Eight Lights

Eight Lights

(A Poem for Chanukah)




One
Light
For
Liberty
Freedom from slavery and tyranny
From oppression and persecution
Freedom to live in harmony
With the Earth and with Heaven




One
Light
For
Law
Justice and equality
Human rights and human dignity
Peaceful coexistence
An end to war and violence




One
Light
For
Leaders
To stand up for liberty and bow to the law
To lead by example with courage and wisdom
To be a hammer that builds as well as a hammer of war
With a passion for peace, for justice, and for freedom




One
Light
For
Letters
Four on a dreidel
Twenty-two in total
Infinite in combination
Endless in education
An alphabet aligned with order
A numbering of our works, days, names
Books—greater than any leader
Knowledge stored transcends our times




One
Light
For
Learning
Reading, writing, remembering
Studying, questioning, understanding
Preserving tradition
Saving continuity from being lost
Moving forward—evolution
Avoiding errors of the past
Teachers—the highest calling
Bring to the world much needed healing




One
Light
For
Life
A sacred gift
Most precious of all
Vessel of the spirit
Root of liberty and law




One
Light
For
Love
Courtship and Family
Friends and Neighbors
Community and Humanity
Creations and Creators




One
Light
For
Laughter
Spinning dreidels
Chocolate gelt
Jelly doughnuts
Potato latkes
Giving gifts
Singing songs
Saying blessings
Children playing
Family visiting
Friends gathering
Lifting hearts
Kissing keppellahs
Glowing candles
Eight nights
Eight lights
Happy Chanukah!




8

8  8  8  8  L  8  8  8  8

L  L  L  L  I  L  L  L  L

A  O  I  E  G  E  E  A  I

U  V  F  A  H  T  A  W  B

G  E  E  R  T  T  D  2  E

H  7  6  N  S  E  E  2  R

T  7  6  I  0  R  R  2  T

E  7  6  N  0  S  S  2  Y

R  7  6  G  0  4  3  2  1

8  7  6  5  0  4  3  2  1

--Lance Strate

Hanukkah Menorah Lighting in Leonia

Hanukkah starts tomorrow night, so be sure to fire up your menorah.  

And join us for our Leonia community Hanukkah Menorah Lighting on December 23rd.

Congregation Adas Emuno will host an outdoor menorah lighting on Friday, December 23rd at 7:00 p.m. at 254 Broad Avenue, Leonia.  

A Shabbat Service will follow at 7:30 p.m, with a Hanukkah celebration following services.  

And it is all open to the community. For more information, call 201-592-1712 or visit www.adasemuno.org.





And to get into the spirit of the holiday, here above is a live performance of the original, beautiful Hanukkah Blessings song by the rock group, Barenaked Ladies, courtesy of YouTube.  

And here are the lyrics:

How lucky are we that we have lights so we can see
Although the day is done
What a miracle that a spark lifts these candles out of the dark
Every evening, one by one
Until the end of Hanukkah, of Hanukkah.

With the jingle bells and the toys
And the TV shows and noise
It's easy to forget
At the end of the day
Our whole family will say
These words for Hanukkah

Baruch atah Adonai, eloheinu melech ha'olam, asher kid'shanu
B'mitz'votav v'tzivanu l'hadlik ner shel Hanukkah.

Light the candles for Hanukkah, for Hanukkah

We remember how Maccabees
Fought so all of us could be free
And so we celebrate on this festival of the lights
There's a joyful time every night
But we illuminate the candles of Hanukkah, of Hanukkah

Baruch atah Adonai Eloheinu melech ha'olam she'asa niseem
La'avoteinu bayamim haheim baz'man hazeh.

Hanukkah...
Hanukkah...

And let us indeed count our blessings at this joyous time of year!

12 Tribes, One Family

 With Rabbi Schwartz away at the URJ Biennial, it was my honor to deliver the D'Var Torah in his stead during this past Friday night Shabbat service.  Here is what I spoke about:

This weeks Torah reading tells the familiar story of the sons of Jacob, how Joseph was Jacob's favorite, and how Joseph's brothers were filled with jealousy and sold him into slavery.  Joseph's story foreshadows that of the Israelites, as Joseph winds up in Egypt as a slave, and imprisoned.  Just as Jacob had been renamed Israel, indicating he would be the ancestor of the entire Jewish people, each of Jacob's sons bore the name of one of the 12 tribes of Israel, and was considered the ancestor of that tribe. This is actually a common motif in folklore and oral traditions all over the world. It is a way to symbolize how certain groups of people may be closely related to and allied with other groups of people. It provides a concrete and personalized way to represent political and cultural relationships. 

And when there is no writing, when people can only rely on word of mouth passed down through generations, the stories can change. So for example, a tribe in West Africa told the tale of seven brothers, each the ancestor of a neighboring tribe. British researchers recorded this myth early in the twentieth century, and no subsequent studies were carried out until sixty years later. During that time, two of the tribes had disappeared, and the myth had changed accordingly, so that they now told the story with only five brothers instead of seven. Not only was there no acknowledgement that any change had occurred on the part of these peoples, but they insisted that this was the story that they had always told. 

But because our stories were written down, we remember the 12 tribes, even though 10 of them were lost when the northern kingdom of Israel was destroyed by the Assyrians, leaving only the holy tribe of the Levites, who were not allowed to own land, and the southern kingdom of Judah, which is why we call ourselves Jews, and our religion Judaism.  So we remembered the 10 lost tribes, and we searched for them, and upon discovery of the New World, some believed that the native Americans might be the 10 lost tribes. Actually, there seems to be some evidence coming up recently that not all of the 10 tribes destroyed, and remnants still existed during the Roman era.

But the point I want to stress is the idea expressed by the American motto, e pluribus unum, out of many, one. We were many different tribes, just as today we are many different kinds of Jews, observant and non-observant, Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox, Reconstructionist, and Hasidic, Sephardic and Ashkenazic, Jews by choice and Jews by birth, but at the same time we're all one people, all the House of Jacob, the Children of Israel. From one comes many when following the command to be fruitful and multiply, but out of many we are still one.

Judaism is a religion founded on oneness, one God, one Creation, one human family, all descendants of Adam and Eve, and of Noah. And Noah had 3 sons, Shem, who is said to be the ancestor of all of the Semites, Ham, the ancestor of the peoples living to the south of the Semites, and Japheth, the ancestor of the peoples living to the north of the Semites. Again, we find the same motif, explaining how different peoples came to be, and how they we are all united by a common bond.

Judaism is unique in retaining a sense of the tribal, while maintaining a universal and holistic outlook. The problem with universalism is tat it is very hard to get a handle on all of humanity at once, very difficult to relate on a scale of millions and billions of people. That is why Joseph Stalin, a monster on a par with Adolph Hitler, rightly observed that while one death may be a tragedy, one million is simply a statistic. And that is why large scale efforts to change the world for the better, such as Lenin and Stalin claimed to be engaged in, so often turn into tragedy, for millions of people. 

What is the answer? Perhaps it comes in a slogan that has become popular over the past few decades. Think globally, but act locally. And that is exactly the outlook that Judaism has maintained, for millennia.

We think globally, but we also believe in the importance of the tribe, the community, the idea that we are all responsible for one another, that it is not just about isolated individuals acting alone, that we have to work together and help one another. It starts with family, with honoring our fathers and mothers. It broadens to the community, to do no harm to our neighbors by stealing, or murdering, or committing adultery, and to not covet our neighbors' possessions or bear false witness and tell lies about them. To avoid doing to those around us what is hateful to us. And in our worship, we relate to God, not only as individuals, but as a community, and on behalf of our community.

Joseph's brother's acted selfishly, as individuals, ignoring the fact that they were all one family. The first brothers to appear in the Torah, Cain and Abel, play out a similar scenario, as Cain murders Abel, and when asked by God where his brother is, Cain responds, am I my brother's keeper? By this negative example, we are taught that we are in fact responsible for our brothers and sisters, for our family and community, for out tribes and peoples, and for each other as one human family. Working together, collectively, we can think globally and solve the world's problems, repair and heal the world, by acting locally with humility, and care and compassion for one another.

Jacob Galperin's D'var Torah

Jacob Galperin was Bar Mitzvah on December 3rd, 2011, and as you can imagine, it was an occasion of great happiness and pride for his family, and for all of us at Congregation Adas Emuno. In the photograph here you can see Jacob (center) with Rabbi Barry Schwartz (left) holding the Torah, and Student Cantor Luke Hawley (right), standing in front of the Ark.  And we are very pleased to welcome Jacob as a Guest Blogger here on our congregational blog, as he was kind enough to share with us his D'Var Torah. 

D'Var Torah

Jacob Galperin 

I

Torah Portion

My Torah portion is the famous story of Jacob's, Vayeitzei,  which means, and he went out.  This is when Jacob left Beersherba for the city of Haran, Rebekah's birthplace.

Jacob stops to rest his first night.  He places a stone as a head rest and then dreams of a ladder set upon the ground reaching heaven, with angels climbing up and down.

When Jacob awakens he makes a pact with God. If God kept him safe, Jacob would make him his God.

Jacob continues his journey to Haran to find his mother's brother, Uncle Laban.  In no time at all, Jacob was united with Uncle Laban, Leah, and Rachel. 

Jacob tells the story of his dream.  Laban was so happy about all that had occurred. Jacob was in love with Rachel, the prettiest and youngest of the two girls. 

Jacob asks Laban to marry Rachel, and that night Laban brought the bride to the tent.  The next morning Jacob finds out it was Leah along with her maid.

OMG! as we would say... Someone told a lie!

Jacob marches over to Laban's tent for an explanation and Laban tells him, "Not to worry...  The oldest daughter must be married first, however, so if you still want to marry Rachel, work for me seven years and she will be yours, with her maid."

He takes the deal.

II 

Theme 

The theme I have chosen is dishonesty, and the lack of bravery that is needed to tell the truth.

Rachel's father was dishonest with Jacob by sending Leah to Jacob's tent.  He then rationalized his lie with the truth that he was not brave enough to communicate beforehand. Perhaps like many of us, he was afraid Jacob would have said no, and his first child would be considered an outcast. Thus, Laban was willing to sin because he saw God's will directing him to care for his first born before his own soul.

We also know that Leah and her maid gives Jacob ten children and Rachel and her maid blesses Jacob with two children.

III

Discussion

According to my study, dealing with dishonesty is a question for us to ask ourselves. What is the Torah telling us,  how should we treat a person who is dishonest and may be stealing from us? 

Jacob investigated Laban when it came to Leah. He asked many questions, and he kept his dignity.  He did not yell, he did not lose his temper.  He did not attack Laban, and kept his emotions in check. Some commentators would say Jacob's handling of Laban is a good way to handle a situation like this.

Also, the Torah teaches us lessons in human conduct and self control, and anger is the emotion that should be used only in the last resort and then only in a controlled, thought out, and constructed form of communication versus an outburst.

I picked this theme because I find this part to be fascinating, and I can relate to being not brave enough to tell the truth at times, and obviously I have lied for the same reason.  I lied to my mother a long time ago because I didn't want to do my homework, and if I told her the truth, she would make me.  The part that is different here is that I was lying for my own selfish reasons, unlike Laban who lied, let's say, for the greater good.  And perhaps God said it was okay by blessing Leah with ten children, while Rachel had only two children.

  

IV

My Mitzvah Project

My Mitzvah Project will be occurring after my Bar Mitzvah due to a situation beyond my control.  They say there are no coincidences.  I have chosen to help the Cantor help the new Bar Mitzvah  students on Sunday.  I would like to thank all of you for being here, and just being awesome. I would also like to especially thank my Mom, Cantor Luke, and Rabbi Schwartz.  Without them. I wouldn't be here today.

    

V

My Preparation

My preparation has changed my view of Judaism. I have learned that it isn't so easy to become Bar Mitzvah. A lot of time has to be spent to make sure that everything sounds right and that everything goes perfectly. I have learned that now is my time to show that I can lead a service, and that I am a child of Jacob. Preparing has also shown me that although now I may be reluctant to come to synagogue and to return to religious school, I know that it's the best thing for me to do. God will always be there for me and I will always be there for Him, so I know that I would love to sacrifice the hour long services on the weekends for him.

And with that we offer our gratitude to Jacob and his mother Susan Galperin for sharing his D'Var Torah with us. And on behalf of Congregation Adas Emuno, we extend a warm and joyful Mazel Tov to the entire Galperin family!

Americans and God

Eric Weiner's opinion piece in yesterday's New York Times, entitled, Americans:  Undecided About God?, speaks to some important points about the status of organized religion in contemporary American society, and the relevance of Adas Emuno as part of the movement known as Reform Judaism.

Weiner begins by invoking the holiday season and its discontents:

The holidays are upon us again — it sounds vaguely aggressive, as if the holidays were some sort of mugger, or overly enthusiastic lover — and so it’s time to stick a thermometer deep in our souls and take our spiritual temperature (between trips to the mall, of course).


For some of us, the season affords an opportunity to reconnect with our religious heritage. For others, myself included, it’s a time to shake our heads over the sad state of our national conversation about God, and wish there were another way.


For a nation of talkers and self-confessors, we are terrible when it comes to talking about God. The discourse has been co-opted by the True Believers, on one hand, and Angry Atheists on the other. What about the rest of us?

It is certainly the case that the news media tend to focus on the two extremes.  After all, conflict makes for good drama, and drama is what attracts an audience.  But Weiner wants to frame this issue via demographics, and the formation of a new demographic category:

The rest of us, it turns out, constitute the nation’s fastest-growing religious demographic. We are the Nones, the roughly 12 percent of people who say they have no religious affiliation at all. The percentage is even higher among young people; at least a quarter are Nones.


Apparently, a growing number of Americans are running from organized religion, but by no means running from God. On average 93 percent of those surveyed say they believe in God or a higher power; this holds true for most Nones — just 7 percent of whom describe themselves as atheists, according to a survey by Trinity College.


Nones are the undecided of the religious world. We drift spiritually and dabble in everything from Sufism to Kabbalah to, yes, Catholicism and Judaism.

Weiner makes this sound like a new trend, but it is well documented that affiliation with organized religion has been in decline in the United States for over half a century now.  So perhaps what has changed is people's willingness to admit to it, and to identify themselves as having no affiliation whatsoever, as well as their willingness to experiment and mix and match among existing spiritual traditions.  Indeed, often individuals who distance themselves from religion at the same time embrace other forms of spirituality, which goes to Weiner's point about belief in a higher power divorced from identification with organized religion.  One reason may be that, in some instances, religions turn to matters other than those of the spirit:

Why the rise of the Nones? David Campbell and Robert Putnam, of the University of Notre Dame and the Harvard Kennedy School, respectively, think politics is to blame. Their idea is that we’ve mixed politics and religion so completely that many simply opt out of both; apparently they are reluctant to claim a religious affiliation because they don’t want the political one that comes along with it.




We are more religiously polarized than ever. In my secular, urban and urbane world, God is rarely spoken of, except in mocking, derisive tones. It is acceptable to cite the latest academic study on, say, happiness or, even better, whip out a brain scan, but God? He is for suckers, and Republicans.

 I used to be that way, too, until a health scare and the onset of middle age created a crisis of faith, and I ventured to the other side. I quickly discovered that I didn’t fit there, either. I am not a True Believer. I am a rationalist. I believe the Enlightenment was a very good thing, and don’t wish to return to an age of raw superstition.

So, health and aging put the "fear of God" into Weiner, or at least reminded him that there is more to life than our everyday concerns.  He does not detail what "the other side" was that he looked to, but I suspect that it wasn't Reform Judaism.  The Reform movement was a product of Enlightenment rationalism, and is it truly irrational to say that there is something more to the world than the things that we are aware of, more than human knowledge can encompass, or ever can fully understand?  And is it truly irrational to say that we Jews have an amazing, millennia-old evolving tradition that is worth maintaining and being a part of, just as it is worth the effort to adjust and adapt it to changing circumstances and changing times, that is, to continually take part in a process of reform?

Weiner goes on to say,

We Nones may not believe in God, but we hope to one day. We have a dog in this hunt.

And Reform Jewish congregations, such as Adas Emuno, are places where people go a'hunting for spiritual experience, for discovering for themselves their own individual understanding of and relationship to the divine.  And this same Jewish tradition is also one that emphasizes ethics, that above all else seeks to answer the question of how we should live our lives, to live them in a way that is consonant with the sacred and divine dimensions of creation, and in a way that does not harm others, and works towards the benefit of all human beings and of all living things.  Weiner goes on to note,

Nones don’t get hung up on whether a religion is “true” or not, and instead subscribe to William James’s maxim that “truth is what works.” If a certain spiritual practice makes us better people — more loving, less angry — then it is necessarily good, and by extension “true.” (We believe that G. K. Chesterton got it right when he said: “It is the test of a good religion whether you can joke about it.”)




By that measure, there is very little “good religion” out there. Put bluntly: God is not a lot of fun these days. Many of us don’t view religion so generously. All we see is an angry God. He is constantly judging and smiting, and so are his followers. No wonder so many Americans are enamored of the Dalai Lama. He laughs, often and well.

Ummm. Judaism and humor?  Hello????  Oh well, he is addressing American society as a whole, and Judaism represents only a small portion of that population.  So, anyway, Weiner continues with,

Precious few of our religious leaders laugh. They shout. God is not an exclamation point, though. He is, at his best, a semicolon, connecting people, and generating what Aldous Huxley called “human grace.” Somewhere along the way, we’ve lost sight of this. 

God is a semicolon?  Maybe, in the sense that there are very few people left who understand or know how to use one.  Actually, I like the Kabbalistic Rabbi David A. Cooper's view better, as he says that God is a verb.  Anyway, it does seem that much of the criticism here is directed against the public face of organized religion:

Religion and politics, though often spoken about in the same breath, are, of course, fundamentally different. Politics is, by definition, a public activity. Though religion contains large public components, it is at core a personal affair. It is the relationship we have with ourselves or, as the British philosopher Alfred North Whitehead said, “What the individual does with his solitariness.” There lies the problem: how to talk about the private nature of religion publicly. 

It used to be that religion and politics were subjects that were not brought up in public, in polite society, but then again, manners have kind of gone the same route as organized religion.  So what does Weiner conclude?

What is the solution? The answer, I think, lies in the sort of entrepreneurial spirit that has long defined America, including religious America.


We need a Steve Jobs of religion. Someone (or ones) who can invent not a new religion but, rather, a new way of being religious. Like Mr. Jobs’s creations, this new way would be straightforward and unencumbered and absolutely intuitive. Most important, it would be highly interactive. I imagine a religious space that celebrates doubt, encourages experimentation and allows one to utter the word God without embarrassment. A religious operating system for the Nones among us. And for all of us.

I don't know, maybe Weiner was thinking of some of those cartoons that appeared after Jobs passed away...

Whatever the reason, he might consider the fact that there is no need to reinvent the wheel, that to find everything he's looking for, he doesn't have to journey to New Delhi or Kathmandu or Tokyo or Tibet.  He can find it all right here, in the New York Metropolitan Area, across the river in northern New Jersey, in Bergen County, in the town of Leonia, in our little Congregation of Adas Emuno.  You are very welcome to come and join us for Shabbat evening services sometime, Eric, and see what you think.  And otherwise, we wish you the best in your seeking, may you find what you're looking for.

A Hanukkah Concert in NYC

For those of you who like jazz and can make the trip, or are working in the city, Eugene Marlow's Heritage Ensemble will be performing next week, and they're sensational.  Here's the info:

And of course, you might like to get a sense of what they sound like, so...

So, here's wishing you a very jazzy Hanukkah!

A Panel Discussion on Jewish Writers in NYC

I thought this event taking place just across the Hudson in Manhattan this coming Tuesday might be of interest:

Growing Up Chosen

Jewish Writers and Their Childhood

SPONSORED BY THE

FORDHAM UNIVERSITY

CENTER ON RELIGION AND CULTURE

Tuesday, 6 December 2011  |   6 - 8 p.m.

Pope Auditorium  |  Lincoln Center Campus 

Corner of Columbus Ave. & 60th St.

Q: What do you do with a Jewish childhood 

A: You write about it. 

The temptations, excitements, satisfactions and angst of going from childhood memories to written text--join us for an evening of readings and discussion with three distinguished writers. The discussion will be followed by a book-signing. 

 

 

MODERATOR

Anne G. Hoffman, Professor, Department of English, Fordham University

PANELISTS  

Joshua Halberstam, A Seat at the Table: A Novel of Forbidden Choices and Schmoozing: The Private Conversations of American Jews

Myla Goldberg, Bee Season, The False Friend and Wickett's Remedy

David Roskies, Yiddishlands: A Memoir

 

FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC

RSVP to crcevent@fordham.edu  |  (212) 636-7347 

(RSVP not required)

For more information, visit www.fordham.edu/ReligCulture