Today’s Wall Street Journal has a piece about Mordecai Kaplan and the reprinting of his seminal work Judaism As Civilization. You can find it at
Mordecai Kaplan Article in Wall Street Journal
January 29th, 2010Link to JStreet – live!
October 25th, 2009http://conference.jstreet.org/
ELUL MESSAGE IV from the RABBI
September 10th, 200922 Elul 5769 /September 11, 2009
Our fourth Elul theme is tied to Selihot, a word meaning “apologies,” as well as denoting the title for the liturgical service of preparation for the Days of Awe.
Practicing forgiveness is like anything else that requires discipline, akin to a sport. It comes more easily, and is more effective, when the muscles are limber! How inviting, then, for those who don’t otherwise do so readily, that this period before the High Holy Days is set as a time of preparation for saying “I’m sorry.”
The unique prayers of Yom Kippur/the Day of Atonement and the month-long Selihot period beforehand, featured at the late Saturday night service preceding Rosh Hashanah/the new year, highlight the asking for, and offering of, forgiveness.
Still, there are times when speaking from the heart, without scripted words, gestures or behaviors, trumps the set words. Whether you have learned them from parents, teachers, religious leaders, or other sources of guidance – or rely on the impulses of the heart – this is the week the Jewish calendar supports your forgiveness efforts.
In writing, through gestures, with words of, from, or within the heart, privately or shared with community, you won’t be alone this week – or in the year to come – when you practice forgiveness.
With blessings for a year of sweetness, joy, health and life – Shana tova!
Rabbi Liz
ELUL MESSAGE I from the RABBI
September 9th, 20091 Elul 5769 /August 21, 2009
Encountering these hot days of summer on the new moon of Elul, exactly one Jewish month’s cycle before the Season of Awe can feel, well, too sunny. After all, this month and the next one, Tishrey, hold our annual rituals of gathering, remembering and reflection that lead us – often – to chilly evening meals in a sukkah!
Yet we trust that the specifics of this time and place transcend our geographic particulars. As a people, we celebrate anew what we wish for the world’s renewal and well-being. We also do so as citizens of this time and place, and as unique individuals. And it is a challenging time for so many.
Four weeks of Elul offer a delicious opportunity for each erev shabbat/ending of the week. Considering adding to your thoughts, conversations or rituals a focus on each of the three simple essentials of prayer – Please, Thanks and Yay! – a fourth: Forgive Me.
Please: Tonight’s slimmest sliver of moon compels us to ask, as we do Jewishly in several ritual formulas, for healing, light, and guidance. I ask for ongoing healing and continue my ongoing and energetic return to health (and so many thanks, too!). I ask for the ongoing healing and caring for our members, kin and others in and beyond our midst. And I ask for active guidance towards sound judgment in what I can do to confront and repair the healing I am compelled to offer our ailing global home.
Next week: more thoughts on the themes, and on the holy days I am eager to share with you all.
Shabbat shalom and hodesh tov/a good new month,
Rabbi Liz
ELUL MESSAGE I from the RABBI
September 9th, 2009
1 Elul 5769 /August 21, 2009
Encountering these hot days of summer on the new moon of Elul, exactly one Jewish month’s cycle before the Season of Awe can feel, well, too sunny. After all, this month and the next one, Tishrey, hold our annual rituals of gathering, remembering and reflection that lead us – often – to chilly evening meals in a sukkah!
Yet we trust that the specifics of this time and place transcend our geographic particulars. As a people, we celebrate anew what we wish for the world’s renewal and well-being. We also do so as citizens of this time and place, and as unique individuals. And it is a challenging time for so many.
Four weeks of Elul offer a delicious opportunity for each erev shabbat/ending of the week. Considering adding to your thoughts, conversations or rituals a focus on each of the three simple essentials of prayer – Please, Thanks and Yay! – a fourth: Forgive Me.
Please: Tonight’s slimmest sliver of moon compels us to ask, as we do Jewishly in several ritual formulas, for healing, light, and guidance. I ask for ongoing healing and continue my ongoing and energetic return to health (and so many thanks, too!). I ask for the ongoing healing and caring for our members, kin and others in and beyond our midst. And I ask for active guidance towards sound judgment in what I can do to confront and repair the healing I am compelled to offer our ailing global home.
Next week: more thoughts on the themes, and on the holy days I am eager to share with you all.
Shabbat shalom and hodesh tov/a good new month,
Rabbi Liz
ELUL MESSAGE III from the RABBI
September 9th, 200915 Elul 5769 /September 4, 2009
How could it be that joy is a difficult experience to cultivate? All we need to do is look at the face of a toothless, drooling infant, limbs waving in the air, cooing sounds of unabashed delight. It’s infectious; our response is involuntary.
Praise and wonder shouldn’t be hard – it should be positively viral! And yet. For those of us who are primarily comfortable in our heads, the shouts and moves of public physical devotion can be especially discomfiting.
Yay! This is one of three primary purposes of Jewish prayer. We say a litany of yay words in our Aramaic “doxology,” otherwise known as the Kaddish, in its various forms: bless! praise! glorify! lift up! hold in awe! extol!
Two weeks from tonight, on the eve of Rosh Hashanah, the full shape of the moon will be barely visible, casting just a sliver of light from the night sky. But our faces and hearts can still glow with joy, if we take some time to cultivate it. You may not be able to remember your infancy, but perhaps during this third week of Elul, you might be able to remember a time or place you felt, and expressed, joy.
It may be dark somewhere, but I’ll do my best to see every opportunity I can to say halleluyah.
Next week: our fourth theme, and Selihot, the service of preparation.
A joyous shabbat shalom to you all,
Rabbi Liz
ELUL MESSAGE II from the RABBI
September 9th, 20098 Elul 5769 /August 28, 2009
Four weeks of Elul offer a delicious opportunity for each erev shabbat/ending of the week particularly this year, as the month began and will conclude on a Friday night. For these weeks, you are invited to considering adding to your thoughts, conversations or rituals a focus on each of the three simple essentials of prayer – Please, Thanks and Yay! – a fourth: Forgive Me.
Thanks: the very first word in the litany of daily Jewish prayer; one of the two “magic” words we remind children to use; a word that can sometimes be difficult to utter, and sometimes, so simple.
“We thank you for our lives entrusted to your hand, our souls placed in your keeping, and your wonders and good things that are with us every hour, morning, noon, and night … bekhol yet, erev vavoerk vetzohorzyim.” HODA’AH/THANKS from the Amidah
How marvelous it would be if we were indeed to acknowledge daily, in some internal or external fashion, the quotidian miracles of our lives. While it is a truth for many of us that an unbidden trauma often calls up our awareness of and gratitude for those “little” things, it is also a truth that we are each capable of magnifying and lauding those very things on a daily basis.
To a friend or for leaders; for health, for healing; at the rising of the sun, and for a safe slumber; for first times, for old times – say thanks.
Next week: thoughts on our third theme, and the full moon of Elul.
Shabbat shalom and “blessings on the backpacks” for those starting school!
Rabbi Liz
Meg Smith in the Water Ballet
July 26th, 2009There is still time to see Beit Tikvah’s own Meg Smith in the water ballet. It was at Riverside Pool this weekend and will be at Patterson Park Pool next weekend. Get details at http://www.fluidmovement.org/
It is a fun show for the whole family that lasts about 45 minutes. We just got back and had a great time.
David Marcovitz
Welcome Back, Rabbi Liz!
May 3rd, 2009We were very excited to welcome Rabbi Liz back to services yesterday to give the D’var Torah. She is not yet 100%, but she is looking better every time I see her. My father was in town and came to services. He remarked that he wouldn’t have even known that she had been ill if he hadn’t been told. We can’t wait for her to be back to full strength.
David Marcovitz
The Kesher School–Can you help?
April 29th, 2009As the year comes to a close, we at the Kesher School are gearing up for a working summer, when we hope to obtain many of the supplies and materials we have gone without for all these years. But first, we need a way to store and transport the things we use in our home at the Waldorf School. As you know, because quite likely you have lugged materials up from the cold basement storage quarters, we rent space at Waldorf for our school, and must transport, pack and unpack our school each Sunday morning. So can you help make that easier for the teachers and volunteers through the purchase or donation of utility carts ($150/each), a computer cart ($350), a file cart ($150), or book carts ($350 each). Monetary donations or donations of gently used items are much appreciated.
We also need things that you might just have wanted to donate away at some point but just haven’t gotten around to it, like deep book shelves and cabinets, a wireless printer for a PC, Jewish, Hebrew and reference books of all kinds and authentic musical instruments. Please e-mail Kesher@beittikvah.org if you would like to make one of these tax deductible donations.
Thank you all for your support!
Allyson Mattanah, Kesher School Committee Chair
