SYNABLOG: Temple Emanuel of Beverly Hills

How Long Do We Repent?

Once on the New Moon of Elul, the righteous Rabbi Levi Isaac of Berditchev (18^th century) was standing at his window. A cobbler passed by and asked him, “and have you nothing to mend?” At once the Rabbi sat himself down on the ground and weeping bitterly cried, “Woe is me, and alas my soul, for the Day of Judgment is almost here, and I have still not mended myself!”

 

For thousands of years, mending oneself through teshuvah (repentance) has been a yearly endeavor. During the ten days beginning with Rosh Hashanah and ending with Yom Kippur, Jews crowd synagogues all over the world to think about the year and whether they are worthy to be written in the book of life for the coming year. But tradition maintains that in reality, the entire period of reflecting upon life and the year that just passed is really 40 days  (the same amount of time Moses spent up on Mount Sinai when he received the Torah), from the moment the Month of Elul begins, to the moment the gates close on N’eelah at the end of Yom Kippur. And when you think about how complicated our lives are, we may indeed need forty days to really think about everything that has occurred over the last three hundred and twenty five days. The thirty days of Elul lead up to the “Ten Days of Awe,” when the reflection is let out, and we stand as human beings, and confess our imperfections.

 

This week’s Torah portion, Shofetim, begins “You shall appoint Judges and officers in all of your gates.” Bene Yisakhar offers that this sentence is the starting point of Teshuvah and it’s essential purpose is that people doing Teshuvah must station an officer and judge at all of their gates, meaning the senses, such as those of the eyes, ears, nose, mouth, which are the gates that the Creator opened in people for their use. Perhaps that is where we can begin. Begin with your senses, begin inside of yourself, try to imagine whether you’ve been led astray from the inside, and start to bring yourself back to yourself, back home.

 

This year, bringing yourself back home has another meaning as well. The space in Temple Emanuel that has contained all of the reflections of congregants over the last 50 is not going to be the same. So coming home to Emanuel this High Holy Days will feel different. Many of the elements of our “home” will still be here, but it has been transformed to allow greater flexibility, more modern technologically, and will serve as our home for the next fifty years. How we make it our home we will figure out together. What makes something home is a question we will explore during our High Holy Days sermons in our services.

 

As you prepare for this year’s High Holy days, please take the time to reflect on the idea of coming home, and what that means to you. Here are a few questions that may be helpful in your thoughts for the upcoming year:

 

What represents home to you?

What does it mean to come home?

What is the difference between a physical home and a spiritual home?

What ingredients need to be in place to call it home?

How can a home cease to be a home any longer?

Do you feel at home? Where? In America? In Israel?

Can a community make you feel at home?

 

In addition, each week of Elul, accompanying these messages from your clergy will be a link connecting you to short videos highlighting congregants reflecting on Temple Emanuel, the transformation of the sanctuary, and home. The first video reflection is of Bruce Corwin. Bruce is the perfect person to begin this period of reflection that will lead to entering the Corwin Family Sanctuary this High Holy Days. Toni, Bruce and family have meant so much to our synagogue in fulfilling the dream of this project. Please enjoy.

http://www.facebook.com/TempleEmanuelBH

Rabbi Jonathan Aaron

 

Cantor Kliger is Singing out of the Box, Again!

Tickets still available for the Cantor’s annual outdoor concert-

This Sunday evening, 8-28-11 at 6pm.  singingoutsidethebox@gmail.com

I believe in the power of music to heal, to pray, to hear God's voice and to have God hear my voice. From childhood, music has affected me in ways that speaking or other art forms do not.

There is music that literally gives me the chills, and every now and then I’ve been known to pull my car over to the side of the road because I find myself too emotional to drive while listening to something emanating from my car radio or CD player.

Many years ago my sniffling during the final moments of Barbers’ Adagio for Strings, was the only thing audible in the pin-drop silence of the Disney Hall.  When I’m feeling down, I love to blast Stevie Wonder.  And when I get home from work after a long day, the kids and I love to dance to the big-band sounds of Big Bad VoodooDaddy.

When I decided be a cantor, it was because I really believe in the power of the music of Jewish prayer. Music and Judaism have always been in my bones and my essence, and I learned quickly that liturgical and biblical texts are the foundation for all Jewish prayer music.

But prayer music isn’t the only music I’ve got in my bones.  Many of you know that I have a deep love of performing all kinds of music—especially Broadway, pop, and jazz.  And at this time of year, (this Sunday evening to be exact) just before I am getting ready to start preparing in earnest for the High Holy Days, I am thrilled to have an opportunity to gather with some of my musical friends to present an evening that I call “Singing out of the Box.”  The ‘Box’ represents what people typically think of when they think of the kind of music that a cantor sings.  So, there will be no Hashkivenu’s or V’Shamru’s on Sunday night.  Instead, together with my friends, Cantor Ilan Davidson Lizzie Weiss (of Temple Emanuel Fame), Rachel Goldman Neubauer from Beit T’shuvah and Randi Kearney, who teaches in our ECC, we’ll be singing songs from the great Broadway Songbook as well as some pop and jazz favorites.

The event will take place in the sprawling backyard of one of our congregants.  We’ll begin the evening at 6 pm-as people will picnic a la Hollywood Bowl or Tanglewood.  The show itself will start at 7.  Tickets are still available by emailing singingoutsidethebox@gmail.com or by calling Katie, our new Programming Assistant at 310-409-4644.

I really hope to see you there.

Cantor Yonah Kliger

Hundreds of Shabbat Celebrations… One Could be Yours!

The pasta was cooked and the vegetables were roasting.  The table was set and the candlesticks were laid out… all of the sights and smells of Shabbat transformed our dining room from a regular table to a sacred space.  We were only missing one thing…

One by one our guests began to arrive, to meet one another, and to mingle.  Now it was really Shabbat. 

Last Friday night, my husband Josh and I were so privileged to be able to share Shabbat dinner with several other couples in their 20’s and 30’s from Temple Emanuel.  As we ate, drank and relaxed we found that we had so much more in common than just our Temple membership – though that was a great start.  Over dinner we were able to connect and begin building friendships on a whole new level.

To break bread this way is a time honored Jewish tradition.  From the moment that Abraham greeted guests in his tent with food and drink, we’ve learned that sharing a meal is a way of welcoming others into a community.

On Friday night, September 9th in honor of it’s Centennial, the Jewish Federation has reached out and asked 100 people to host Shabbat dinner in their homes.  The response was astounding – they have found over 450 hosts so far, and they are still counting.  Temple Emanuel would like to join in the effort. The Jewish Federation will provide information and materials to guide the experience. If you are willing to host a Shabbat dinner in your home on Friday night, September 9th or wish to attend one, please be in touch Katie Almaleh at kathleen@tebh.org.  This is our community at its best:  reaching out to one another, welcoming one another into our homes, and passing the Kiddush wine across the table with a smile.

I’ll be hosting dinner again that night, and I hope you will too.  It will be a great opportunity to spread some Shabbat peace throughout our homes, and throughout our city.

I can practically taste the challah already…

Rabbi Sara Mason-Barkin

A Day To Remember

Next month will be the tenth anniversary of 9/11…I’m sure that many of us remember exactly where we were when we heard about or witnessed the events of that day. It isn’t hard to recall the feelings that were going through us, the shock, the disbelief, the helplessness. I was just a small boy when JFK was assassinated, and yet there are still those who remember those things about that day as well. December 7, 1941 is another one of those days. Movies have been made about the emotion and effects of those dates. Commemorations continue in our country on those dates, so that we remember. For 2,500 years, Jews over millennia have remembered the 9^th of Av (Tisha B’Av) as a day of solemn recollection and somber ritual. It is the day the First Temple was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar in 586 BCE…the day the Second Temple was destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE…the day the Bar Kokhba revolt was thwarted by the Romans, 9 Av 132 CE…The First Crucade was declared on 9 Av 1095…The expulsion of the Jews from Spain began on 9 Av 1492…Deportation of Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto to Treblinka, 9 Av 1942. A day over history that we would rather not remember, and yet a day through history that we can not forget.

This past Monday evening we gathered to hear a reading of Lamentations, the book which is read over and over on Tisha B’Av. We heard it in the book’s unique melody, and read aloud the five short chapters in the book, it begins:

Alas, lonely sits the city once great with people!
She that was great among nations
Is become like a widow;
The princess among states
Is become a thrall

Verse after verse tells of the destruction of the mighty city of Jerusalem. Word after word recounts human beings alone and fighting for life, dying by the sword, or dying from hunger and despair. One cannot help but imagine the immensity of the moment, the bleakness of the hour. And yet, about half way through, hope appears inside of the writer:

But this do I call to mind, therefore I have hope;
The kindness of God has not ended,
God’s mercies are not spent.
They are renewed every morning…
It is good to wait patiently till rescue comes from God
It is good for a person, when young to bear the yoke;
Let him sit alone and be patient,
When God has laid it upon him.
Let him put his mouth to the dust –
There may yet be hope…

It is not just the moments of destruction that make us feel hopeless. It can be moments in our relationships with those with whom we are closest. It can be moments at work, where the pressure mounts. It can be moments like we’ve had this past week in the stock market, where people feel like they have no chance. Even in the midst of all of our troubles, the writer of Lamentations says…”there may yet be hope.” It just takes time. It takes patience. It takes remembering and letting go. It takes renewal. Even in our darkest hours, hope must fill our hearts and minds, fill them up with possibilities.

Rabbi Jonathan Aaron

Remembering the Steps Along the Way

Before Facebook and blogs, when people went on a trip they might have kept a journal. If not a real journal, then maybe they just kept an itinerary – a list of the places they visited. It’s easy to forget the places along the way if you don’t write them down.

The Torah portion Masei is exactly that: an itinerary, a recounting of the forty-two places we stopped during our journey through the wilderness on the way from Egypt to the Promised Land. Moses was the journal keeper: the Torah tells us he wrote each stop down. “We’re not quite there yet … but we’re about to enter.” So the Torah is telling us: stop, look back, and remember where we’ve been along the journey.

On July 24, 2011, we reached a major milestone in a long journey…the journey toward marriage equality. On that day, New York became the sixth state to legalize same-sex marriage. That victory doubles the number of Americans who live in states with the freedom to marry. It is indeed a milestone worth celebrating.

This milestone came up in a conversation I had this week with a young man who grew up in our congregation. Now a senior in college, he came to talk with me about his recently discovered desire to become a rabbi. He had always thought he wanted to go into politics… and gay marriage was one of the issues he worked on as an intern in Washington. Through that work, he learned about the Reform Movement’s advocacy for gay marriage and had come to see that you can influence politics through religious commitment. He explained his desire to do political work came from the Jewish values he had learned from his family and from our temple —primarily his belief that all human beings are created in the image of God. He told me he was really moved to look back and see the steps our Reform movement has taken on the journey towards marriage equality that contributed to the milestone we celebrated last week.

Here are some of those steps:

1965: (I was 15 years old): The Women of Reform Judaism (National Federation of Temple Sisterhoods) resolved: “We…deplore the tendency on the part of community authorities to harass homosexuals. We associate ourselves with those religious leaders and legal experts who urge revision in the criminal code as it relates to homosexuality, especially when it exists between consenting adults.”

1972: (the year I entered rabbinical school): The world’s first LGBT-outreach synagogue, Beth Chayim Chadashim, was founded in 1972 in Los Angeles and affiliated with the Reform Movement.

1977: (the year after my ordination): The Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR, the Reform Movement’s rabbinical organization) passed a resolution calling for the decriminalization of homosexual acts between consenting adults and an end to discrimination against gays and lesbians.

1983: Rabbi Eric Weiss became the first openly gay man to be accepted to Hebrew Union College, the Reform Movement’s rabbinical school.

1987: The Union of American Hebrew Congregations ( UAHC, now known as the Union for Reform Judaism, the Reform Movement’s national body) resolved to “encourage lesbian and gay Jews to share and participate in the worship, leadership, and general congregational life of all synagogues….and to encourage Reform congregations to continue to develop educational programs in the synagogue and community which promote understanding and respect for lesbians and gays, [and to] employ people without regard to sexual orientation.”

1990: The CCAR endorsed the acceptance of gay and lesbian Jews into Hebrew Union College and the rabbinate, although many gay and lesbian came out as gay after they were ordained.

1993: The UAHC passed a resolution recognizing gay and lesbian partnerships.

1995: I officiated at the Jewish marriage of Rabbi Lisa Edwards and Tracy Moore.

1996: The CCAR passed a resolution supporting the rights of gay and lesbian couples “to share fully and equally in the rights of civil marriage."

1997: The UAHC passed a resolution in support of “secular efforts to promote legislation which would provide through civil marriage equal opportunity for gay men and lesbians,” while, at the same time, resolved to “encourage its constituent congregations to honor monogamous domestic relationships formed by gay men or lesbians.”

1998: The CCAR’s Ad Hoc Committee on Human Sexuality declared that, “kedushah [holiness/sanctity] may be present in committed same gender relationships between two Jews and that these relationships can serve as the foundation of stable Jewish families, thus adding strength to the Jewish community.”

2000: The CCAR passed a resolution allowing Reform rabbis to officiate at same-sex commitment ceremonies, leaving the decision up to individual rabbis.

2003: Hebrew Union College accepted its first openly transgender rabbinical student, Reuben Zellman.

2006: The Reform Movement opposed the Federal Marriage Amendment, as well as state amendments to ban same-sex marriage. The President of the Union for Reform Judaism, Rabbi Eric Yoffie, stated, “Gay Americans pose no threat to their friends, neighbors, or co-workers, and when two people make a lifelong commitment to each other, we believe it is wrong to deny them the legal guarantees that protect them and their children and benefit the broader society.”

2008: I officiated again at the wedding of Rabbi Lisa Edwards and Tracy Moore, this time with State Assembly leader Karen Bass and the sanction of the State of California.
I am proud to be a Reform Jew and to have been part of this journey. Like our ancestors in the Book of Numbers, we’re not yet there…there is still a way to go before we enter into the Promised Land. Gay marriage is not legal in every state; it is still unclear what will happen to those married in one state if those marriages are not recognized in another. The journey continues. But as the Torah portion and this future rabbi remind me: at a milestone, it is important to stop, look back, and recognize the work and courage of individuals and of movements to bring us to this moment. Look how far we have come in our own lifetimes.

The Torah portion names the forty-two steps along the journey of our people through the wilderness. It may well take more than forty-two steps to real marriage equality. Forty-two is also the number of letters in the secret, unpronounceable name of God. Perhaps we are meant to learn from this that we can discover Divinity by paying attention to the steps of all our journeys: our own, the journey of our people, and the journey of our country toward marriage equality and the recognition that all human beings are in fact created in the image of God.

Rabbi Laura Geller