SYNABLOG: Temple Emanuel of Beverly Hills

L’hitraot (‘til we see each other again)

Goodbyes are not easy.  In my last week here at Temple Emanuel as your rabbi, my mood is reflective.  Even as I scurry wildly to finish up projects and make sure they are handed off – I am aware of enormous gratitude for the last four years.  So many of you have opened your hearts and homes to me, and my life is changed forever. 

In this week’s Torah portion, both Miriam and Aaron die.  In the midrash, the Rabbis imply that they both passed on with a “kiss from God.”  A gentle way to go – an insinuation of spiritual intimacy and comfort at the final parting. 

Even though I plan to keep an office here at Emanuel and this is not a “final goodbye” there is a need to create closure on this chapter.

As I go through my files, there are memories of all the projects, classes, events, services…Literally hundreds. 

But what most will stay with me are the moments of spiritual intimacy that blessed my time here - the meaningful conversations, the blessings given and received, the celebrations of anniversaries, the words spoken under the chuppah, the soulful music of the heart, the spark of the bar mitzvah student getting how cool it is to study Torah, the appreciation for a phone call or a blessing of healing, the look of delight at the delivery of a Purim basket, the welcoming of a new Jew at the mikveh, or the joy of a new group of friends joining together in a Chavurah – perhaps making lifelong friends.   This is what will remain seared upon my heart.

Thank you for letting me in.

If you want to be in touch, you can connect with me on Facebook by “liking” my Rabbi page:  Rabbi Jill Berkson Zimmerman.  My email is: jillbz@me.com  And I promise I will keep you informed on the next step of my journey.  L’hitraot.

Rabbi Jill Zimmerman

The Jewish Cardinal

At the end of every school year, I tell the students in our schools a story about a young boy (Shlomo), who goes around asking animals if he can still be Jewish over the summer. Of course, he discovers that he can -- even when there’s no religious school. This past week, Jean-Marie Lustiger, the French Cardinal, died at the age of 80. That in itself would be newsworthy…the fact that he was born Jewish, his mother perished in Auschwitz-Birkenau, and he converted to Christianity when a boy hiding from the Nazis with a non-Jewish family, made it all the more so.

The question of whether one remains a Jew throughout his/her life even after conversion is a controversial one. Tradition maintains that all a person has to do is say that s/he is Jewish, and the conversion is null and void. Others believe that it is what one does in their lives that makes them Jewish.  Wherever you come out on this spectrum, he strange set of circumstances that put a born Jew in the seat of Cardinal of France brings about ambivalent feelings. On the one hand, we can dismiss the person altogether and say that they converted and are completely out of the Jewish realm, or, as I heard a couple people say, we can be proud of the accomplishments of this person who is connected to all Jews from birth.

Throughout his life as a Catholic Priest, the rabbis of France looked down upon his conversion to Christianity. A former chief rabbi of Paris, Meyer Jays said “a Jew becoming a Christian does not take up authentic Judaism, but turns his back to it.” The Cardinal, however, once said “I was born Jewish, and so I remain, even if that is unacceptable for many. For me, the vocation of Israel is bringing light to the goyim. That is my hope, and I believe that Christianity is the means for achieving it.”

Certainly, Christians and Jews alike can claim Jean-Marie as one of their own in some way. And a man who devoted his life to spirituality and helping make the world a better place falls in line with both religions traditions. There could be no mistaking the conflict of spirit that must have accompanied the Cardinal his whole life, when at his funeral at Notre Dame Cathedral, the memorial service began with the Kaddish.

Rabbi Jonathan Aaron

Sing Out Loud!

"If you cannot sing like the nightingale and the lark, then sing like the crows and the frog, which sing as God meant them to." Thomas A Kempis. (1380-1471)
 
Do you sing?  I mean just throw all caution to the wind, open your mouth, let the music out and just sing?  Maybe you heard something catchy on the radio, or perhaps you’ve been listening to one of your favorite CD’s or tracks from your itunes playlist?  It could even be a melody that sticks with you from your favorite Friday night or Saturday morning prayer service.   While you are listening, do you have the desire to sing along, or are you perfectly happy to just receive the music?  
 
It’s an interesting question because I’d bet that the majority of people do not choose create the opportunity,  have the desire or perceived ability to just let go of their inner road blocks and let the music out.  When you really think about it, one of the reasons that people might bit apprehensive to sing, is that in our fast paced, technology-driven, sound-bite oriented lives, we really do not have that many opportunities to sing.  Whether in groups or alone, where in our lives do we really get the chance?  I’m sure many of you may sing out with gusto while lathering up in the shower, or maybe you even sing along with the crowd during the national anthem (if you know the words…) at a ballgame or a concert.  But where else?  Most of us don’t do it at work (unless of course you are a cantor J)  and most of us don’t do it in an organized way at home.  Long gone are the evenings people would spend in the parlor, sitting around the piano singing their favorite songs.
 
Another reason that some of us don’t sing-and this is something I’ve heard on more than one occasion- is that there are those who at some point in their childhood, were told that they should NOT sing, because they didn’t have the most pleasing of voices.  All too often, I meet people who share a similar story with me.  A teacher in elementary school told them that they should either keep their mouth closed, or even worse, just mouth the words.  Cut to 20 years later, and that same adult now has the misperception that he can not and should not sing. 
 
Alas….there is one place where we do come together at least twice a week with a common purpose and goal—and where one of the measures of a successful experience can be gauged by how much we sing together.  Of course, I am referring to our worship experiences in temple.  As Rabbi Aaron recently observed, where else in our lives do we have the opportunity to sing with regularity, with gusto, for a higher purpose, with meaning and intention?  It’s right here for us in the form of a weekly Shabbat evening or morning service.    When we pray and sing together we create a common vibration of sound, we create a sense of ruach, a shared spirit , an energy.  And the truth is it doesn’t matter if we all sing like nightingales and larks.  What truly matters is that we join in with whatever voice God has intended for us, so that we can create something greater and more powerful than ourselves.  When we sing in groups, we are  forced to listen as well—not just to our own voice, but to the voice of the leader as well as the multitude of voices singing with us.
 
If you’ve yet to experience the beauty and power of communal singing in either Shabbat Unplugged, Shabbat B’Yachad, the New Emanuel Minyan, or even the Family Choir.  I invite you to give it a try.  As Rabbi David Wolpe of Sinai Temple recently wrote, “ Each of us is given a song, each given wings. Where we fly and how we sing is according to our training, our effort, our awareness and God's gift. Sing as you were meant to; fly your singular course.”
 
Shabbat Unplugged-Every 1st Friday 7:30 PM
Shabbat B’Yachad-Every 3rd Friday-this week at 7:30 PM and 6:30 PM beginning in August
New Emanuel Minyan-Every Saturday Morning at 10 AM
Family Choir rehearsals begin in August (please contact me if interested)
 
Cantor Yonah Kliger
Cantorkliger@tebh.org

The Day After Mount Sinai

It finally arrived…the day we’ve been waiting for. For the past 49 days, we’ve been counting, counting the days between Passover and Shavuot, the day we stand again at Mount Sinai.  This counting has become increasingly important in my own spiritual life.

Every night Richard and I take a few minutes to reflect through the lens of Jewish mysticism on the particular characteristic of the day. We work our way through slowly and intentionally, trying to connect with the dimensions of Divinity that our tradition tells us we can access in our own lives: Chesed, Gevurah, Tifferet, Netzach, Hod, Yesod, and Malchut –- loving kindness, discipline, harmony, endurance, humility, bonding and nobility. By the time we get to the day before Shavuot: Malchut of Malchut—the challenge is  to the focus on our inner selves –- not  on performance and how we project to others but how to be at peace with who we really are. It is a powerful spiritual practice.

And then it is Shavuot. We are back on the mountain. We experience again a connection to God. At midnight, says the tradition, the heavens open and our Torah study explodes as blinding revelation, clarity and focus.

But now it is the day after Shavuot. What now? What happens after you finish something you’ve been working for so long?  Something you’ve been preparing for? What happens when you come down from the mountain and continue your journey through the wilderness of your life.

Our tradition offers two very different view of that wilderness. The first imagines the wilderness as a harsh and unforgiving place. Our journey was difficult, physically and spiritually. Somehow, in the heat and duststorms of the desert, we forgot how glorious it was to stand at Mt Sinai. We thought only about our physical comfort, looking for easy answers and longing to go back to the good old days when we had onions to eat in Egypt. We complained to Moses all the time.  Finally in response to our whining about being thirsty, even Moses lost his temper, and in anger,  struck a rock instead of speaking to it as God asked. In the wilderness, words no longer work. We scream and shout and complain, but we don’t listen to each other. We have no shared values; no common dreams. Midbar -the wilderness - turns out to be the same root as m’devar, without words…

The second view of the wilderness is the exact opposite. It was a time of great closeness between God and the Jewish people, a time of expansiveness and spiritual growth.  The midrash, rabbinic commentary, describes how God took care of us in the wilderness. We didn’t outgrow our clothes because clothes grew as we did.  Clothes never needed washing because the pillar of fire cleansed them and made them white. They never smelled sweaty, because the wells of living waters that accompanied us on our journey sprinkled us with wonderful fragrance. Food fell from heaven; manna which tasted like each of our own favorite food. In the wilderness, because  we knew that God was giving us everything we needed, we were grateful.  We sang the words of the Psalm:  “the Lord is my shepherd; I really do have everything that I need.”

Why two different views?   Perhaps because the quality of our journey through the wilderness depends on the choices we make and intention we bring with us.    

We can’t stay at Mt Sinai, but we can go back every year. And we can bring the clarity of  what we learned to transform the wilderness of our lives into a promised land.

Rabbi Laura Geller

That's Life!

Feeling pressured to play the piano…feeling guilty that you’re not “Jewish” enough…volunteering to go Christmas carolling because you think someone’s cute…thinking of a nose job…wanting to feel younger…needing to sit downstairs where the men sit close to the Torah…trying to live up to those from the past…all of these ideas and more are in this weekend’s Intergenerational Play, “That’s Life.”

Saturday, June 4 @ 7:00pm
Sunday, June 5 @ 2:00pm

To see a trailer from rehearsals, go to this link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4B47OeQ_t78

To order tickets, go to this link:
http://synablog.typepad.com/Order%20form.pdf

“That’s Life” was an Off-Broadway hit on the East side of New York for several years during the nineties. I saw the show several times (there was this very cute woman who joined the replacement cast of the show…my wife), and I felt that although I may not have agreed with all of the words sung in the show, I did feel like it was true of many other Jewish men and women’s experiences as Jewish Americans. It is both funny at times and touching at times, and the music is catchy. The original cast had 5 cast members…our intergeneration production has 40!

For four months, these men, women, and children, Temple Emanuel members all, have worked very hard to put forth a fantastic show. By the end of the run, we will have shared a bond that will be forever remembered – “remember when we did ‘That’s Life’ together?” will be a common phrase in the future. But for now, it’s break a leg, and we hope that you can join us for the show.

There are still tickets available, and we will be accepting people at the door. Get the word out!!!

Rabbi Jonathan Aaron