Author: Melissa

I have been thinking a lot about gratitude lately and not just because of the Thanksgiving holiday.  Maybe it is the fact that my kids entered a new phase of their lives starting high school this year and have adjusted beautifully. Maybe it is because with hurricane Sandy,  it was so obvious that I had much to be thankful for. Maybe it is because with the recent election, I was overwhelmed with tears as the election results streamed in. Whatever the reason, for me, this day-of-thanks has actually been a season of thanks for so many things. I know that it is not always easy to find things to be grateful for. Bad things occur, annoying things happen, disappointments are ever-present. But that is when we have to look deepest to find our gratitude. Being  thankful when things are going well is easy. Finding small pieces of thankfulness when things are hard is a challenge.

And I hope it is a challenge you will all take on. Long after  you have finished the Turkey in your fridge, I hope that you will take with you the lessons of thankfulness that are supposed to be a regular part of our Jewish lives.  Thanksgiving “leftovers” can be in our lives every single day. Try finding one thing, right now as you read this, that  you are thankful for. And then tomorrow, see if you can do the same. What would it look like if saying “I am thankful for____” became a daily habit in your life?

Wishing you all a Shabbat filled with peace, love and of course, gratitude.

Pamela Joy Barkley

Shabbat Shalom!  In this month’s issue of Real Simple magazine, I came across a wonderful article called “how to say grace” by Kate Braestrup (click here to view).  It is wonderful and I can’t stop reading it.  She speaks about how to prepare to bless a meal.  At first glance, blessing a meal is easy for us, we say motzi and eat.  But blessing a meal, for example Thanksgiving, is not so easy.  It is like a toast.  As we gather family and friends together, we feel a pressure to mark the occasion, welcome our guests, thank the cook(s), and say something extraordinary that will match the feeling of the occasion.  Kate Braestrup goes on to say that in order to create a proper blessing, and I would like to suggest in order to hear the blessing, you have to stop doing other things, you have to be present, and you have to listen.  She suggests that grace could simply be silence and taking the time to focus and listen to the sound of our own breath and the breath of those around us.  She tells a story about “a rabbi who explained the Jewish prohibition against speaking or writing the name of God, lest it be taken in vain.  ‘Many think it’s actually impossible to speak or write the true name of God,’ the rabbi said.  ‘Because the name of God is the sound of breathing.  Breathing in…breathing out.'”  This article/story is not just about saying grace, it is not just about Thanksgiving, it is about prayer.  In order to pray, we need to stop doing other things, we have to be present, we have to breathe.  Join us at TBA this Shabbat and take a moment for yourself to listen to your breath, to hear the breath of those around you, and to be with God.

Now that the election is over and it’s once again safe to answer the phone without fear of robo-calls, it’s time to look a little further ahead.  As a group, Jews have long been very involved in American politics, seeing it as a civic responsibility, as a way to concretize Jewish values, and as an act of enlightened self-interest.  I’ve just had a fascinating conversation with Rabbi David Saperstein, the long-time director of the Religious Action Center in Washington, about the implications of Tuesday’s vote for Jews and the country at large, and I’m looking forward to sharing them with you on Friday at 8:00 pm.  Or, you might prefer to be at the 5:45 pm service, which lets you pray, then go home, kick off your shoes, and linger over dinner.  Either way, you have a chance to give thanks for your blessings, end the week, and start the weekend with a spiritual recharge.  And, in case you just can’t be there, remember that we’re now streaming both services live on the internet; simply go to the website, and click on the link.  We’re making it easier – and more meaningful – than ever to make Shabbat worship a part of your week.  Shabbat Shalom!

I don’t know about you, but I am not feeling particularly restful.

Tradition tells us that tonight, when we light the candles, we mark the beginning of the sabbath, in honor of the formal “rest period” that God took after creating the world. It is supposed to be a time of relaxation and reflection. It is supposed to be a time we cease doing what we have been doing all week in the secular, electronic world.

Well, this whole week has not exactly been relaxing, but it has definitely been a forced respite from the usual realm of technology. As everything ran out of battery power, we were forced to do other things. There were reports of family board games and neighborhood “Twister” events. Ice cream parties – it was gonna melt anyway! – by candlelight. And TBA became a giant community party as families came to our building to recharge physically and emotionally. The atmosphere at Temple was nothing short of festive as people laughed about their circumstances while watching children of all ages play with the nursery school toys unveiled from behind the stage curtain.

See, that’s the thing about these natural disasters – it actually does bring people together. The trite saying is in fact true –  Crises makes us remember what is important. “We have no power, but thank God we are all safe” or “My phones are out and my street is impassable, but we are so lucky the tree fell the other way”.  I am sure you have heard similar things all week. We see the pictures of devastation in Breezy Point and instantly know how deeply fortunate we are to have homes, even electricity-free ones.

How long will that last?

When the lights go back on, how long will it take for us to forget how lucky we felt just to have a home? From the moment the switch is flipped, how much time will it take before we become seriously annoyed that someone left a dish in the sink or irritated that the laundry is piling up again. One day? A few days? A couple of hours?

Tradition also tells us that when Shabbat ends, we are supposed to perform a ritual called “Havdalah”, to literally separate the holy day of Shabbat from the rest of the mundane week. We smell the spices, light the braided candle, and ceremoniously put the candle out in the wine. We are told that we should consciously mark the end of the restful, sacred period to enhance our understanding of its importance.

So, when the lights go back on, how can you mark the moment? How can you and your family consciously hold on to the feelings of friendship and good will that you experienced this week? How can you create your own Havdalah – your own separation – between the darkness of your powerless house and the lights that will miraculously go on? It seems to me there is an opportunity here to gather your family together not just in an early thanksgiving for having electricity back, but in a moment of realization that when Sandy came to town, all you really needed was one another.

You can do this by making up your own blessing. You can go around the table and each say something you are grateful for.   You can come together and ceremoniously blow out the candles that are strewn about your house. As each one is blown out, say something good that happened as a result of the storm. You can resolve as a family to let the feeling you had during the darkness, extend to the rest of the lit week.  Or come up with your own ritual. As Shabbat begins, I hope you will resolve to mark the moment when your personal world is filled with light again.

Shabbat shalom!  20 years ago at around this time, I started the placement process for finding a Cantorial position.  I said that I would go anywhere and actually had auditions as far away as Toronto.  Despite the fact that I had never really lived out of New York and, except for my year in Israel, had never really lived away from my family, I thought that I could pack up, pick up, and go.  19 years later, I have been at TBA, in Westchester county, where my sister already had moved to start her family, and only 45 minutes from Long Island where I grew up and my parents still live.  I learned quickly that I am a home body and I imagine that I would not have made it for very long had my first congregation been farther from where I am right now.

This Shabbat, we read Lech L’cha, the story in the Torah where Judaism begins.  Well maybe not Judaism but monotheism.  God says to Moses, “go forth from your native land, your father’s house, to a land that I will show you” (Bereshit 12:1).  What would you do if you heard God’s voice?  What would you do if God told you to leave your home for an unknown destination?  Would you get up and go?  Would a promise like this make it easier,  “I will make you into a great nation. I will bless you and make you great. You shall become a blessing” (Bereshit 12:2)?  What would it take to make you leave the surroundings that you know best to start a journey that you don’t even have a road map for?  How would you tell your family? Your friends?  I think that this weeks 10 Minutes or Torah from the URJ tackles these questions beautifully with a letter from Abram to his Father by Rabbi Bruce Kadden and a short article about seizing the moment by Evan Traylor both of which you can find by clicking here  http://urj.org/learning/torah/?syspage=article&item_id=95182.

I don’t look back and wonder what if, because I am happy where I am near family and with friends.  I don’t know what I would do if God asked me to get up and go, do you?

This week in the Torah, we’re reading about the Tower of Babel.  As the story goes, God was so unhappy at the bad behavior of a united humanity that God divided us by language and scattered us across the globe.  Far be it for me to question the Almighty, but I don’t think the results were exactly as anticipated!  Differences between groups of people (language, color, religion, etc.) might possibly make behavior better inside the group, but they definitely make it easier to treat “others” much worse.  One of my favorite ideas in Shabbat services is that of the importance of understanding all humanity as children of the same God.  Join us this weekend at services for a refresher in the universal nature of God.  Shabbat shalom!

The holidays are over!

I say this with an exclamation point not because I am thrilled that they are done, but because I am excited to finally have full weeks of Hebrew school – you know, when we actually see the students on Sunday, Monday, Wednesday for more than one week in a row! Don’t get me wrong, I love the chaggim (holidays), but it’s very hard to keep the learning rolling here without consistency. So as all the teachers know, we are about to get started with many-weeks-in-a-row of consistent classes, uninterrupted fun and of course, serious learning. As we head into our first Sunday of this new post-holiday period, I hope you will all help your children get into the habit of coming here ready to explore, study and discover all the that being Jewish has to offer!

Shabbat Shalom! “Dance with the Torah and sing out a song. Dance with the Torah and sing all night long. Torah, Torah sheli (Torah, Torah is mine)!”  This is the song that I grew up with as we headed into Simchat Torah and I couldn’t wait!  The same is true for our celebration at TBA, I can’t wait.  Be a part of the celebration as we dance and sing with the Torah on Sunday, October 7 at 7:00 pm and/or Monday, October 8 at 9:00 am.  Simchat Torah, rejoicing in the law, celebrates the completion of the yearly Torah reading cycle and beginning over again.  This time of year has many opportunities for celebration, reflection and new beginnings.  On Simchat Torah here at TBA, our Klezmer band will play as we dance and sing and then we will open one of our scrolls around the Social Hall creating a circle around our children.  As we join the end and the beginning together under the chuppah, I am reminded of a teaching by Neil Yurman.  When restoring our Torah’s, Neil Yurman taught us that the last word of the Torah, Yisrael ending in a ל (lamed) joins with the first word of the Torah, b’reishit beginning with a ב (vet) to create the word leiv, heart.  As the Torah is the heart of the Jewish community, celebrating this new beginning is the heart of our TBA community.  Join with your community (Yisrael) as we b’reishit (in the beginning) celebrate the new year, the Torah and being together.  Hope to see you there!

As a reminder a couple of weeks ago I suggested adding a little study to your week by studying the weekly Torah portion.  There are many different choices from picking up a copy of the Torah and just beginning to read to the online sources that I suggested.  As well there are opportunities to study the holidays.  For example check out URJ for a basic guide to Simchat Torah  or take a quiz at myjewishlearning.com to see what you know.

L’shalom,
Cantor Margot

On erev Rosh Hashanah I spoke of how the two mitzvot of choosing an etrog and honoring our elders are linked by language.  (If you want to know how, ask me for a copy of the sermon!)  The story I told made it clear however that caring for human beings should always take precedence over inanimate objects; if two mitzvot should happen but there is only time for one, relationships always trump things.  But we have found a way to combine these two mitzvot without sacrificing either.  This Sunday, our fourth grade students will be welcoming senior citizens from the Hebrew Home in Riverdale, and inviting them to enter our sukkah, have a bite to eat and of course shake the lulav and etrog.  You, of course, will have the same opportunity as the seniors.  Sukkot begins Sunday evening, and our sukkah will be up all week.  You can come to services on Sunday evening or Monday morning, or feel free to stop by later in the week with a brown bag lunch.  Why let the fourth-graders have all the fun?  Chag sameach!

Last year was our first experience at Shabbaton.  We suppose we did not know what to expect.  It seemed like there were 2 specific reasons we were committing.  It was an opportunity to be away with our family for the weekend “unconnected” to the world, and it was an opportunity to build a sense of community with other members/families that we did not know at TBA.  Never did we realize how many positive things would occur that weekend.

• We met so many great people.  When we go to TBA now, it is so nice to address all our new friends who we continue to build good friendships with.
• TBA, since going to Shabbaton,  has felt so much more like a community.
• Football with the Rabbi, apple picking and all the other fun activities enabled our family to bond without all the interruptions we are faced with on a regular weekend.  It was like going away to camp with our family and a bunch of other people.  So peaceful and so serene.
• Age doesn’t matter.  We met people of different generations and it did not matter.  Everyone was so willing to get to know each other and contribute to a rewarding, positive experience.
• There was lots and lots and lots of food.  Who does not like good company, good food and good times?  The mixing of tables enabled us to meet people we ordinarily would not speak with.
• The ice breakers, Storahtelling and all activities were well planned out, engaging and fun.
• One of the most rewarding experiences for us was the bonfire, s’mores, and singing we did around the fire after services led by our children.  We look forward to repeating that experience as it was very special.  Looking around the fire and seeing everyone singing, laughing and enjoying was memorable.  Then an ice cream social topped it off.
• It was at Shabbaton that I also learned more about the Purim Shpiel and made the decision to be a part of the 2012 show (and what a fun show that was!)

We are sure there are plenty of reasons that keep members of our Temple on the fence about what Shabbaton is and why they should go.  After all, weekends are jammed pack with soccer, play dates, parties, family commitments, etc…But it is 100% worth going!

Shabbaton was the start of better habits, values and community.  It affected both my personal and religious beliefs.  For one weekend, it is a chance to find an inner smile which lasted for a long time.  You walk away feeling good and having a better relationship with your family and so many people you would never have had the opportunity to get to know.

Scott and Stacy Berliner