Character Matters, The Prophets Say

Our friend Joanne Palmer, editor of the Jewish Standard, published an article on this year's Sweet Tastes of Torah that is worth noting here on the congregational blog of Adas Emuno. 

The title of the article is Character Matters, The Prophets Say. The subtitle of the article, which was published in the January 19th issue, is "This year’s Sweet Tastes of Torah includes a talk on prophetic literature; also havdalah, dessert, and dancing," and here's how it begins:

In some ways, everything is different this year.

In other ways, things are the same; we build on successes and learn from missteps. The Sweet Tastes of Torah, the annual program that offers the community workshops with local rabbis, all of them members of the North Jersey Board of Rabbis, has been going strong for almost a decade now. About 18 Conservative and Reform rabbis will teach two sessions of classes on February 3 at the Fair Lawn Jewish Center.

But this year, in response to the increased urgency that many people feel to do something, to understand more about what they can do and to know more about the Jewish context that can nourish their instincts and actions, Sweet Tastes of Torah is reshaping the evening.

It will begin with the usual spirited Havdalah, and it will end with the usual and much-anticipated dessert, as well as Israeli folk dancing (to even out the dessert), but it will include a keynote address, which will provide the focus for all of the first session’s workshops and some of the second.

So far, so good, you may say, but what really makes this year's event different from all other years, you may ask. Well, then, read on!

The keynote speaker is Rabbi Barry Schwartz, who heads Congregation Adas Emuno in Leonia and is the CEO and editor-in-chief of the Jewish Publication Society. In what must have been his abundant spare time (assuming that either he never sleeps and has figured out a 36-hour day), he has written Path of the Prophets. The latest of his books—he wrote a children’s book, Adam’s Animals, that came out in October—looks at some of the prophets—both the obvious ones, like Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel—and biblical figures who were not called prophets but who functioned in that way, characters including Judah, the midwife Shifrah, and Ruth.

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Although Rabbi Schwartz worked on his book for five years, he said, and therefore he began the work well before today’s political situation evolved, “it just so happens that it’s coming out at a time when we are so conscious of the ethical issues that are swirling around the presidency and also the #MeToo movement. This invitation to deliver the keynote came smack at the time when the Harvey Weinstein story was just breaking, and it seemed that every day there was a new story.

Because his book is about prophecy—and about ethical living, which prophecy demands—it seemed absolutely timely, he said, and that is a great sadness. “I thought that I was writing it in order to make my contribution to the conversation about the prophets,” he said. “They inspired me when I was younger, and I wanted to do that for the new generation.

“So many people try to read the prophets, and their eyes glaze over. So much of it is written in high rhetorical style, in a poetical prose that is very hard to digest. I wanted to write a book that makes the prophet’s works, and even their lives, accessible and relevant and compelling.”

He talked about his book’s structure, and how the workshops at Sweet Tastes will mirror that structure.

“The book is divided into three sections—justice, compassion, and faith—reflecting Micah’s admonition to ‘do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God,’” Rabbi Schwartz said.

“Certainly we are seeing ethical crises of leadership, particularly political and sexual in nature; these crises are happening so fast that we can hardly keep up with them. My thesis is that the prophets of ancient Israel brought forth an ethical revolution, and we need to retrieve their often overlooked or forgotten messages today. It will help inform us, perhaps it will help steady the ship.

“Part of what I will raise in the keynote is that it is not enough for us to lament what is going on. It is not enough for us to raise our concerns and then move on. In some ways, that is putting our heads in the sand, and the prophets would say no, that is not enough.

“We very much need to hear the prophetic message that every person has a responsibility to do their part. The prophets didn’t turn their ire just on the leaders, but on the people as well, and in some ways that is even more daring. If the leaders are making a mistake, we need to speak truth to power, but we also need to speak truth to the people, and to understand, as Rabbi Heschel put it, that especially in a democratic society, not all are guilty, but all are responsible.”

Rabbi Heschel, of course, is Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, the 20th century Jewish theologian and political advocate whom Rabbi Schwartz counts as among his inspirations. So, he said, was the rabbi of the shul to which his family belonged when he was growing up, in Croton-on-Hudson in New York. “Rabbi Michael Robinson, of blessed memory, was a disciple of Heschel’s, and one of the dozen Reform rabbis who were arrested with Martin Luther King in St. Augustine,” he said. “He was a true advocate for social justice, and I grew up with him, listening to him quote King and Heschel and the Hebrew prophets.

“It was JPS that published Heschel’s book The Prophets in 1963, and I feel a great kinship as the head of the JPS with Heschel’s work.”

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Rabbi Schwartz begins each of his chapters—each dedicated to one official or unofficial prophet—with a biographical sketch based on the information available in the Bible and fleshed out by his imagination. “I combine biography and theology by taking an episode from their lives that illustrates what their lives were about,” he said. “Sometimes the biographical bits in the text are sparse, but I elaborate on it by what I call creative first-person midrash. I have the prophets themselves speaking in the first person, and I take some poetic license to do it.”

Among the prophets Rabbi Schwartz writes about are Judah, who walks the “path of repentance,” he said. “Judah is the first character in the Bible who undergoes what we think of as repentance, and he changes.” And then there is Caleb the spy, “who had the audacity and the courage to stand up to his fellow spies, and he countered their terribly pessimistic report about the land they were about to enter with a more optimistic report. He was an example of someone whose spirit gave him the ability to stand forward.

“And the prophets are not all doom and gloom,” Rabbi Schwartz continued. “Some of it is about compassion, forgiveness, kindness, and hope. All of this is very much part of the prophetic message. That’s the second group, compassion. And then there’s the third one, walking humbly with your God. That’s the path of joy and faith and humility and wisdom; it’s more about internal characteristics.”

So, will his keynote address at Sweet Tastes of Torah be overtly political? It probably depends on how you define political, and for that matter how you define overt.

“I definitely will reference what is going on today,” Rabbi Schwartz said. “I am going to recall the names of so many people caught up in scandal today, without dwelling on any of the particular individuals or the details of their stories. But I do want to begin by painting a picture of the sordid state of affairs. I certainly will mention political figures and the figures in the worlds of entertainment and the like who have been caught up in political and sexual scandals, without going into detail.

“And then I will move directly to the message of the prophets, which is about not making ethics peripheral. They should be central to our lives.

“Character truly counts. To all those who say that our leaders’ character does not matter, the prophets would say that you can never separate character from the office. It’s reaffirming an old-fashioned message, that leadership is not just about a person’s ability, but about that person’s character. It’s not just about their ability but also their integrity.”

And then, of course, after all the discussion and soul-searching, there always is dessert.

The article also includes a nice picture of Rabbi Schwartz:

And it concludes with the following information: 

Who: The North Jersey Board of Rabbis sponsors

What: Sweet Tastes of Torah

Where: At the Fair Lawn Jewish Center, 10-10 Norma Avenue

When: On Saturday evening, February 3; doors open at 6:30 and Havdalah is at 7.

How much: $15 per person until January 31; $20 at the door

For more information, including a list of breakout sessions and teachers, and to register: Go to sweettastesoftorah.weebly.com or Google “sweet tastes of torah 2018”

We hope to see you there!

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

From the desk of …                    

 Rabbi Barry Schwartz

    

TRUTH TO POWER

I am honored that my rabbinical colleagues here in Bergen County have asked me to deliver the keynote address at the Sweet Tastes of Torah community night of study, Saturday night, Feb. 3, 2018 (7:00 PM) at the Fair Lawn Jewish Center.

My talk is entitled "Truth to Power: Prophetic Ethics in Troubled Times". It’s inspired by my new book, Path of the Prophets: The Ethics-Driven Life. I extend an invitation to you to join the several hundred people who gather at this annual evening of community learning. This year my address will be followed by break-out sessions led by a dozen of my colleagues. Each session will discuss a chapter of my book that elaborates on the prophetic path.

It gives me no pleasure to say that the publication of this book could not be more timely. It seems that we read about another sexual misconduct or political malfeasance scandal every week. As I will ask at the community event: “When will it end? Where will it end? How are we supposed to react? Is it enough to shake our heads or wring our hands? Is it enough to tusk-tusk and move on? Is it enough to forgive and forget? If this is a 'transformative' moment, then what have we learned? If this is a 'teachable' moment, then what do we say to our children?"

Enter the prophets. Even in their day they understood that the corruption of power is nothing new. They understood that the complicity of the elite is nothing new. And they understood that the apathy of the masses is nothing new.

Yet none of this stopped the prophets from speaking truth to power. None of this stopped the prophets from standing up when everyone else stood aside. None of this stopped the prophets from advocating for the path that I call “the ethics-driven life”.

Now more than ever, we need to rediscover these forgotten provocateurs who incited the most remarkable revolution in Western Civilization; who gave us the Great Commandment to love our neighbor as ourselves; who gave us the Ten Commandments that forbid murder and theft and adultery and lying; who gave us the charge to love the stranger, the widow and the orphan; who gave us the demand “to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly”.

I hope to see you there!

Rabbi Schwartz's Sermon for Rosh Hashanah Morning 5778

OUR COUNTRY

ROSH HASHANAH 5778

RABBI BARRY L. SCHWARTZ

This summer a new chapter in an old debate erupted in the American Jewish community.

Rabbi David Wolpe of Temple Sinai in Los Angles, among the best known congregational rabbis in the country, published a column, Why I Keep Politics off the Pulpit. In it he says that he is "endlessly besieged by requests to take on this or that political or social issue." He remarks that, “with each new presidential administration the pressure grows greater." Rabbi Wolpe then explains why he avoids talking about politics from the pulpit. He concludes, “don’t tie your Torah to this week’s headlines. We are better, bigger and deeper than that.”

The reaction was fast and furious, in defense of Rabbi Wolpe and opposed to Rabbi Wolpe. The most talked about rebuttal was from Rabbi Rick Jacobs, president of the Union for Reform Judaism, our movement. He begins, “There are few colleagues for whom I have more respect than Rabbi David Wolpe.… I count him as both a teacher and a friend. Which is why I was struck by… [his] recent op-ed… How could someone who is usually so right be so wrong on something so important?”

Rabbi Jacobs entitled his piece, A Politics Free Pulpit is an Empty Pulpit. He distinguishes between partisanship and politics. While maintaining that the former has no place in the pulpit, he argues that the latter is indispensable. According to Jacobs we have both the right and responsibility to speak out on the moral issues of our day. So whereas Wolpe claims that, “what you may not do, if you are intellectually honest, is say the Torah points in only one political direction,” Jacobs counters that “although once can certainly love Torah and follow different political paths, one cannot claim to be a lover of Torah and nor care about how our society treats those in need, the weak, the vulnerable, the stranger and the oppressed.”

Jacobs continues, “the Judaism that I believe in does not limit Torah lessons to the parchment of our… scrolls… The Judaism that I live compels me to use those lessons to understand the most urgent challenges we face." He goes on to quote Rabbi Stephen Wise, perhaps the most influential rabbi of the early 20th century, who said, “the pulpit of the synagogue is charged with the responsibility of… prophetic memories and prophetic aspirations… pledged to… truth- speaking under freedom… a most solemn and inescapable duty. I could not with self-respect remain silent.”

Indeed, we studied Rabbi Wise in our History of Reform Judaism course at our Shabbat morning Torah study this past year. In 1905 Wise turned down the most prestigious pulpit in the country, Temple Emanu-El of New York, over the issue of freedom of the pulpit. He wrote a scathing letter to the chairman of the synagogue board, the famed industrialist Louis Marshall: “Dear Sir: If your letter of December first be expressive of the thoughts of the trustees of Temple Emanu-el, I beg to say that no self-respecting minister of religion, in my opinion, could consider a call to a pulpit which, in the language of your communication, shall always be subject to, and under the control, of, the board of trustees.” Wise went on to establish the Free Synagogue of NY, and spoke out on the great issues of the day. In 1919 he took on the steel industry, siding with the striking workers. A group of prominent trustees and members connected to the industry were outraged. They withdrew their building pledges and many resigned. Wise later recalled that “the ideal of pulpit freedom was put to the test, and the ideal was sustained. But the [new] building was lost.”

I don’t think it is hard for you to guess where I stand on this debate. Stephen Wise is one of my heroes for the moral courage he showed in his generation, like Rabbi David Einhorn showed in his generation, when he spoke out so strongly against slavery and for abolition that he was forced to flee his pulpit in Baltimore. More recently another of my heroes, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel spoke out for Civil Rights and against the Vietnam War, and so did my own rabbi Michael Robinson, in Croton-on-Hudson, NY.

All of them were inspired by the prophets of ancient Israel, who understood that religion and politics are inseparable; that ethics is the essence of piety, not ritual; that truth must confront power.

All of this is prelude to the point I make now. If what is happening in Washington now is the number one subject on my mind (and maybe yours); if what is happening to our country has been on my mind non-stop since November; if I cringe at the news night after night after night… how can I not talk about what is going on… from the pulpit, here at the High Holidays? Where do I begin?

I will take just one issue: healthcare. You will remember that is was the primary issue in the country… before Charlottesville.

National health insurance is considered a right, not a privilege, in first world countries around the world.

Here, the hard-won mandate to cover all in need, this summer’s debacle notwithstanding, is under constant threat of being repealed but not replaced.

Let’s not forget that at least 23 million Americans may yet lose their health care.

Let’s not forget that hundreds of thousands of the working poor may yet see their Medicaid program disappear.

Let’s not forget that hundreds of thousands of the elderly may yet see their Medicare program premiums skyrocket.

Let’s not forget that hundreds of thousands of the disabled may yet see their benefit slashed.

Many experts say that medical debt will surge. Untreated conditions will surge. Bankruptcy will surge. Extreme poverty will surge. The Nobel prize winning economist Paul Krugman calls the proposed repeal and the new budget lethal, and its effect, “apocalyptic.”

Paul Krugman puts it starkly: “Losing health care is a nightmare… tens of millions… [may] soon find themselves living this nightmare.”

What is happening? Who are we?

Look at what we have seen during and after this election.

I call this sad and cruel time, “the closing of the American heart.”

Make no mistake about it: the so called “America First” narrative is in reality an “America Divided” narrative.

As National Book Award Winner George Packer acerbically notes, “America First is the conviction that the country has lost its traditional identity because of contamination and weakness—the contamination of others, foreigners, immigrants, Muslims; the weakness of elites who have no allegiance to the country because they’ve been globalized.”

“This narrative,” Packer continues, “has contempt for democratic norms and liberal values, and it has an autocratic character. It personalizes power, routinizes corruption and destabilizes the very idea of objective truth.”

Is giving tax breaks to the rich while breaking the backs of the poor “America First”?

Is sowing fear among our immigrant population while quashing their entrepreneurial spirit “America First”?

Is blaming “both sides” for injustice while implying a repugnant moral equivalency between racists and those protesting racism “America First”?

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 

In American Covenant, his magisterial new study of civil religion in America, historian Philip Gorski notes how the Book of Exodus inspired our founding fathers. It speaks, of course, of the revolt against tyranny, the traverse of the wilderness, the making of a covenant, and the journey on to the Promised Land.

The Exodus saga inspired John Winthrop and Roger Williams. It inspired Benjamin Franklin, who wanted to depict Moses on the Great Seal of the United States. It inspired Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. It inspired Martin Luther King Jr. It should inspire us anew.

At its heart and essence, the Torah is a prophetic narrative. All stand equal before God. All stand at the Mountain. All pledge loyalty to the covenant and to each other. As we will read on Yom Kippur, “You stand this day, all of you, before the Lord your God, your tribal heads, your elders and your officials, all the men of Israel, your children, your wives, even the stranger within your camp, from woodchopper to water drawer, to enter into the covenant"(Deut. 29:9-10).

A true American Covenant ethic, in contrast to a pseudo America First manifesto, promotes unity, not division. It promotes equality, not inequity. It promotes compassion, not cruelty.

A true American Covenant ethic does not build walls, but opens gates. It is not a fortress but a beacon. It cares for the widow, the orphan, the poor and the stranger… because it feels commanded to do so.

A true American Covenant faces out, like Lady Liberty.

And in the words of Emma Lazurus’ famous poem at her base, “From her beacon-hand glows world-wide welcome.”

This is our country.

This is our Promised Land.

This is the place where we reject division and defamation.

This is the place where say no to collusion and confusion.

This is the place where we speak truth to power.

This is the place where we say, “Dissent is patriotic.”

This is the place where we say, “Hate has no home here.”

This is the place where we sing, “My country, tis of thee, sweet land of liberty.” 

This is our country!

Pope Francis Holds Interfaith Prayer at 9/11 Memorial

In case you missed it, here is a video of the interfaith prayer ceremony held at the 9/11 Memorial in New York City on Friday, September 25th, in conjunction with the recent visit by Pope Francis. In addition to the prayers and meditations offered by Pope Francis, the service featured participation by the rabbi of our sister shul, New York's Park Avenue Synagogue, Elliot Cosgrover, side by side with Imam Khalid Latif, the Muslim chaplain at New York University. 

Also note the moving rendition, about 22 minutes into the video, of the Hebrew memorial prayer, El Malah Rachamim, as chanted by Park Avenue Synagogue's cantor, Azi Schwartz, followed by a rendition of Oseh Shalom in which others joined in, including New York's Archbishop, Cardinal Timothy Dolan.






The Young People's Chorus of New York City, closing the ceremony with "Let There Be Peace on Earth," exemplified the spirit of interfaith tolerance, amity, and cooperation. To this, we can only say, amen, amen!

Jewish Life in Colonial America

We're grateful to Cantor Sandy Horowitz for sharing with us the sermon she delivered on Friday evening July 3rd, the eve of the Shabbat that coincided with America's Independence Day:

July 3, 2015

Since it’s almost July 4th and we are in a synagogue, I thought I would spend a few minutes talking about the Jews who first came to this country before the Revolutionary War. 

Jews in Colonial America were certainly free of the overt persecutions and forced conversions to Christianity that had been their experience in Europe; however they weren’t exactly free to live on an equal basis with their Protestant counterparts. (Nor for that matter were the Catholics.) 

The first group of North American Jews landed in New York–then known as Dutch New Amsterdam –arrived in 1654. There were 23 of them, primarily traders and merchants, and they came from Brazil after having fled persecution in Europe.

Since New Amsterdam was Dutch, and Holland was known for its religious tolerance, these Jews figured they had it made. Unfortunately, Governor Peter Stuyvesant didn’t see it that way; he didn’t want Jews to settle in his colony. But economics prevailed over prejudice, as the Dutch West India Company was interested in these Jewish traders, and effectively convinced Stuyvesant to let them stay.

And so they were allowed to trade and to own real estate. However they were not permitted to hold public office, open a retail shop, or establish a synagogue.

When in 1664 the English captured New Amsterdam from the Dutch and renamed it New York, life for the Jews remained essentially the same. 

As public worship was seen as a threat to the Protestant way of life and was therefore forbidden, Jews prayed privately in a mill loft, which they made into a makeshift synagogue.

For those of you who heard Rabbi Schwartz speak last week about the history of Charleston's African Methodist Episcopal church, we recall that just as Jews prayed privately and in secret in colonial times, so too–in a far more violent climate–did our southern African-American counterparts find ways to pray together even when it was forbidden. 

In any case, the mill loft was the precursor to the first publicly known synagogue Shearith Israel, which was consecrated around 1720, and which exists as a congregation to this day. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

So, what was Jewish religious life like during this time? These were Sephardic Jews, and for the most part they maintained their Orthodox religious observance. Remember, the Reform and Conservative movements didn’t exist yet. However, once in America, there was a relaxation of observance among some at least, when it came to dietary laws and keeping the Sabbath. It’s known for example that Jews served in the army during the Revolution, where they certainly would have not kept kosher or observed Shabbat.

What’s more, during this time, Colonial Jews chose not to import ordained Rabbis from Europe, as their sister congregations in the Caribbean and South America had done. And so there was no one whose role was to decide on matters of ritual law (halakha), make sure people kept kosher, or be a model for Jewish scholarship and learning. This didn’t change until the 1830s. When disputes arose, unlike the European model where issues were resolved within the Jewish community, here in the colonies, Jews like everyone else relied on civil authority. This was new.
So–who led the congregations in worship? It was the Cantor, known as the Hazzan-Minister.

In fact, the area where the colonial Jewish community was most strict about adherence to tradition, was with its music–Torah cantillation and their liturgical melodies. And so they did import trained cantors–hazzanim–from Amsterdam and London.

Along comes the Revolutionary War. When the British army advanced into New York, most of the members of Shearith Israel, who sided with the rebels, took their Torahs and fled first to Connecticut and four years later, to Philadelphia where they founded a new synagogue, Mikveh Israel. Meanwhile, some members of Shearith Israel, who were loyal to England, remained in New York. Here we may have just witnessed the first congregational ideological split.

Shearith Israel congregation still exists today: to borrow from Guys and Dolls, it’s the “oldest established permanent floating synagogue” in New York. It floated up from its first home on Mill Street downtown to the upper west side where it’s an active synagogue today. 

So that’s New York, what about the Jews of New Jersey? Although it wasn’t until the mid 1800s that there were known established Jewish communities, Jewish merchants from New York and Philadelphia did conduct business in New Jersey during the colonial period. Among the first Jewish settlers were Aaron and Jacob Lozada, who owned a grocery and hardware store in Bound Brook as early as 1718. Daniel Nunez appears in a 1722 court record as town clerk and tax collector for Piscataway Township and justice of the peace for Middlesex County. This may be earlier than their New York counterparts would have been allowed to hold civic office.

In any case, it was the war that led to a change in status of American Jews. 

As I mentioned, Jews for the most part sided with the rebels; they signed non-import agreements, promising not to trade with the England, and many enlisted in the Continental Army and the various militias. They served as soldiers and in some cases as officers. Some Jewish merchants also made significant financial contributions to the revolutionary war cause. After the war, George Washington as President wrote to several of the Jewish congregations thanking them for their contributions and their service.

Over time, the newly formed states loosened their policies regarding the restriction of voting to Protestants only, and by the early 1800s Jews were given the right to vote–(Jewish men, that is…).
We had it easy compared to our African-American counterparts, who didn’t get the vote until much later, and who had a far more violent history than we ever did in this country. But our colonial American history should serve as a reminder that we too have had to struggle for equal treatment under the law even here, in the land of freedom whose birth we celebrate this weekend. 

In a 1790 letter to the Newport Rhode Island Congregation, George Washington wrote: "May the children of the stock of Abraham, who dwell in this land, continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other inhabitants, while everyone shall sit safely under his own vine and fig tree and there shall be none to make him afraid. [Michah]" 

May this beautiful image one day come true for all Americans, and may we help to make it happen.

Shabbat shalom.

Happy Passover!

From Congregation Adas Emuno to you and yours, and to all the world:  Best wishes on this, the Season of our Freedom! A sweet and happy Passover all around the world!

Just a reminder that there will be no Shabbat services at our shul tonight. That almost never happens, but once in a decade or so, the first Seder falls on a Friday night. And there will be no Torah study tomorrow morning because we will be taking part, along with other Reform congregations in our part of Bergen County, in the community festival morning service at Temple Beth El of Northern Valley, at 10:30 AM. And for those of you who reserved a place at our Congregational Seder right here in Leonia, tomorrow evening at 6 PM down in our social hall, we look forward to seeing you there!

And as we prepare for our first Seder tonight, here's something to help us get into the spirit, a new video by The Maccabeats:

Chag Sameach! Happy Passover!

Sinai Revisited

Coming up soon! Once again, our own Rabbi Schwartz will be participating in this community-wide event for Bergen County, Sweet Tastes of Torah. 

This year's theme is Sinai Revisited: Views from the Mountaintop.  Rabbi Schwartz's presentation will be, "What Happened at Sinai: Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, and Reconstructionist Views" and of course there will be many other worthwhile sessions.

Congregants interested in car-pooling with others from our temple to this event, please contact Virginia Gitter.

Questioning the Torah

We are pleased to share with you the following reflections provided by Adas Emuno congregant Ludwik Kowalski sent in on December 19th:

What a coincidence! Two events, our rabbi's play, in Temple Emanu-El, and publication of an article by Roger Price, Is This Really The Torah God Gave Moses At Sinai?, took place on the same day (December 18, 2014). The main hero of the play, the ancient Rabbi Elisha, struggled with questions that founders of Reform Judaism addressed in the 19th century. Elisha was excommunicated long before Spinoza was declared a heretic, and before modern science was created by Galileo and Newton.

Price's article is full of questions about the Torah, which "asserts a pre-history and a purpose of the ancient Judahite kingdom to which contemporary Jews trace their emotional and often actual genetic origin." Each of these intellectual contributions—the play and the article—addresses topics relevant to our weekly Torah study.

For more on Rabbi Schwartz's theatrical adaptation of As A Driven Leaf, see our previous post, Hanukkah and Heresy. Congregation Adas Emuno was well-represented at the reading at Temple Emanu-El in Manhattan, and the play itself was very well received, a genuine hit! Now all that's needed is an angel to sponsor it for Broadway!


 

The Rules of the Game

On Hanukkah, we play the dreidel game, and just in case you need a refresher course on how to play and what it all means, this charming video from the teens of Temple Beth Or in Washington Township, up in the northern reaches of Bergen County, will fill you in. 

And even if you're a dreidel master, we think this video will make you grin.










Either way, why not take a dreidel out for a spin? 

And have a Happy Hanukkah, and Shabbat Shalom!

Hanukkah and Heresy

Not only is Barry Schwartz the spiritual leader of Congregation Adas Emuno, the Director of the Jewish Publication Society, and the author of several books (see our previous posts, Adas Emuno: We Need More Jewish Debate, Not Less and Adas Emuno: Judaism's Great Debates Now in Print!), but our multitalented rabbi is also a playwright, with a reading of his new drama set for this Thursday, December 18th, 7 PM, at Temple Emanu-El in Manhattan.

We are pleased to share with you an article from The Jewish Week by their theater columnist, Ted Merwin, entitled Chanukah and Heresy:

While Chanukah marks the military victory of Mattathias and his five sons over the Seleucid (Syrian Greek) monarchy, it also represents the ascendancy of the Maccabees over their fellow Jews who had become infatuated with Hellenistic culture.

The most famous literary exploration of this underlying theme is Rabbi Milton Steinberg’s 1939 historical novel, “As a Driven Leaf,” which centers on Elisha ben Abuyah, an iconoclastic rabbi from Talmudic times who was excommunicated for his embrace of Greek philosophy and who was then accused of betraying the Jews to the Romans during the Bar Kokhba Revolt. Barry Schwartz’s new dramatic version of the novel will be performed Dec. 18 in a free reading by the Instant Shakespeare Company at Temple Emanu-El.

The playwright, a Reform rabbi, is now the director of the 126-year-old Jewish Publication Society. He views “As a Driven Leaf” as exemplifying the struggle that many Jews still face. The protagonist, he told The Jewish Week, is “caught between Athens and Jerusalem, or between reason and revelation.”

Like that of Baruch Spinoza, the 17th-century Dutch Jewish philosopher who was also excommunicated for his atheism, the tale of Elisha, Schwartz reflected, “disturbs and haunts us to this day.” Indeed, in 1991, a Baghdad-born Israeli author, Shimon Ballas, published a controversial novel, “Outcast,” about an Elisha-like Iraqi Jew who converts to Islam; it was translated into English in 2005.

Steinberg, who was the rabbi of Park Avenue Synagogue until his untimely death at the age of 46, was a disciple of Rabbi Mordechai Kaplan, the founder of the Reconstructionist movement. In 1945, Rabbi Kaplan was excommunicated by Orthodox rabbis; they burned his Sabbath prayer book, which eliminated references to a supernatural God, to belief in a messiah, and to the Jews as the chosen people. The episode, Schwartz said, was extremely sobering for Steinberg.

Paul Sugarman, who plays Elisha, is the founder of the Instant Shakespeare Company, which performs readings of the Bard’s work in public libraries across the city, Sugarman remarked that his character is “tragically caught between his community and his loyalty to his rational ideas.”

Vacillating between the Jews and Romans, Sugarman said, Elisha betrays both. “He is overwhelmed by circumstances,” the actor observed, and “thus fails to bridge the gap between not just different ideas, but between different parts of himself.”

“As a Driven Leaf: The Heresy of Rabbi Elisha Ben Abuyah” will be read this Thursday, Dec. 18, at 7 p.m. at The Temple Emanu-El Skirball Center, One E. 65th Street. For information, call the Skirball at (212) 507-9580 or visit www.emanuelskirballnyc.org.

This looks to be a real Hanukkah treat for all of us! You can count on the fact that Adas Emuno will be well represented at this event. We hope to see you there!

Looking Forward to Shavuot!

The Festival of Shavuot begins on the evening of Tuesday, June 3rd, and Congregation Adas Emuno will be joining together with Temple Emeth of Teaneck and Temple Sinai of Tenafly in a collaborative service hosted by Temple Sinai, at 10:30 AM on Wednesday, June 4th.

It is customary to celebrate Shavuot by eating dairy, so here are some tips on cooking up some blintzes:





And be sure to join us on Friday night, June 6th, as we celebrate Shavuot on Shabbat with this year's Confirmation class.

Happy Passover!

With the first Seder tonight, we at Adas Emuno wish you all a very Happy Passover holiday. And in celebration of the festival, here is one of our favorite videos that retells the story of the exodus in an altogether original fashion:





And join us tomorrow morning, Tuesday April 15, at 10 AM for our community Passover morning service, held in conjunction with our sister shuls here in Bergen County, Temple Sinai of Tenafly and Temple Emeth of Teaneck.

Find the Familiar Face!

No, it's not a game of where's waldo or waldbaum or whatever, but can you find the familiar face in this crowd of great Jewish learning?

Yes, it's our very own Rabbi Schwartz, in the center on the bottom row, but you found him already, so good job! And once more he will be participating in Sweet Tastes of Torah this Saturday evening, where he'll be talking about the spirituality of the desert (as in the Sinai, but there will also be desserts served, don't worry). 

And there will be many other interesting programs to choose from, with preregistration (by the 29th) at only $18 per person (such a deal!), and if you miss that, just $5 more to pay at the door. And it's all happening over in Fair Lawn, so you don't have to leave Bergen County, and it's not too far from us here in Leonia. Just click on the link to check it all out at Sweet Tastes of Torah.

South Africa's Chief Rabbi Memorializes Nelson Mandela

As the whole world mourns the passing of a great leader and advocate forgiveness and reconciliation, it is worth noting that South Africa's Jewish community were among Nelson Mandela's most ardent supporters. And it is worth listening to the memorial delivered by that nation's Chief Rabbi, Warren Goldstein, as he is joined by former President Thabo Mbeki and Mary Kluk at the Jewish Community Memorial and Prayer Service for Nelson Mandela, at Oxford Synagogue, Johannesburg.


 




And to add to the tribute, here is President Obama's statement on the passing of Nelson Mandela:

 



And we join together with people of good will all across the globe in celebration of Mandela's contributions to social justice and peaceful co-existence.

Passover Updates

As we prepare to tell the story of Passover, reading from the Haggadah at the first Seder this evening, we can only imagine how the story of the exodus might have been reported had it happened today, rather than in the says of scribes and scrolls.  Here's one current update from Aish.com entitled Passover: Breaking News:






And in case you missed this one they produced a couple of years ago, here's Google Exodus:






But of course, our Passover celebrations will not be televised, they will be live! 

And following the first Seder tonight, please join us as Adas Emuno hosts the Reform Community Pesach Service on Tuesday morning at 10:30 AM. The rabbis and cantors and congregants from Temple Emeth of Teaneack and Temple Sinai of Tenafly will join us, and Rabbi Lawrence Troster, one of the leading figures in the Jewish environmental movement today, will give a thought provoking sermon on Pesach and Environmental Justice. 

If you are not working that morning, this community service will truly add a joyful dimension to your holiday.

And with that we wish you a Chag Sameach, and a Zissen Pesach!

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

From the desk of …                    

 Rabbi Barry Schwartz

    

EARLY OR LATE?

Ever notice that the Jewish holidays always come “early” or “late” but never on time?

This most common of comments is ironic indeed. According to the Hebrew calendar our Jewish holidays always come on time because they fall on the same day of the same Hebrew month year after year. It is only in comparison to the secular (civil) calendar that they appear early or late. The fact that we unfailingly make the comparisons is testimony to Mordecai Kaplan’s thesis that we really do live in two civilizations, which he called Jewish and Western (and can be called “Jerusalem” and “Athens” when referring to philosophical world views [see Rabbi Schwartz's previous column, From Athens to Jerusalem).

Well, this year is a doozy. Talk about the holidays coming early… by the time you read this Purim will be over, because it is in February instead of March, and Pesach is in March instead of April. Rosh HaShana is two days after Labor Day and Sukkot and Simchat Torah are done by the end of September.

But the craziest thing of all is that Hanukkah and Thanksgiving come at the same time this year! No, that’s not a mistake… check your calendar and you will see that we actually light the first candle the night before Turkey Day (in my case Tofurkey Day). Due to vagaries of the Hebraic and Gregorian calendars (too complicated to explain) this confluence is unprecedented and will never happen exactly this way again. The next time anything remotely similar will occur will be in 2070 and 2165.

But back to our next holiday, Pesach, which happens to be the most widely observed Jewish holiday. You don’t have to belong to a synagogue. In fact, you don’t have to leave home. A special family meal is the centerpiece. And the celebration of rebirth of spring and freedom in the context of the great Exodus story are universal themes that appeal to all Jews, and indeed, all people.

Consider adding a special dimension to your observance of Pesach this year. Congregation Adas Emuno is proud to host the Pesach Morning Reform Community Service this year (Tuesday, March 26 at 10:30 am). The rabbis and cantors from Temple Beth Emeth in Teaneck and Temple Sinai in Tenafly will join us. Any of you who have attended these communal services know that the worship is spirited and joyful. You will even be pleasantly surprised at the quality of the kosher-for-Passover reception that follows! Even if you are up past your bed time and eat too much at your family seder… come early, stay late, and you’ll be right on time for our festival gathering.

After all, it makes no difference if the holidays are early or late, so long as we celebrate.

Communities of Practice

Did you see the article, URJ Unveils ‘Communities of Practice’ in this week's Jewish Standard (dated January 18)?  Written by Lois Goldrich, the article begins with the following pargraphs:

While many synagogues generate creative ideas for growing their membership, they often lack the resources to implement them. 

To address this issue, the Union for Reform Judaism has created the “communities of practice” program, bringing together 37 congregations around the country to share ideas and experiment with new strategies. Two of them are local — Temple Beth El of Northern Valley in Closter and Congregation Adas Emuno in Leonia.

Before focusing on our congregation, Goldrich first focuses on our sister shul in Closter. We'll skip over that part, but if you're interested, you can read the article in its entirety on the Jewish Standard website.  And here's how it looked in the print version:

And now for the relevant section of the article:

Congregation Adas Emuno in Leonia has been selected for the young families initiatives. Its rabbi, Barry Schwartz, is excited about his congregation’s participation in the project. 

“I think the URJ has come to realize that they need to put congregations that share the same needs and same challenges together,” he said. “That’s what this is about. Small congregations like ours have one set of challenges; large congregations have another.”

While Adas Emuno, founded in 1871, is what Schwartz calls “a wonderful little congregation,” with some 100 member units, it nevertheless embraces members of all ages, including 70 children. 

But with no preschool—and with what the rabbi described as “demographic challenges”—it is not easy to attract young families with children.

“We have a declining number of young families because the Jewish population in this part of the county is diminishing,” he said. Still, membership has been steady, “and we want to keep that base. We’ve been around 140 years. We want to make sure there’s a generation to take our place.”

Noting that his synagogue serves people beyond the immediate neighborhood, Schwartz said the congregation is eager to attract families that are not yet affiliated with the community, including interfaith families.

School director Annice Benamy and congregational leader Rebecca Kind Slater will represent the synagogue in URJ meetings, traveling to Chicago later this winter to participate in the inaugural conference. Both, he said, are professional teachers.

“They’ll be talking to congregational staff and leaders with expertise in this area,” he said. “Why not learn some of the best practices?”

The rabbi said discussion of the issue has already begun, and the congregation has initiated a series of tot programs, including offerings on Shabbat and holidays as well as field trips. He said that young families particularly enjoyed the shul’s recent Chanukah party, at which he played guitar, “did a Chanukah rap, and showed them my dreidel collection.

“We’re trying to develop family-friendly programs,” he said, pointing out that the shul is employing different communications strategies, including social media, town listserves, local newspapers, and parenting publications.

“We have to grow more sophisticated,” he said. “We have to go out to where the people are.”

This year, the congregation’s Hebrew school launched a series of family enrichment activities. Once a month, the rabbi chooses a different grade and leads a discussion.

“Last Sunday I met with third-grade parents to do a Jewish family inventory,” he said. “I listed 20 material objects and 10 observances and each family did an inventory exercise. They scored themselves and compared scores. It led to a provocative discussion of what distinguishes a Jewish home.”

Schwartz said the URJ initiative will “help us come up with a comprehensive strategy [to be] an inviting institution for young families. But whether it will lead to the establishment of a preschool or day care or ‘mommy and me’ program remains to be seen. I’m supportive of the URJ’s efforts.”

The URJ's Communities of Practice program involved a competitive application process, and so we proudly congratulate our Religious School Director Annice Benamy and Trustee Rebecca Kind Slater for their successful efforts, and look forward to the fruits of their endeavor!