need to do to reach those goals? Or have you maybe attained them already, and just keep going anyway? What are your priorities? What should they be? What is it that really matters, in the end?

What is the legacy that you want to leave behind? How do you want to be remembered, by family, friends, and your community?

What does being Jewish mean to you? What did it mean to the generations that came before you? What will it mean to your children, and the generations to come? What would you want them to know and learn about our tradition? What kind of example are you setting for them?

What does Congregation Adas Emuno mean to you? What role does it play in your life? What role should it play in your life? What can you do to make more room in your life for all that our congregation has to offer, for spiritual communion, education, and social action?

How can we join together to make things better, for our congregation, our community, our world?

The answers to these questions will undoubtedly vary from one person to another. And they will also change over time. But what is most important is to ask the questions in the first place. Asking questions, what could be more Jewish than that?

 

From the pages of Kadima, the newsletter of Congregation Adas Emuno:

A Message From Our President

Dr. Lance Strate

The Force (of Jewish Community) Awakens

If Hillary Clinton can end her closing remarks at the December 19th Democratic Party primary debates with, "May the force be with you," then I think, or at least hope, that I can get away with using the new Star Wars movie as a launching pad for my column. And as we come to the end of the secular year and feel that sense of renewal that we experience every January 1st, let us indeed make this a time for the force to awaken, the force of Jewish community.

As it exists in the Star Wars films, the force, of course, is not part of Jewish spirituality, although the idea that all living things are connected, all part of a mystical union, is certainly consistent with a Jewish sensibility. After all, we hold life as our highest value (as well as the basis of our toasts—L'Chaim!). In our religious tradition, all life is connected because all life is a part of God's creation, all of us creatures created by the Creator.

Whether you believe in our traditional understanding or not, I think we can agree that there is something at once humbling and ennobling about this way of viewing the world, and viewing ourselves. And it points to a source of strength and growth that we all can draw on, our connection to the force. Our version of the force may not give us the power to levitate, or shoot lightning from our fingertips, or battle with a lightsaber, but it does serve as a source of education and enlightenment that cannot be found anywhere else, and as a source of community and communion with something greater than ourselves.

We may not be able to be a part of events that occurred, "a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away," but our tradition maintains that all of us were in fact present millennia ago when God spoke to Moses and all Israel at Mount Sinai. And we certainly are a part of a living tradition that stretches back to the very beginnings of civilization.

We may not be able to be Jedi knights, but we can be Jewish knights, by supporting our shul, participating in our congregational activities, being a part of our synagogue, being present here at Adas Emuno.

And we may not be called on to oppose the dark side of the force, but there surely is enough darkness in the world, and our congregation can serve as a source of light, a center for ethical practice and teaching, for social action and tikkun olam. Just like the characters in the Star Wars movies, we all must choose between the light and the dark.

I think it is safe to say that there is nothing that runs counter to Jewish teaching or Jewish faith in saying, May the force be with you! But it is good to also find the time to say to one another, May peace be with you! In other words, to join together at Congregation Adas Emuno, and say to one another, Shalom!

May the force of Jewish community be with you!


[For more on a related theme, see our previous post, Religion and Space Travel .]


 

 

From the pages of Kadima, the newsletter of Congregation Adas Emuno:

A Message From Our President

Dr. Lance Strate

The Spirit of '76

I think just about all Americans know that the year 1492 holds special significance, as the year that Columbus “sailed the ocean blue” and arrived at the western hemisphere. We used to say he “discovered the new world,” but now we view the event from a less innocent and less positive perspective. Moreover, for the Jewish people, 1492 represents one of the greatest tragedies in our history, the year we were expelled from Spain.

But this isn’t about 1492. And there may be other years in American history that most of us recall, 1812 for example (because of the war named for it), maybe 1929 for the stock market crash that marked the beginning of the Depression, maybe 1941 for the attack on Pearl Harbor, maybe 1945 for the end of the Second World War.

v But the year that especially resonates for us as Americans is 1776. Even through the American Revolutionary War began in 1775, 1776 is year of our Declaration of Independence. That’s why we consider it the year that the United States of America was founded, never mind the fact that the Revolutionary War didn’t end until 1783, that the 13 states were considered individual sovereign entities in a loose confederation until the adoption of the U.S. Constitution in 1789, and arguably were not completely united until the conclusion of the Civil War in 1865.

But this isn’t about 1776. This is about a year on a slightly older calendar, the year 5776. That, of course, is the year that just began on Rosh Hashanah evening, this past September 13th. The year 5776 holds no special significance in Jewish tradition, of course. Unless we choose otherwise.

So let's choose otherwise. Let's make 5776 a year to remember. A year to look back on. A year that we can be proud of. Let's create the Spirit of 5776 here at Adas Emuno. And that means getting active, getting involved, participating. In our social action initiatives, our adult education programs, our religious school, our fundraising and fun-raising events. And what would the Spirit of 5776 be without including a measure of spirituality itself. On Shabbat, Friday evening services, Saturday morning Torah study, and our festival and holiday celebrations?

When we think of 1776, we think of government of the people, by the people, and for the people, in the words of Abraham Lincoln. And along similar lines, Congregation Adas Emuno has a government that is of our members, by our members, and for our members. You can embrace the Spirit of 5776 by getting involved in our shul's governance, by volunteering, by serving on committees, by stepping up and making yourselves available for temple leadership positions. In 1776, the Continental Congress announced our Declaration of Independence. In 5776, wouldn't it be fitting if Congregation Adas Emuno proclaimed our Declaration of Interdependence. If we acknowledged that we depend upon each other to form a Jewish community, to support each other as members of that community, to maintain our 4,000-year-old, ever-evolving tradition.

We can't do it alone. We can't be fully Jewish by ourselves. We can't survive in isolation. We need each other. We need to join together as a congregation.

Renewing our commitment to our synagogue, declaring our interdependence as a congregation, establishing the Spirit of 5776. Maybe it's a revolutionary notion? Maybe it's an idea whose time has come? Are you ready?

Doris White's Yom Kippur Appeal 5776

L’Shana Tova.

I have been chosen to give the Yom Kippur appeal for two reasons: (1) I was absent from the meeting when the speaker was chosen and (2) my fellow board members thought I might be a good candidate because I left Adas Emuno for a few years and then returned. In truth, I feel honored to be standing here. I can’t think of a more supportive place to help me overcome a bit of nervousness at speaking before a packed house.

Yes. I did leave this congregation for a few years. Sometimes we feel as I did that the person and the place are no longer a good fit, and I did feel that way. My daughters and I joined temples in their towns, and it was fine, but not the same. After a year or two, I met Eileen Cohen who said, “Come back. Give it a try. We have a wonderful rabbi. Drop by one Saturday for Torah study.” It took me a few months, but one Saturday I decided to see this wonderful rabbi. The rest, as they say, is history. Rabbi Schwartz had me from his first thoughtful comments, and I became a regular at Torah study. Then I attended Friday night services and a few special events, and yes—dear listener—I rejoined and became a member of a vibrant, thoughtful, intellectual, musical, inspirational congregation. Shortly thereafter my daughters and their children came with me. When Cantor Horowitz arrived last year, the picture was complete. We here at Adas Emuno call Rabbi Schwartz and Cantor Horowitz the dream team, and we are so lucky that they are here. Everyone who was at last night’s Kol Nidre service can attest to the words and music that took their places in our hearts and our minds. Sadly, Rabbi, another sports legend passed away yesterday, Yogi Berra, with his own way with words, but his legacy is pure gold—no asterisk there.

We can’t close our eyes to the fact that synagogues in our area are closing: a few years ago Congregation Sons of Israel and shortly Gesher Shalom in Fort Lee. My talk will not concentrate on asking you to keep Adas Emuno alive; I’d like you to witness with me that we are alive with great energy, great spirit and great heart. We cross the generations as is reflected in our board, we are inclusive of everyone who wants to be here, and our welcome is strong. Our board works diligently to keep abreast of the times and offers activities that we want you to join: upcoming a walking tour of the Lower East Side, a fund raising event for our religious school called Treats and Treasures which will take place on October 29th at Modiani Kitchen in Englewood with prizes ranging from restaurant and store gift cards to a week at a vacation home in North Carolina. There will even be a cooking demonstration given by someone I know very well. We have our fingers on the pulse of our members; we are thinking and planning speakers, songfests, celebrations and prayer. The whole megillah.

Did you know that we celebrate the holidays with joy and music? Please join us in the Sukkah on October 2nd for performances by our youngest to our most mature members. Then on October 4th we offer subs in the Sukkah followed by our annual Simchat Torah service which spills out of our doors as we read the last words of the Torah and then begin the ancient ritual of starting over with the first words of Genesis. Please join us; we need your voices and your hands as we raise the Torah high.

Did you know that this year’s Torah study theme is Jewish ethics? Come and join us Saturday mornings from 10-11:30. Rabbi Schwartz discusses each section with commentary, psychology, archeology, history and politics. Even on the coldest winter mornings the talk is lively and stimulating with the many different perspectives offered by our members and guests. Everyone is welcome.

Did you know that we have a Poetry Garden the second Sunday of each month from 7-8 PM? Those of us who love the sound of words gather in the garden when it is warm and in the social hall when it is not. We read our favorite poems, classic and current, or listen to what others read or even share our own poetic thoughts. This past Sunday as the darkness fell, we recited some children’s poetry , were introduced to a new poet, Chanah Bloch. Each month we are surprised and delighted by poetry. Come and join us.

Did you know that we have a lively adult education program that has brought us folk dancing, scholars, comedians, archaeologists, members from Israel’s IDF? Please enjoy these special times with us.

Did you know that we have an engaged and dedicated staff of Hebrew teachers under the direction of Cantor Horowitz and an enrollment of excellent students in grades K through confirmation? We even have a Tot Mitzvah program for 2-1/2- to 4-year-olds that meets three times in the fall and three times in the spring in conjunction with the holidays. I invite you to take a walk or ride past our Hebrew school at noon on Sundays and see the faces of the children as they greet their parents with talk of what they learned and enthusiasm for the several projects the school offers.

Did you know that the B'nai Mitvahs in this temple are such meaningful experiences for our students? I know because three of my grandchildren stood on this bimah as Bar/Bat Mitvahs in the Spring. I invite you to attend the next such event so you can join with me in watching as this temple, these children and their families, this “dream team” inducts our children so meaningfully and so joyfully into the rituals, obligations and beauty of coming of age in Judaism. I was passed the special Torah, saved from the Holocaust in Czechoslovakia, and then passed it to my children and kvelled as they passed it down to their children, my beloved grandchildren. There are no words for this; you have to come and experience it yourselves.

Did you know that 10 students are continuing their Hebrew education past Bar/Bat Mitzvah as they meet with the rabbi in confirmation class? This year they will explore and discuss the many issues and decisions facing Jews and their connection to and support of Israel: topics such as the Iran situation, the Palestinian state conundrum, capital punishment, euthanasia. What a range of thoughtful topics for our young people on the threshold of becoming adults.

I also invite you to share with me the feeling of Shalom when I enter the sanctuary for Friday evening services. Each Shabbat I marvel again at the wisdom of separating the work week of tension, hassle, racing the clock with the ushering in of a time for rest, reflection and prayer. I often enter bringing with me the problems of my week and I feel them evaporating as the songs and prayers offered by Rabbi Schwartz, Cantor Horowitz and our congregation take their rightful place in my priorities. Rabbi Schwartz always provides his thoughts on what is happening in the world outside of ourselves, providing thought and even action as I go through the following week.

Perhaps my favorite part of the service is the Mi Sheberach prayer when we all join hands and send our healing thoughts to those who need them. We say the prayer together with joined hands and then give each others’ hands a final squeeze. I hope you will make time on a Friday night to join us and share in this healing communal spirit.

So we are alive and well and residing at 254 Broad Avenue in Leonia, New Jersey. We are privileged to be here with our dream team, our families, our friends, each other. Please take a minute, look around and absorb the worshipful aura in this sanctuary. Please think of this sharing as you consider your donation for this Yom Kippur appeal, and think of how your donation will support all the excellent happenings that make Congregation Adas Emuno such a special place.

I will end with a personal story. This summer, when her brothers and cousins were at camp, my granddaughter Stella asked me for a sleep over. What could be better? Of course I said, Yes. Then she asked me what we were going to do: I said: we would get manicures and pedicures, eat dinner and see a play in New York, and go to Shabbat services. She looked at me, but she knew I was serious. And so on a hot summer night in July, we did just that. Cantor Horowitz had brought her guitar and her lovely voice into the garden, and we sat on chairs around the lovely pond—thank you Rabbi and Fred Cohen. After the service was over, Stella said, “Bubbie, that was really nice. I love the way Lance sings the prayers and is so into it.” The next morning as were heading out for the manicures and pedicures, she said, “You know, Bub, I’m really glad we came back to your temple. It’s so heart to heart.”

Please open your own hearts and help us to keep this great Adas Emuno heart beating. Thank you.

 

From the pages of Kadima, the newsletter of Congregation Adas Emuno:

A Message From Our President

Dr. Lance Strate

Reason and Rhyme

Some of you may know that I published a book of poetry earlier this year (it's called Thunder at Darwin Station), and most of you probably know that we have a Poetry Garden group that meets every month, in our lovely garden if the weather permits, and otherwise in our social hall. And with that in mind, I thought that for my column in Kadima this time around, I'd write a little bit of light verse about Adas Emuno. It may not be any better than a Hallmark greeting card, but Rosh Hashanah is coming up soon, and some of us do send cards out at this time, so why not? Here it is:

Community gives us shelter from the storm
Our congregation, welcoming and warm
New and old, join hand in hand
Gathering together to take a stand
Renewing faith and commitment
Enjoying friendship and fulfillment
Gaining insight and understanding
As our hearts and souls expanding
Take our spirit ever higher
In preserving our most ancient fire
Our ever-evolving legacy
Nourishing our identity

A house of worship and of learning
Demonstrating and affirming
A commitment to heal creation
Social justice our persuasion

Education our sacred birthright
Minds are opened with delight
Uplifting our children, raised with love
Now soaring high up above
Our community, that's what I'm speaking of

(Adas Emuno, it's such a simple equation
It's just who we are, our very own little congregation)

You may have noticed that the poem is also a bit of an acrostic, a format with a long tradition in Hebrew poetry, one that is also a part of the High Holy Day liturgy. After all, we are the People of the Book, and also the People of the Alphabet.

And I would like to take this opportunity to wish you all a healthy and happy new year. May you and your family be inscribed in the Book of Life for a good year, a sweet year, a prosperous year. And may 5776 be a great year for us all, as a community and as a congregation.






P.S., here's a link to the book on Amazon:

 

And remember that any of your purchases made directly through any link on our blog or through the Amazon search box on the right will return a small percentage to our congregation. Please keep that mind whenever you are ordering anything from Amazon.

Honoring Fred Friedman

At our Shabbat service on Friday evening, May 1st, Congregation Adas Emuno honored Fred Friedman, who had stepped down as a member of our Board of Trustees this past winter. 

To show our gratitude for his many years of service, we asked fellow trustee Norman Rosen to draft a resolution in Fred's honor, which the board then unanimously approved. The resolution was then turned into a certificate by trustee Lauren Rowland, which we presented to Fred at our special service. And we are very pleased to share it here on our congregational blog, for all to see, and for perpetuity:

And because we at Congregation Adas Emuno were not the only ones who were grateful to Fred for his service to the community, not just the Jewish community but the local community as well, presentations were also made by local officials on behalf of the Senate and General Assembly of the State of New Jersey, and the Bergen County Board of Chosen Freeholders. Here are some snapshots taken of the two other certificates presented to Fred that evening:

Now, if you look closely at the wording of our resolution and that of these other certificates, you'll see that a certain resolution-gate scandal emerged from the proceedings. But it was all taken in good humor, and it was indeed an evening to remember, not the least because of the remarks Fred delivered, telling his own story. And we will share those remarks with you as well... in our next post! Stay tuned!

From Amusing to Amazing

In case you missed it in the Jewish Standard, published in the May 2nd issue, here is a news item by editor Joanne Palmer on the recently published book by Adas Emuno President Lance Strate. The article is entitled From Amusing to Amazing, and you can click on the link to read it on the Jewish Standard's website, along with seeing the photos and any comments that were posted there (and if you are so moved, add your own). Or read it here.

Here's how the article begins:

Was Neil Postman right nearly 30 years ago, when he said that television had trivialized nearly everything about our lives? That our ability to apply reason to make sense of the world had begun to atrophy in the overwhelmingly visual, no-delayed-gratification-necessary world we saw by its blue-flickering light?

And if he was right, what have the technological advances that make TV seem so very old-school done to us since then?

One of Dr. Postman’s disciples, Dr. Lance Strate of Palisades Park, has undertaken the challenge of examining both Dr. Postman’s life and worldview and the accuracy of his predictions.

In his new book, “Amazing Ourselves to Death: Neil Postman’s Brave New World Revisited,” Dr. Strate, who was Dr. Postman’s student at NYU and now is a professor of communication and media studies at Fordham University in the Bronx, continues his teacher’s analysis. His book follows up on Dr. Postman’s best-known work, “Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business,” which first was published in 1985. (Dr. Postman died in 2003.)

We will interrupt at this point to remind you that you can always order books and other material from Amazon through our site, and a percentage will be donated to our temple. You can find the general order box on the left, but here are some links for the two books being discussed:

And now to continue with the rest of the article:

Dr. Strate, who is president of his synagogue, Congregation Adas Emuno in Leonia, thinks that both Dr. Postman and his arguments are profoundly influenced by the Jewish world in which he grew up.

Dr. Postman, who was born in 1931 to parents who grew up on the Lower East Side, spent his own formative years in Flatbush. “One of the things that we kind of have a leg up on when we grow up in a Jewish neighborhood in New York is that it is multicultural and multilingual,” Dr. Strate said. “When you go to Hebrew school, you learn a different alphabet. When you go to shul, you are exposed to a different kind of book—a scroll. You really learn to be sensitive to the differences between different media, different modes of communication.”

That sensitivity, Dr. Strate continued, is at the heart of a discipline called media ecology, which Dr. Postman pioneered and he now champions.

Dr. Strate knows about such sensitivities firsthand. The son of Holocaust survivors, he is from Kew Gardens in Queens, another heavily Jewish neighborhood.

“The idea is that different media or forms of communication influence the way we feel, we perceive the world, and we behave, and on a larger scale the ways in which we organize ourselves as a society and as a culture.

“Something very profound that Dr. Postman pointed out is that the second commandment doesn’t just say there should be images of God. It says no images.”

That, Dr. Strate said, is because “with words, we can think much more abstractly.” Images are emotional and evocative, but “you can’t make an argument with images.

“Reasoning by analogy is very much at the heart of Jewish learning, and it involves a balance between the spoken and the written word,” he continued. “You can look at ancient Israel as the first great culture to come out of the alphabet. The Semitic alphabet first was introduced in around 1850 B.C.E.

“We are not clear on the history, of course, but within a few centuries we have the Exodus and the law. You can’t have written or codified law without writing. Judaism was the first religion to be based on a sacred written text, the first to venerate the book.

“Monotheism itself—the idea of one God—requires an abstract kind of thinking. God is a God of words—d’varim—not of images, and images are what we see in other religions all the time.”

Once the Semitic inheritance of abstract thought met with Greek philosophy—which itself needed the Semitic alphabet it got through the Israelites’ cousins, the Phoenicians—“that trajectory takes us through Western civilization,” Dr. Strate said. “It was amplified by the printing press, which brought on the modern world.

“The American republic was very much printing, particularly on pamphlets and broadsides. It was the first nation ever to be argued into existence. And one of the places that the Founding Fathers turned to for inspiration was the Torah.”

So what does this have to do with his argument about television, the Internet, and beyond?

“Postman, like many New York Jews, came down on the liberal side of things,” Dr. Strate said. “He was a defender of the potential of American democracy, and he came to the conclusion that television was completely undermining it.

“Building on that, and looking at the expansion of television through cable and satellite, and with the addition of the Internet—we know that there are great benefits that these technologies bring, but the problem is that all we tend to talk about are those benefits.

“Nobody talks at all about what they are costing us, and it is foolish not to look at the price tag. That’s what Postman wanted us to do—to ask, ‘Well, what is all this going to cost?’”

In his own book, Dr. Strate looks at four areas that Dr. Postman tackled first—with the new technology, what happens to journalism? To politics? To religion? And to education? Those four pillars of our culture all were built on words. “All have been damaged by the electronic media,” he said.

Religion, for example, often is broadcast, but religious services need a sense of the sacred, and that sense is hard to come by when you watch it in the profane space of your own home. “When you have religion on television, it is the preacher who becomes the focal point, not God,” Dr. Strate said. “And most religious services look awful on television because they are designed for real spaces, so the most successful kinds of televised religious services use entertainment formats. And when you do that, you lose all sense of what religion is about, and it becomes entertainment.”

Similarly, “more television channels have not given us a more serious form of television. Instead, they have given us more outlets for entertainment.

“They used to argue that we couldn’t get news in depth because there was only 20 minutes for it each night. Today, we have 24-hour news channels—and they still don’t do extended stories. Instead, they concentrate on people yelling at each other, or on sensational stories, and there is a lot of repetition. So the format really hasn’t changed dramatically.

“Politics has not improved much with the electronic media, even with blogs, YouTube videos, and news aggregators. All they have given us is more verbiage.

“And there is a lot of attention paid now to online education, to massive open online courses, but I think the best way to understand what makes for a good education is to look at what rich people do.” People who can afford just about anything “opt for very low teacher/student ratios and real face-to-face contact,” he said.

He explained the subtitle of his book by talking about the difference between the two dystopias imagined by two British writers more or less midway through the last century—George Orwell’s “1984” in 1949 and Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World” in 1931.

One more interruption, in case you would like to get a hold of copies of either of these novels, here are the Amazon links:

“Orwell was not as prescient as Huxley,” Dr. Strate said. “Orwell’s future was totalitarian. Huxley’s was about complete control by technology. We have allowed technology to be a kind of governing force. It is about doing things as efficiently as possible, so other human values get pushed away as a result.

“The reason for the decadence in ‘Brave New World’ is to keep everyone happy and functioning, so they will continue to be productive, and society will continue to roll on.

“That’s one side of the coin now. The other is that we are drowning in information. We don’t know how to say no to any new technology.” Not all new products catch on, he added, but the technologies behind them do.

“At the end, the question that the book raises is whether there is a future for us,” Dr. Strate said. “Is there a way for us to take control of things?”

Judaism had that idea long ago. Jews have known since the beginning that once a week, it is necessary to take a break. Some secular Jews have adopted the idea of “technology Shabbat” from more observant ones; it is a time for them to disconnect from all their devices and interact with the world directly.

Despite the many virtues of our electronics, that occasional and regular disconnection is necessary if we are to continue to advance, Dr. Strate suggests.

If you are interested in another point of view, here is a link to a book review published in an online Christian journal.

Rising C Levels

From the pages of Kadima, the newsletter of Congregation Adas Emuno:

A Message From Our President

Dr. Lance Strate

Rising C Levels

Rising sea levels are seen as a threat to coastal regions of the United States, and that is indeed a cause for concern, both nationally and locally. But this column is not about the effects of climate change on the Jersey shore, as important as that topic may be. No, it's not our sea levels that I want to bring up here, but rather something I'd like to call our C levels. 

 And the question I want to pose to you is, when it comes to Adas Emuno, what's your C level? 

Let me suggest to you that there are four basic C levels, that as levels they range from the lowest to the highest, and that rather than a problem, rising C levels are exactly what Adas Emuno needs. 

The lowest level, our low tide if you will, is the Consumer level. At the Consumer level, we think of Adas Emuno as a product or service that we purchase, just like buying toothpaste, a meal at a restaurant, or airline tickets. Or maybe it's more like buying membership in a club, paying tuition for a class or school, or purchasing stocks and bonds. Whatever variation on this view we might take, the point is that we are looking at our involvement in Adas Emuno as an economic transaction. And it follows that it makes perfect sense to ask, are we getting our money's worth? Or, are we getting a good return on our investment? Is it a good bargain? Such a deal?

If you're asking questions of that sort, I do hope your answer is yes. And I won't lie to you, there have been times when my relationship to Adas Emuno dipped down to Consumer level. It's hard to avoid, when we live in a world where it seems like you can put a price tag on anything, when everything seems to be reduced to dollars and cents, when the word priceless is just a slogan that a credit card company uses to mean, buy now, pay later. But I think we all know that there are some things that transcend the realm of financial calculation and pecuniary interest, and that membership in Adas Emuno simply cannot be measured in the form of customer satisfaction. You can't buy your way into Judaism. 

As consumers, it's all about what we can get, and how much we can get for our money. As consumers, we use our money, and we use it up, and in the same way, we use the things that we pay for with our money, and we use them up. That is what consumption is all about. But the great symbol of our faith and spiritual covenant, the first great revelation that Moses experienced, came in the form of a bush that burned but was not consumed. The burning bush, symbolized by the eternal light that hangs above the ark in our sanctuary, serve as a reminder that our tradition of worship, learning, and social justice is not a product, it is not a service like dry cleaning or being waited upon. 

Our tradition is a calling. We are called to worship, we are called to learning, we are called to seek justice. We are called, and when we respond to that call, we reaffirm the sacred covenant of our ancestors. And in doing so, we raise our C level to the Congregant level. As congregants, we are more than mere isolated consumers, consumed with ourselves. We are members of a religious community. We join together in search of another dimension of human life, something different and distinct from the everyday, something greater than ourselves, something that takes us out of our fixation with the present, linking our ancient past to generations yet to come. 

When we move beyond our individual needs and desires and become a part of a congregation, with a sense of responsibility to and for each other and our tradition, we are at the Congregant level, and when we go above and beyond being present, when we are actively participating in congregational life, we attain the third C level, the Contributor level. And that may sound like it's all about money again, and indeed financial contributions are one way to show your support, but there are many other ways as well. Contributing time, contributing effort, contributing skills, contributing knowledge, contributing talents, contributing support of any kind, all forms of contribution count. It is here that the temptation is overwhelming to invoke the cliché, with apologies to JFK, to ask not what Adas Emuno can do for you, but instead to ask what you can do for Adas Emuno. 

There is a fourth C level, beyond that of the Contributor, which is the Citizen level. As citizens in a democracy, we exercise our right to vote, and we are obligated to be well-informed about the issues that our leaders must deliberate and decide upon. To rise up to the Citizen level of Adas Emuno means to attend our congregational meetings, vote in our elections, serve on our committees, and participate in the functioning and administration of our congregation. On the Consumer level, we stand apart from Adas Emuno, looking at it as a source of goods and services. But on the Citizen level, we fully understand that we ourselves are Adas Emuno, that it does not exist apart from us, collectively. And we honor our commitment to our congregation, our faith, and our tradition, by taking full responsibility for our community. 

These then are the four C levels of Adas Emuno, the Consumer level, the Congregant level, the Contributor level, and the Citizen level. No one is stuck on any one of these levels, and we all move up and down this ladder at different times. What I ask is that you think about what level you are on right now, and what you might be able to do to raise your own level higher, and to help others to do the same. 

Whether we see ourselves as consumers, congregants, contributors, or citizens of Adas Emuno, together we are answering a calling by forming a community that we share and nurture through our caring and concern, our collective efforts representing a covenant with the past, and a commitment to the future. 

So, what's your C level?

Rabbi Schwartz's Sermon for Kol Nidre 5774

LETTERS TO MY CHILDREN: 

PART THREE

COMMUNITY

EREV YOM KIPPUR 5774

RABBI BARRY L. SCHWARTZ

Dear Children,

Ten days have passed since I last wrote to you. The period between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur is called Aseret Y’mei Teshuvah- The Ten Days of Repentance. We’re supposed to begin the Jewish New Year in the kind of introspection and soul searching that moves us to change our ways. That’s a very different way of greeting the New Year than New Year’s Eve celebrations of the civil calendar.

On Rosh Hashanah my first letter to you was about education, and rekindling our reverence for learning, secular and religious. My second letter to you was about identity, and recognizing that today we are all Jews by choice who need to actively affirm our Jewish identity lest it slip away. I don’t know if you’d had an opportunity to reflect on these letters over the past ten days, but if not…you can find them on our website!

On this sacred evening when we gather together as a community, I would like to talk to you about… community. The community you belong to that we call Am Yisrael or K’lal Yisrael. You might consider this something of a “State of the Union” of the Jewish People.

A preliminary word on what constitutes community. A recent survey showed that the average 18- to 35-year-old has 237 Facebook friends. Does that sound about right? Would you consider those friends your community?

When this same survey asked how many of these Facebook friends you could rely on in a crisis, the average answer was two. A quarter said one. An eighth said none.

A true friend, rather than an acquaintance, even a good acquaintance, is precisely someone who “has your back” in a crisis. And a true community is made up of people you can count on to look after you in time of need.

That’s what Jews do. Our motto, you might say, has always been the Talmudic dictum, “kol yisrael aravin zeh b’zeh—all Israel is responsible one for another.” That’s why American Jews led the charge to free the Jews of the former Soviet Union. That’s why Israel has welcomed immigrants from the four corners of the globe, and airlifted penniless Jews from Yemen and Iraq and most recently, Ethiopia. That’s why in every community they settled Jews established a synagogue, then a cemetery, and then a Free Aid Society to help those in need.

In my last letter I talked about how Jews are both an ethnic group and religion at the same time. As Mordecai Kaplan put it, being a Jew is belonging as much as believing.

Now a few words about how your community is doing. In the spring I wrote a column called “Where We Live: The End of the Jewish Diaspora.” It received quite a bit of comment. I pointed out that the far reaching Jewish dispersion is dramatically shrinking. Today over 12 million of the 14 million Jews in the world live in just two countries, Israel and America. Not a single city outside of these two, except Paris, even has a Jewish population over 250,000.

Put that in perspective. Before the Holocaust Poland alone had 3 million Jews, the Former Soviet Union, 2 million, Romania, Germany and Hungary more than a half million each. There were more than 9.5 million Jews in Europe; today barely a million. And it is sobering to remember that the world Jewish population in 1933 was 15.3 million. Eighty years later we have still not replaced our pre-Holocaust numbers.

And now add to the mix the fact that the number of Jews in America is on the decline. We have barely the same number of Jews in our community today as we did in 1950, and since then the US population has increased by 65%. That means we’re now about 2% of the population, and getting smaller, and getting older.

So let’s stop and ask ourselves why. Why in the most prosperous nation on earth, with unprecedented religious freedom, and with a flowering of Jewish culture and a profusion of Jewish institutions? As nationally syndicated columnist Charles Krauthhammer rather bluntly put it some years ago: 

How does a community decimate itself in the benign conditions of the Unites States? Easy: low fertility and endemic intermarriage.”

I know this is a sensitive subject, so let me tread carefully. And I know that I am dealing with quite a few statistics in this letter, but they are important, and they are eye opening. Eye-opener #1: American Jews have the lowest fertility rate of any ethnic group in the country. We are not anywhere near close to replacing our numbers. That would require a rate of 2.1. The national average in our community is 1.8. Among non-orthodox Jews it is 1.4.

Eye Opener #2: Fifty years ago there were 540,000 Jewish children in after school synagogue religious schools. Today there are 240,000.

Eye-opener #3: Half of all marriages in the Jewish community today involve a spouse who is not Jewish at the time of the marriage. Less than a third (28%) of the children of intermarriage are being raised as Jews. Less than a quarter of the children of intermarriage will marry Jews themselves. Of the 5.5 million people who identify as Jews in this country, some 2 million live in a household that does not identify itself as Jewish. 60% of Jews under 40 live in such a household.

We have wonderful examples of interfaith families making the commitment to raise their children Jewish right here at Adas Emuno. We celebrate that, but we need to face the fact that it is the exception to the rule. Put another way, for every one interfaith family that makes that decision, two will not.

Now here is where it gets personal, and I’m going to try not to get emotional.

I know you are in a relationship, or may be in a relationship with someone from another faith.

I know you may be in love or may fall in love with this wonderful person.
      
I know you may get married.

If he/she is your soul-mate, you will have my blessing.

What will break my heart is not your falling in love with another human being, be they of a different faith; that is preposterous. Love is beautiful, and we need more of it.

What will break my heart is if, as a result, you abandon Judaism.

What will break my heart is if you turn your back on your family, and your faith, and your people.

I pray that you will have a Jewish wedding.

I pray you will be blessed with Jewish children. At least 2.1 of them! (We have plenty of space for them in our hearts, and in our religious school.)

I pray that the bonds of love are never broken.

Make no mistake about it, we are all profoundly grateful to be living in the greatest country in the world. The doors of assimilation are wide open to a place of dignity, equality and security. We are walking right through those doors. For us as individuals- who can say anything bad. But for us as a community, as Krauthhammer puts it, 

assimilation is a disaster for Jews as a collective [people] with a memory, a language, a tradition, a liturgy, a history, a faith, a patrimony that will all perish as a result.

Could it be that the only remaining significant Jewish community in the world outside Israel will quietly wither away in two or three more generations?

Will a small, orthodox and ultra-orthodox core be all that’s left?

Will the seduction of assimilation accomplish what the assault of anti-Semitism never could? Will we succumb to self-inflicted wounds?

The Ten Tribes really did disappear from history. As did the great Persian Jewish community. As did the great Spanish Jewish community. As did the great Polish Jewish history. They disappeared from annihilation, or expulsion. The American Jewish community would be the first to disappear from assimilation.

That would be deeply sad and deeply disconcerting.

Sad that in the place we could finally be free, as Jews, we opted not to be.

Sad, because this country has and can continue to greatly benefit from what American Jews have contributed, as Jews.

Disconcerting, because that would leave only Israel, and as wonderful as the Jewish State may be, to put all our Jewish eggs in one basket, so to speak, is probably not wise for many different reasons.

You are old enough to appreciate the harsh demographic realities facing our community. I have not hid them from you. So what message do I want to convey to you, the next generation, today?

To paraphrase President Kennedy: “Ask not what your community can do for you. Ask what you can do for your community.”

Yes, even if you are a tween, teen, or twenty-something…you are not too young to give to your community. What institution or initiative in the place you call home could benefit from your involvement? Is it your synagogue youth group or college Hillel? Is it a gap year in Israel, or a Birthright trip to Israel? Is it a Birthright Alumni program or a Jewish summer camp? Is it a young Jewish leadership circle or a young Jewish professionals’ network? Is it the JCC or ADL? Is it J-Date or J-Street?

One of these groups will be a better place because of you. You may not be able to change the world, but you might just be able to affect your corner of it.

Gandhi said: “Be the change you want to see in the world.”

The Talmud reminds us: “You are not required to finish the task; neither are you free to desist from it.”

And remember this too: despite the doom and gloom of our waning numbers, this is still, arguably, the greatest time in our history to be a Jew. Imagine that for 2000 years there was no Jewish homeland, and then, in the lifetime of many in this room, 65 years ago, modern Israel rose from the ashes of Jewish history.

And what a state it is: Jewish, democratic, vibrant, entrepreneurial. In a bad neighborhood; for sure. Problems internal and external; no doubt about it. But Israel is a miracle by the Mediterranean. Our miracle.

And the American Jewish community in which you live is still a great one. There is more Jewish learning, more Jewish activism, and more Jewish influence than in any diaspora Jewish community in history.

Israel. America. In the ashes of the Holocaust, two amazing Jewish centers… waiting for you!

President Kennedy said in his great Inaugural address “the torch has been passed to a new generation…”

You, dear children, are now the torch bearers. You are the precious link between a hundred Jewish generations past, and a hundred more to come.

Don’t let the light go out. Keep the flame burning as surely as the Ner Tamid, the Eternal Light, above me.

Find your place. Find your community.

You are young. You are good looking (very). You are hard-working (most of the time). You are searching. You have a bright future. We need you. We love you.

Thank you for listening. Only one more letter to go… Shana tova…

Love, Abba

Here and Now

From the pages of Kadima, the newsletter of Congregation Adas Emuno:

A Message From Our President

Dr. Lance Strate

Here and Now

Shana Tova! Happy New Year! As we celebrate the start of the year 5774 on the world's oldest calendar, we might take a moment to consider the many, many generations that have come before us, whose faith and commitment kept our tradition alive over the ages. We owe those generations more than we can ever repay, for all that they have given to us as inheritors of their tradition, and all that they have given to the entire world.

And so, we might take another moment to think about the debt that we can never pay back, and what we might do to pay it forward. We have a responsibility, an obligation, to the generations yet to come, to maintain the continuity of our tradition as one that is vital and evolving, and the unique form of religion and spirituality invented by the Jewish people, and that we continue to reinvent in every generation.

Our time is a very brief portion of our long, long history. But what is history, except a succession of such moments? And in each generation, there were individuals, heroes and sages, yes, but also and more importantly ordinary people like you and me, who did what needed to be done to respond to the challenges of their times, and keep the light of our faith burning, even in the darkest of times.

Adas Emuno is a small part of the greater Jewish community of our time. But what is the larger Jewish community, except a collection of congregations and associations such as our own? Each local community exists only through the presence and participation of individuals like us, all of us sages and heroes in our right. In keeping our little shul on the hill vibrant and strong, we are doing our part for the larger Jewish community of our nation, and our world.

Our time is now. Our place is Adas Emuno. Be a part of it! Be active! There is no substitute for being there. We need you to pitch in, volunteer, join a committee, contribute in whatever way you are able. Make 5774 an especially meaningful year by keeping faith with the generations of the future, and with the greater Jewish community all around the globe, by keeping faith with Adas Emuno here and now.