Winter Religious School News

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

Religious School News 

     from


Cantor Sandy Horowitz

Religious School Director

Last month we held a school­-wide celebration of Hanukkah with songs, crafts, games and storytelling, thanks to the efforts and leadership of our teachers. The fifth grade led our family Hanukkah service with much enthusiasm, and the sanctuary was filled with appreciative attendees–Adas Emuno is becoming The Place to Be on Family Service Friday Nights! Meanwhile, Emery Jacobowitz celebrated becoming bar mitzvah in November–mazal tov to Emery and his family!

In our efforts to provide our students with a Jewish education, of course we place a high value on learning. But equal to the importance of learning Hebrew, Jewish traditions, history, etc. is the importance of gemilut chassadim–acts of kindness. Our curriculum includes the study of Jewish ethics (this is the theme of this year’s Confirmation class as well); we collect tzedakah in order to donate to needy causes; we have participated in social action projects. And we try to create a school-­wide atmosphere of mutual respect. I have listened to how our madrichim (high school classroom helpers) model kind and respectful speech to our students; I have overheard students encouraging and helping each other as they struggle to learn Hebrew prayers together. I’ve seen teachers maintain classrooms where the expectation is that every student is to be treated with respect.

At this darkest time of the year, may our school continue to shine its two­fold light ­ of learning, and of caring for one another.  –Cantor Horowitz

 

Dates to remember for January and February:

Friday, January 22
7:30 PM Shabbat Service with Tu B’Shevat Dessert Seder. Join us as we celebrate the New Year for Trees (Israel Arbor Day) with a delicious and informative seder following services.

Friday, January 29
7:30 PM Family Service featuring the Fourth Grade

Sunday, January 31
10 am – 2 pm. Blood Drive in the Social Hall.
Coordinated by Emma Schuller.

Thursday, February 11
7:30 PM School Committee Meeting

Sunday, February 14
No School–Presidents' Day Vacation

Saturday, February 27
10 AM–Bar Mitzvah of Grey Lawrence

Saturday, December 12
Confirmation Class: January 10, 24, Feb. 7, 21 

 
On Sunday, January 10 at 10 AM in the Social Hall, the Congregation will screen the documentary film, Joachim Prinz: I Shall Not Be Silent, in honor of the upcoming Martin Luther King Day. Please see the Rabbi’s column for full details (to be posted here tomorrow).

 

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

A Message From Our President

Dr. Lance Strate

The Force (of Jewish Community) Awakens

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

May the force of Jewish community be with you!


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


 

Religion and Space Travel

We think some of you may be interested in the fact that two members of our Adas Emuno community have contributed chapters to a new anthology entitled,Touching the Face of the Cosmos: On the Intersection of Space Travel and Religion. The contributors are none other than our spiritual leader, Rabbi Barry L. Schwartz, and the president of our congregation, Lance Strate.

If you like to do your reading on screens rather than paper, or if you can't wait for the hard copy to be published, the book was recently made available on Amazon Kindle, via Connected Editions:

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 For those of you willing to wait for it, or who prefer to read ink on paper, paperback and hardcover editions of the book will be published in March, and are available for pre-order:

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Some of the other contributors include the Director of the Vatican Observatory Guy Consolmagno, the science fiction author and public intellectual David Brin, science fiction author Gregory Benford, and several former NASA officials, not to mention an interview with John Glenn, the first American astronaut to orbit the planet. If you want to see the full table of contents, click on the link for the Kindle edition above, then on the "Look Inside" option by clicking on the cover.

 

And as you can see from this cover image, the collection is co-edited by Paul Levinson and Michael Waltemathe. Some of you may recall that back on May 5th, 2007, we had a Havadallah Talk adult education session entitled "A Talmudic Look at Ancient History and Science Fiction," given by science fiction author Paul Levinson. 

Paul is also a Professor of Communication and Media Studies at Fordham University, where he is a colleague of Lance Strate. You can read about that Havdallah Talk on Lance's blog, in a post entitled, The Plotz to Save Socrates (our congregational blog wasn't launched until 2010). And Lance's recent blog post on the anthology, Interfacing With the Cosmos, includes additional links and video. 

 

A Winter Purim Spiel

Back in August, we posted A Summer Puim Spiel, featuring the video recording of the first performance of this year's Purim spiel, from March 1st. Here now is The Schnook of Esther (A Purim Spiel) Adas Emuno March 4, 2015, a recording of our second performance on Purim eve.  Just the thing to provide a little warmth (and merriment) on a cold winter's day).

Once again, this particular Purim Spiel, The Schnook of Esther, is an original work, and any other congregations or Jewish groups out there who are interested in using it for their next Purim celebration, you can contact us via email: <adasemuno at gmail.com>.

And once again, this is just raw footage, not a professional video production, with one of the songs missing (the other video, posted on A Summer Puim Spiel, is complete). And yes, the players are not ready for prime time, by any means, but I think you'll agree that we know how to have fun here in our little shul on the hill in Leonia, Bergen County, New Jersey.

Musings on Jewish Identity at Christmastime

This past Friday, December 18, the Jewish Standard published another op-ed by Adas Emuno president Lance Strate. Entitled, Musings on Jewish Identity at Christmastime, it is altogether timely, so we are pleased to share it with you here and now:

Adam Sandler performed an update of his “Chanukah Song” last month at the New York Comedy Festival, with a second performance in San Diego available on YouTube. The new rendition is the fourth version of the song he debuted in 1994 on Saturday Night Live, a song that is as much about Jewish identity as it is about the holiday.

Sandler’s “Chanukah Song” is not without its critics, however. In an editorial published in the New Jersey Jewish News last month, the newspaper’s editor-in-chief, Andrew Silow-Carroll of Teaneck, expresses much ambivalence about Sandler’s listing of Jewish celebrities. He worries that while it reflects a sense that it is cool to be Jewish, that coolness is a shallow expression of ethnic pride, lacking the depth of religious commitment.

In my view, Silow-Carroll sells Sandler short.

But first let me note that I agree with the general argument that Jewish identity ought to be based on something more than ethnic pride. If Jewish identity is reduced to ethnicity alone, it eventually will be lost within the great American melting pot. Think of how many Americans today claim to have a Native American great grandparent. But the key to understanding “The Chanukah Song” is not in the list of Jewish celebrities, even though that constitutes the main part of the song.

Steve Allen once observed that the comedian is usually a person with a grievance, and Sandler explained the grievance behind “The Chanukah Song” when he first introduced it on December 3, 1994. “When I was a kid, this time of year always made me feel a little left out, because in school there were so many Christmas songs, and all us Jewish kids had was the song, ‘Dreidel, Dreidel, Dreidel,’” he said then. And while Sandler goes on to say that he “wrote a brand new Chanukah song for you Jewish kids to sing,” in actuality the song actually has very little to do with the holiday.

Sandler does begin with a reference to religious tradition, as the first line of the song tells us to “put on your yarmulke,” and goes on to identify the holiday as the festival of lights. But for the most part, the connection to Chanukah is tangential, a list of famous people who are more or less Jewish, motivated by the mostly unstated implication that they also celebrate Chanukah instead of Christmas. In other words, the song is not about Chanukah itself, but rather about not celebrating Christmas, about feeling like “the only kid in town without a Christmas tree.” About feeling left out.

Certainly, the song’s appeal to ethnic pride is an effort to compensate for that sense of alienation, and there is something very Jewish about taking note when a prominent person is a member of the tribe. Indeed, doing so constitutes a link to our tribal roots, an expression of a group-centered communal sensibility, one that stands in marked contrast to the extreme individualism of American society. Moreover, it can serve not only as an expression of shared pride, but also of collective shame. For example, in the new version of the song Sandler expresses his disapproval of former Subway spokesperson and convicted sex offender Jared Fogle, and his disappointment that Fogle is Jewish.

To understand the peculiarity of American-Jewish life over the past century or more, it is helpful to consider how the equivalent of “The Chanukah Song” would work for other groups. A song pointing out the identity of African-Americans or Asian-Americans, for example, would seem pointless; it simply would state what is obvious to all. The same would be true, to a large extent, for a song about Italian-Americans naming Pacino, DeNiro, Stallone, DiCaprio, etc.; or for Hispanics naming Lopez, Garcia, Longoria, Montalban, etc. And yes, we have our Levines, Shapiros, and Cohens, but then there are also names like Gyllenhaal, Johansson, and LaBeouf, all named in Sandler’s recent update.

That Jewish identity is often not immediately apparent goes hand-in-hand with the fact that for most of the time, Jewish-Americans are privileged to feel and function as if we are part of mainstream American society. Even when we take off for Jewish holidays, fast on Yom Kippur, and avoid chametz on Passover, we may be diverging from the mainstream, but we do so by taking an alternate path, a detour, rather than running counter to its current. It is only at Christmastime that we find ourselves at odds with the vast majority of Americans and can feel like strangers in our native land.

And let’s be honest, generic phrases like “holiday season” and “season’s greetings” are essentially euphemisms for Christmas. The attempt to acknowledge that there is more than one holiday at this time of year essentially translates to “Christmas and others,” or more accurately “Christmases and others,” by which I mean not only the Orthodox Church’s Christmas that falls during the first week of January, but more importantly the distinction between the religious observance of the Christian holy day and what has become, for many, a secularized American holiday.

It is pointless to deny the power of secularized Christmas, whose elements include Christmas trees, magic snowmen and reindeer, elves, and of course Santa Claus as a figure akin to the tooth fairy. And Sandler doesn’t mention the fact that in an effort to avoid feeling left out, some Jews actually do celebrate some form of secularized Christmas.

While I don’t believe that Santa Claus ever can be fully separated from his origins as the Christian Saint Nicholas, or that Christmas ever can be the kind of pluralistic national holiday that Thanksgiving is, my point is not to criticize attempts to create a kosher Christmas. Rather, what I want to emphasize is that if it is possible for us to celebrate some form of secularized Christmas, then the decision not to celebrate Christmas becomes a conscious choice that we have to make, an act of resistance to the dominant culture, an affirmation of our group identity as a people, and most importantly, an affirmation of our faith.

The decision not to celebrate Christmas is much more than a matter of ethnic pride. It must be based on religion, and this is the underlying assumption of Sandler’s “Chanukah Song,” and the point that Silow-Carroll misses. We are defined by what we are not, as well as by what we are. Admittedly, it is not enough to define ourselves against others. We also have to define ourselves positively, by our beliefs and practices. But we should understand the hidden ground of faith behind Sandler’s humor.

We should also understand the grievance behind the song, stemming from a sense of isolation that may be felt only or much more acutely at this time of year. Sandler’s song counters isolation through the creation of a sense of connection, achieved by naming others who are “just like you and me.” What he gives us is an imaginary community of people who are known to us, but who do not know us in return. In doing so, he points the way to the real solution, which is to seek out a real sense of community, something we can only find through our Jewish congregations, synagogues, and community centers.

Don't Let the Light Go Out!

For this last day of Hanukkah, how about an inspiring local Hanukkah story?





We hope you've had a very happy Hanukkah, and remember to keep the flame going all year around!

Eight Candles Tonight!

As we look forward to the last night of Hanukkah, here are two of our favorite songs of the season:












Once again, our outdoor menorah lighting will take place at 7 PM, followed this evening by our monthly Poetry Garden meeting in the Social Hall. With that in mind, how about some Hanukkah poetry?

Here's one from 2013 that's quite exceptional, entitled The Black Miracle: A Hanukkah/Thanksgiving Poetry Slam:








 
And one from 70 years earlier, entitled Chanukah, 1943 - poem by Brenda Levy Tate:




And here's the write-up on this video:

Hélène Berr lived in Paris and actively resisted the Nazi invasion of her homeland. She attended the Sorbonne, played violin, fell in love and tried to make the best of her family's dire situation. Rather than trying to downplay her Jewish identity, she opted to wear her yellow star as a badge of pride in her heritage. Sadly, she was sent to Auschwitz in 1944 and died in the Bergen-Belsen camp only five days before the liberation. Her diary was retained by her fiance and passed on to her niece, who finally chose to publish it. In 2008, the newly-released journal touched and moved readers, causing Hélène Berr to be called "the French Anne Frank". I hope I have done justice to her memory. While this poem is not specifically about Ms. Berr, it was written in her honour to commemorate the experiences of many families in similar circumstances during that dark time.

 
On a lighter note for this Festival of Lights: Marcia Lawson recites her poem "Hanukkah Is No Jewish Christmas":







Happy Hanukkah, hope to see you this evening!