News From Our Social Action Committee

Social Action News

Social Action Committee Programs

Sunday, October 21, 2012 9:00 AM--Please join us as a representative from Shelter Our Sisters talks to us about the programs that this organization offers to victims of domestic violence (presentations on bullying will also be made for our religious school students). We will be informed of ways we can volunteer to help as well as of the SOS wish list. Although this wish list changes from time to time and includes numerous items, here are a few which we can donate at this time:

• Twin sheets- new/nearly new
• Bath and hand towels, washcloths- new
• Twin sized blankets- new/nearly new
• Toothbrushes- new
• Childrens’, womens’ socks- new
• Diapers- sizes 4,5,6
• Gift cards
• Toothbrushes- new

Sunday, November 4, 2012 8:30am-12 noon [Mitzvah Day]--We will be working through Bonim Builders to paint a classroom at Children's Aid and Family Services in Paramus. Meet at the temple at 8:00 AM and carpool or drive on your own. Just get into your “best “ work clothes and come on down! No painting equipment necessary. All will be provided. [ages 12 and up].

Clothing Drives--Winter clothes, including outer wear, for men and women Womens’ coats and jackets will be given to the Women's Rights Information Center, Englewood.  Also, womens’ and mens’ clothing and mens’ outer wear will be donated to the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion Soup Kitchen at the New York Campus. Please bring items to the temple, from October 21st through November 15th. The donated clothing will go directly to people in need.

Stay tuned as there is more in the works!

The Adas Emuno Social Action Committee

Our Holocaust Scroll

Last year, Congregation Adas Emuno was entrusted with the guardianship of a Torah scroll that survived the devastation of the Holocaust. Preserved for many years as a national treasure by the Czechoslovakian government, this and many other such scrolls were later acquired by the Westminster Synagogue in London, where they maintain a Czech Scrolls Museum, and administer a Czech Memorial Scrolls Trust program, whereby numerous Torah scrolls that were saved from destruction are loaned out to congregations such as ours.  As they explain on the Czech Memorial Scrolls Trust website,

The story of the acquisition of the 1,564 Czech scrolls, which arrived at Kent House in February 1964, has passed into history as a small but remarkable episode in the tragedy of European Jewry. 

To those who were entrusted with the scrolls, they were a symbol of hope as well as sorrow, and also an intimate link with the individual historic congregations which were destroyed under the Nazis. Over the decades since the Scrolls arrived the racks have grown emptier as one Scroll after another has been restored to its rightful place in Jewish life. 

Now the only Scrolls that are available for distribution are those that are returned for a variety of reasons. The Trust is now in the phase of ensuring that recipients remain aware of the unique importance of the Scroll in their care, and the special link it represents with the Jews of the destroyed congregations from which it came.

This particular scroll was previously cared for by Congregation Beth Am of Teaneck, New Jersey, one of our sister shuls here in Bergen County.  When Beth Am regrettably closed its doors last year, they generously passed this Holocaust scroll on to our congregation, along with many other gifts (not the least of which has been some wonderful new members), for which we are very grateful.

After receiving the scroll Rabbi Schwartz contacted the Trust to learn about the history of this scroll, and by way of response, they sent us a beautiful certificate that we have since framed and that hangs at the entrance to our temple.  Here is a scan of it:

It is indeed a privilege and an honor to serve as guardians of this Torah scroll, which Rabbi Schwartz now uses for the portion of our B'nai Mitzvah ceremonies where a Torah is passed down from one family member to the next, to symbolize the passing down of our tradition through the generations. And the survival of this scroll, and so many others like it, is very much a cause for celebration this Simchat Torah. Chag Sameach!

Happy Torah!

This evening we celebrate the holiday of Simchat Torah, which can be translated as rejoicing in the Law, or simply Happy Torah!  According to the Union for Reform Judaism's Simchat Torah page, the holiday

celebrates the completion of the annual reading of the Torah. Simchat Torah is a joyous festival, in which we affirm our view of the Torah as a tree of life and demonstrate a living example of never-ending, lifelong study. Torah scrolls are taken from the ark and carried or danced around the synagogue seven times. During the Torah service, the concluding section of Deuteronomy is read, and immediately following, the opening section of Genesis, or B'reishit as it is called in Hebrew, is read.

In honor of Simchat Torah, here is a music video featuring words and music by Abie Rotenberg, telling the story of a Torah scroll from Kiev:





Does it put you in mind of our own Torah scrolls, and our little wooden shul in Leonia? Rotenberg's song begins with the writing of the Torah by a sofer, a Torah scribe, and to get a sense of how that's done, here is a video called Writing Sefer Torah Ashkenzai כתיבת ספר תורה that shows the writing of "one line from the Torah scroll, Balaq, Bamidbar. The speed is x2, to demostrate how much time it takes and to show the process of writing and making the taggin ( the 'crowns' on certain letters)."





The sofer also explains that "The material I'm writing on is parchment (aka vellum or klaf in Hebrew). I use a quill pen made of turkey feather and special homemade ink."  And while we're on the subject, let's take a look at how they celebrate Simchat Torah in Israel with some amatuer video footage recorded in 2009 in Tel Aviv:





Our own celebration tonight will be limited to the sanctuary and temple grounds, but it will most certainly be just as joyous. Come join us for a Happy Torah and Chag Sameach!

Shalom Sukkot

As the week-long Festival of Sukkot comes to a close, here is Noam's Etrog Farm, a short documentary, courtesy of Shalom Sesame, about a boy in Israel who visits an etrog farm and helps his family build their sukkah to prepare for the holiday:




And also from our friends from Shalom Sesame, Kids Talk About Sukkot, featuring real children from Israel describing the symbols and traditions of the holiday using their own words (in English).





And as the last two children relate, at the end of Sukkot comes Simchat Torah, a holiday we will be celebrating tomorrow evening at Congregation Adas Emuno, at 7 PM, which will include the consecration of our new Religious School students. We hope to see you there!

Beth Ziff's Yom Kippur Appeal

Good morning, good yuntif, good to see you.

It has been about a year since we've all been together. You look good. Haven't

aged a bit.

We have reached that point in the service where the squirming, coughing,

sleeping, whispering, and some listening begins—yes, the appeal.

When Virginia Gitter reached out to me to let me know the board had asked that I

deliver the appeal, I was honored and then thought about the fact that this was

the first time I have not been a part of the board in many, many years and so

naturally, just when you think you are out, they pull you back in...

I have been dreing my kop thinking about what to say, how to make this

meaningful, interesting, and actionable.

The Rabbi planted wonderful seeds about our community, our need to survive, and

about living, praying and giving—reigniting the flame within.

So let's explore for a moment. If you will, take a deep breath in and let it out. Again.

In this momentary pause let your head fill with thoughts about this place.

Who did you come here with? Family? Friends? Alone? Why did you come here today?

What does it mean to you?

The people? The warm welcome you receive? The small, intimate space?

We joined Adas Emuno in the mid 90s when our children were in elementary school.

The feeling we had was one of being welcomed and accepted. Everyone hung loose. It

was okay to have squirmy kids in temple. And, we were invited to get involved right

away.

When did you join? What was your first encounter like? Who did you meet?

We met lifelong friends because of Adas Emuno. We were not the go-to-temple-every-week kind of people and yet we were drawn in to this place.

Even though the kids balked about waking up for Religious School, they learned

Hebrew, learned about who we are as Reform Jews, learned about our traditions. They

came home with interesting projects, we won't go into detail about the wooden menorah

that caught on fire...

What is your experience with our Religious School? If you have never seen it, check us

out on a Sunday when over 70 kids are filling our classrooms from Kindergarten through

Confirmation. It is a whirlwind of activity and it is our future.

In the 2000s our children were bar mitzvahed. When did your children become

b'nai mitzvah? Have you ever been to a bar or bat mitzvah here? It is like no other. In 

this community our kids lead services. They fully engage with the clergy and the

congregation. Each one is awesome and special.

September 12, 2001. This community came together to grieve, pray, support one

another. People from all over the neighborhood showed up. We talked, we shared, we

cried, we hugged.

Over the past 17 years, our family has had moments of involvement and we have been

MIA. We have participated and we have not. We have experienced many clergy

members. Full time, part time, students, fully ordained and invested. The one constant

has been our community. The people. The buildings. The traditions. Knowing that the

temple is always there, if we choose to come or not.

How long have you been connected to Adas Emuno? What is the draw that brings you

here and back again?

Something brought you to this place. This place that is always and hopefully will always

be there for you. In good times and bad, for simchas and for mourning. For education

and action, for respite and for healing. For belonging and support.

Many things have changed over the past 140 plus years. Many things have remained

the same. That's the beauty of our congregation. You take what you want and get

what you need.

As you think about the coming year, reignite your connection to Adas Emuno. Living,

praying, giving. How you live and pray is very personal. How you give affects the entire

community.

With your contributions we survive. With your contributions we maintain our home,

school, and sanctuary. With your contributions we inch toward 150 years... our

sesquicentenial?

What is the catalyst that will make you say, this year I am going to give to Adas Emuno?

Give because you feel a connection
Give because you come to services regularly
Give because you do not
Give because you have children in the religious school
Give because your children were bar or bat mitzvahed here
Give because you want to
Give because you feel a little guilty not giving
Give because you only come to temple on the holidays
Give because you connect with the clergy
Give because you can
Give because it's a tax deduction
Give because we asked
Give because you belong to this community
GIve because it is the right thing to do
Give because we need to survive
Give because you never have done so before
Give because you always do so
Give more than last year
Give because you want this place, this wonderful, intimate, spiritual place to be here
whenever you need it.

Thank you for giving. Thank you for supporting the commitment to keep our

Congregation alive and thriving.

Gimme Sukkah

This is just a reminder that the weeklong Festival of Sukkot is still going strong. If you missed the celebration this past Sunday evening, or even if you didn't, join us tomorrow night for Shabbat in the sanctuary and another visit to our congregational sukkah.

And in the spirit of the holiday, straight from YouTube, here are The Fountainheads from the Ein Prat Academy in Israel singing a parody of "Marry You" by Bruno Mars, "Livin' in a Booth":





According to the write-up, "no Etrogim were harmed in the filming of this video. (Lemons are a different story)"

And here are their credits:

Vocals: Yoav Hoze, Shani Lachmish, Ahava Katzin, Orri Dror, and Amit Ben Atar. Choreography by Tamar Erel.

Music arrangement, performance, and mixing by Amit Ben Atar. Recorded at Bit Studios by Amit Ben Atar.

Directed and Filmed by Ben R. Producer: Yair Talmon

And here are the lyrics by Ben R.:

It's a beautiful night
We're looking for something fun to do
Hey baby
I think I wanna build a booth

Is it the stars in the sky?
Or is it these dancing Jews?
Well who cares, baby
I think we're livin' in a booth

Well, in my tabernacle
I got everything we need
For the show
With my Etro-oog
So, come on now

Who cares if it rains
Gotta whole lotta chains
Don't you know
This Schach doesn't go
It stays on, yo

Don't say no no no no no
Say lu lav lav lav lav lav
And we'll go go go go go
If you're shakin', like I'm shakin'

Cause it's a beautiful night
We're looking for something fun to do
Hey baby
I think I wanna build a booth

Is it the stars in the sky
Or is it these dancing Jews?
Who cares, baby
I think we're livin' in a booth

Campin out here
There's nothing to fear
We'll go far
Under the stars
It's all right girl.

If we wake up and the
Sukkah breaks up, that's cool
No, I won't blame you
Let's just run yo

Don't say no no no no no
Say lu lav lav lav lav lav
And we'll go go go go
If you're shakin, like I'm shakin'

U'shavtem mayim besasson (draw water with joy)
Mimaynei hayshua (from the wellsprings of salvation)
Waters overflow
From the fountains of salvation

Oooh....

Just dwell in booths
Say it right now baby,
Say it right now baby

Just dwell in booths
Say it right now baby,
Say it right now!

And in case you were looking for something more gangsta (no reference to Arnold Rothstein, Bugsy Siegel, or Meyer Lanksy intended), here is Eprhyme doing a remix of "Gimme Shelter" as a Sukkot Song:





So, chag sameach, have a happy Sukkot for the remainder of the week, and join us tomorrow night for our Sukkot Shabbat!

History and Freedom

You may recall from two previous posts, Hannah Arendt, Jewish Philosopher, and Hannah Arendt and Charlie Chaplin, that I occasionally serve as a guest blogger for the Hannah Arendt Center at Bard College.  And this past August, when we went over potential dates for my next installment, one of the possibilities was September 17, and that leapt out at me because it was Rosh Hashanah.  And as it turns out, I found a perfect quote for the occasion, so I wrote it up ahead of time, and it was posted on their blog on Rosh Hashanah morning. You can see it in its original context, with the same title as here:  History and Freedom, but I'm also happy to share it with you here on our congregational blog.  And I want to say thank you to Bridget Hollenback, the Hannah Arendt Center's Director of Outreach and Social Media, who provided the images for my post on their blog, which I've taken the liberty of including here as well.  So, without further ado, here is my Hannah Arendt Quote for Rosh Hashanah: 

The history of humanity is not a hotel where someone can rent a room whenever it suits him; nor is it a vehicle which we board or get out of at random.  Our past will be for us a burden beneath which we can only collapse for as long as we refuse to understand the present and fight for a better future.  Only then—but from that moment on—will the burden become a blessing, that is, a weapon in the battle for freedom.

 -Hannah Arendt, "Moses or Washington" (March 27, 1942) 

This eloquent quote from Hannah Arendt moves through a series of metaphors for historical consciousness. The first two, history is a hotel, and history is a vehicle, are rejected as misleading.  Hotels and vehicles are both transitional spaces, areas inhabited on a temporary basis, not permanent dwellings.  History is not a place we visit for a short period of time, or a place we merely use to get from point A to point B. Arendt further implies that history is not a commodity to be bought and sold, used and disposed of according to our mood.  But this is less a statement of fact than an admonition, in response to the fact that it is indeed possible for individuals to reject and deny their past, to ignore and abandon their history.  It is a commonplace to say that we cannot choose our parents, and the history of humanity that Arendt is concerned with is, after all, an extension of our personal and family histories.

   

 As an admonition, Arendt's remarks may seem to be a simple restatement of George Santayana's famous 1905 quote, "those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."  And clearly, she shares in this sentiment about the importance of collective memory and the need to learn from the errors of previous eras. But she goes beyond this simple formulation by invoking the metaphor of history as a burden. History has gravity, history has weight, and the longer the historical memory, the heavier the baggage that accompanies it. Historical mass accumulates over time, and also through innovations in communications.  In oral cultures, where writing is absent, history as we understand it does not exist; instead there is myth and legend, preserved through oral tradition by way of continued repetition via oral performance.  Given the limitations of human memory, details about the past are forgotten within a generation or two, and the main function of myth and legend is to reflect and explain present circumstances.  This collective amnesia allows for a great deal of cultural flexibility and social homeostasis, a freedom from the burden of history that literate cultures take up.  The written word first makes possible chronological recordkeeping, and later historical narrative framed as an ongoing progression of events; this linear conception of time replaces the cyclical past of oral tradition, and what Mircea Eliade referred to as the myth of eternal return.  And so we hear the complaint of school children in generation after generation, that history is so much harder now than it was for their parents, because now there is so much more of it than ever before. 

 History is a burden, one that becomes too much to bear if all we are doing is living in the past, in rigid adherence to a fixed and unchanging tradition.  But Arendt adds the complementary metaphor of history as a blessing.  The burden can become a blessing if we use the past to understand the present, to serve the present, not to overwhelm or command the present.  The past can inform the present, history helps us to see why things are the way they are, why we do the things we do; being mindful of the past is a means to help fulfill Arendt’s goal ofthinking what we are doing.  But it is not enough simply to live in the present, and for the present.  We also have to look towards the future, to work for progress in the moral, ethical, and social sense, to enlarge the scope of human freedom.  And in light of this goal, Arendt invokes her fifth and final metaphor for history:  history is a weapon.  It is a weapon not to destroy or dominate others, or at least that is not what Arendt intends it to be, but rather a sword of liberty, an instrument to be used in the fight against oppression.

   

This quote reflects Arendt's overriding concern with human freedom.  The battle for freedom that she refers to is a collective struggle, not an individual quest.  It can only be achieved by political cooperation and unity, not by solitary escape from tyranny.  The commonly used phrase in western cultures, individual freedom, while not without value, all too easily eclipses the necessity of freedom as a shared responsibility, and in excess becomes oxymoronic.  As the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., so eloquently put it, "injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere" and "no one is free while others are oppressed."  Freedom for all, shared freedom, requires a sense of affiliation, kinship, connection, which in turn requires a sense of continuity over time. Just as individual memory is intimately related to individual identity, our collective memory is the key to group identity.  History is the foundation of community. 

Historical consciousness, which is derived from literacy, did not become widespread until after the diffusion of typography.  In addition to making written history widely available, print media such as calendars and periodicals made individuals aware of their place in history as never before, down to the basic knowledge of the year, month, and date that we all take for granted, not to mention awareness of our date of birth and age.  And as the great historian of printing, Elizabeth Eisenstein explains, more than any other factor, it was the printing revolution that gave rise to modernity.  The irony is that as printing made the past more accessible, it also made it seem less valuable, resulting in modernity's ahistorical tendencies.  Focus shifted from venerating tradition to revering progress, from looking back to origins to looking forward for originality.  This is exemplified by the fact that printing gave us two new literary forms, the news, and the novel. 

And so we get Henry Ford saying, "history is bunk," and dystopian novels like Brave New World and 1984 portraying future societies where history is either deleted or subject to constant revision.  Without a sense of the past, sensitivity to the future is undermined, and with the advent of instantaneous electronic communications beginning with telegraphy in the 19th century, more and more emphasis has been placed on the now, the present tense, leading us to lose touch with both the past and the future.  Conceptions of the past have also been affected by the rise of image culture, beginning with photography in the 19th century, so that a coherent sense of linear history came to be replaced by a discontinuous, and therefore incoherent collection of snapshots evoking nostalgia, as Susan Sontag observed in On Photography.  What Arendt makes clear is that contemporary present-minded ahistoricism risks more than Santayana's Sisyphean purgatory, but a true hell of oppression and slavery. 

So far, I have stressed a universal interpretation of this quote, and ignored its particular context.  Arendt's admonition originates in a column she wrote for a Jewish newspaper, Aufbau, published in New York for German-speaking Jews, as part of a critique of the Reform movement in Judaism.  The movement originated in 19th century Germany, as a response to the Enlightenment, and the Emancipation initiated by Napoleon, wherein Jews were released from ghetto confinement and given a measure of equal rights and citizenship.

To accommodate their newly established status, the Reform movement sought to recast Judaism in the image of Protestantism, as just another religious sect.  Apart from a liberalizing and modernizing of worship and religious requirements, this meant abandoning Jewish identity as a people, as a nation in exile, so as to give full political allegiance to the new nation-states of the west, and embrace a new national identity as citizens of Germany, or France, or England, or the United States.  Consequently, the Reform movement rejected Zionism and made loyalty to the nation of one's birth a religious duty.  Jewish identity and tradition were thereby reduced, compartmentalized as only a form of religious belief and practice, their political significance abandoned. 

 Arendt's criticism is consonant with Jewish tradition, as the Torah repeatedly asks the Jewish people to remember, to remember the Exodus, to remember the revelation at Mount Sinai, toremember God's laws and commandments, to remember God's commitment to social justice.  Rather than make an argument for a return to Orthodoxy, however, Arendt's concern is characteristically philosophical.  Immediately before concluding her column with the passage quoted above, Arendt makes a more specific appeal regarding models of political leadership and moral guidance: 

As long as the Passover story does not teach the difference between freedom and slavery, as long as the Moses legend does not call to mind the eternal rebellion of the heart and mind against slavery, the "oldest document of human history" will remain dead and mute to no one more than the very people who once wrote it.  And while all of Christian humanity has appropriated our history for itself, reclaiming our heroes as humanity's heroes, there is paradoxically a growing number of those who believe they must replace Moses and David with Washington or Napoleon.  Ultimately, this attempt to forget our own past and to find youth again at the expense of strangers will fail—simply because Washington's and Napoleon's heroes were named Moses and David. 

Written in the dark times that followed Hitler's rise to power, the outbreak of the Second World War, and the establishment of Eichmann's concentration camps, Arendt's words are all the more poignant and powerful in their call for taking pride in the Jewish tradition of fighting for freedom and justice, and for an awareness that the cause of liberty and human rights have their roots in that most ancient of documents. 

Arendt's criticisms of the excesses of Reform Judaism were widely shared, and the movement itself changed dramatically in response to the Holocaust and the establishment of the State of Israel.  Reform Judaism reversed its stance on Zionism, and remains a staunch supporter of the Jewish state, albeit with a willingness to engage in criticism of Israeli government policies and decisions.  At the same time, Reform religious observance, while still distinct from that of the Orthodox and Conservative branches, has gradually restored many elements of traditional worship over the years.  And the celebration of Jewish culture and identity has become normalized during the past half century. 

For example, witness Aly Raisman's gold medal-winning gymnastic routine at the recently completed London Olympics, performed to the tune of Hava Nagila; Keith Stern, the rabbi at the Reform synagogue that Aly attends, explained that " it indicates Aly’s Jewish life is so integrated into her entire soul, that I don’t think she was looking to make a statement as a Jew, I think it was so natural to her that it's more like, why wouldn’t she use the Hora? It shows again her confidence and tradition in a really fundamental way."

   

Raisman's musical selection made an important statement as well, in light of the International Olympics Committee's decision not to have a moment of silence during the opening ceremonies to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the death of 11 Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics in a terrorist attack.  I think that Arendt would be nodding in approval at the way in which the teenage captain of the United States women's gymnastics team, in her own way, followed the example of Moses and David. 

Arendt's passage about history and freedom is a fitting one, I believe, for a Quote of the Weekpost scheduled to appear on the same day as Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, which is also said to be the birthday of the world.  The calendar year now turns to 5773, and 5,773 years is roughly the age of history itself, of recorded history, of written records, which originate in Mesopotamia, the cradle of civilization.  And while Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are referred to as the High Holy Days, and are popularly thought to be the most important in Jewish tradition, in truth it is the Passover that is the oldest, and most significant, of our holidays, lending further support to Arendt's argument.  But even more important than Passover is the weekly observance of the Sabbath day, which is mandated by the Fourth Commandment.  And in the new Sabbath liturgy recently adopted by the American Reform movement, there is a prayer adapted from a passage in the book Exodus and Revolution by political philosopher Michael Walzer, that is worth sharing in this context:

Standing on the parted shores of history

We still believe what we were taught

Before ever we stood at Sinai’s foot;

That wherever we go, it is eternally Egypt

That there is a better place, a promised land;

That the winding way to that promise

Passes through the wilderness.

That there is no way to get from here to there

Except by joining hands, marching together.

The message of this prayer is that only by working together can we transform the burden of history into a blessing, only by working together can we wield the shared history of humanity in the service of human freedom and social justice.  This is what Arendt wanted us to understand, to commit to memory, and to learn by heart.