The
Rainbow Reporter http://www.bnaikeshet.org/ September 2013
Volume XXXVI, No. 1
From Our Co-Presidents As the long hot days of summer make their annual triple-digit visit, we are struck by how quickly one year has floated away and a new year is rapidly approaching. Soon Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur will be knocking on our doors. We look forward to the time with family and community, celebrating and praying together as a new year begins. We also search for meaning through reflection, reaching inside ourselves to interpret the past and plan for a new year.
Elul 5773/Tishrei 5774
Rabbi Elliott Don’t Be Stupid, It’s Elul, Start Teshuva Now!
photo by Dan Epstein
Bnai Keshet’s annual congregational value of brit, covenant, comes to mind as we begin the annual practice of reflecting on the past year. We are reminded that covenant is defined as a solemn and binding agreement, a relationship defined by trust, commitment, and hopefully joy. Bnai Keshet is truly blessed to move forward into the new year with a covenantal relationship between the community and our rabbinical leadership. Both Rabbi Elliott and Rabbi Ariann have entered into agreements to continue with Bnai Keshet, to continue guiding, deepening and celebrating our covenantal relationships with our tradition and with one another. This is a truly joyous culmination of the year that is concluding. The rabbis’ unique and ever-evolving connection with the Bnai Keshet community will continue to provide bountiful rewards for us all. To truly appreciate all that Rabbis Elliott and Ariann bring to us, one only needs to get involved and experience the community from the “inside.” Whether through religious practice or volunteering, the full richness of belonging to a community such as Bnai Keshet is, at least from our perspective, experienced when one is an active member. We offer some reflections of opportunities from this spring that reflect this reality – events and experiences that manifest the depth and breadth of what BK, under our two remarkable rabbis, brings us all: • Bnai Keshet retreat in early May, filled with meaningful prayer, time for family and friends, and mountains of laughter • Seder at Bnai Keshet with over 50 congregants continued on page 2
Everyone would admit that the behaviors necessary to live an ethical life are of paramount importance and that one could not be considered wise without being thoroughly at home in them. But the reason that they are neglected is that they are regarded as so obvious and commonplace that most see no need for spending time on studying them. – Mesillat Yesharim: The Path of the Upright, Moses Hayyim Luzzatto (paraphrased) Elul, the month before Rosh Hashanah, is upon us. It is a time meant for taking a spiritual and ethical inventory. For most of us, this time of beginning the work of teshuva -- soulful change -is not really about figuring out what is right and what is wrong. Likewise, most of the time we don’t have to sort through long lists of truly despicable behaviors. We are thoughtful enough and kind enough that we rightly assume we are, more or less, on the right path. Our tradition sets aside this month for introspection because it recognizes that knowing the right thing to do and actually doing it are not always the same thing. If it took nothing more than a firm grasp of what is right for us to be doing the right thing, we would have very little need for teshuva. The sad truth is that over and over again, we miss the mark in our relationships not only with each other, with the world, with our community and with our spiritual life. Sadder still, our mostly correct sense of ourselves as ethical and upright people, can in itself blind us. This assumption of knowing right from wrong leads us to dedicate our intellectual and spiritual energies in other directions, which results in us neglecting to carefully examine our day-to-day behavior to be certain we are living in accord with our ideals. With the arrival of Elul, we are encouraged to be exceptionally mindful, not only of the past year, but of our day-to-day actions. How might we brush aside our mild self-righteousness and take a careful accounting of our spirit? continued on page 2
September 2013
Rabbi Elliott - continued Intention - Perhaps the most important thing we can do to begin the work of teshuva is to simply say, “I want to begin to do teshuva.” Just taking a moment early in the day to say to oneself, “It is Elul, and I want to pay attention to my behavior today,” can have a profound impact. If you happen to notice a trait you would like to improve, you could be more specific and say, “Today I want to be more: patient, kind, aware of my health, and thoughtful in my relationship.” If you do this for a couple of days, you will be surprised how often during the course of a day this simple intention comes to mind, bringing more thoughtful awareness to your actions.You may find you catch yourself missing the mark or you may find that you catch yourself and are able to avoid missing the mark. Prayer - Customarily, Jews have done this through prayer. Additional Psalms and liturgy are added to the daily prayers at this time of year.You could read the Viddui, the confessional prayers of High Holy Day liturgy every day as is typical among Sephardic Jews, or try reading Psalm 27, which is added to every service of this season. But you need not rely on special liturgy: just increasing the time you spend praying is likely to increase your awareness of your behavioral ideals. For that matter, you can skip the liturgy entirely and just offer your own heartfelt words directed toward God once a day. And by the way, you need not believe in God, or you may not like prayer or think of yourself as particularly competent spiritually in any way for this. If any of these things are true for you, this effort will bring the added benefit of admitting that here, just as with the rest of your life, there is something to learn. There is humble room for improvement, and perhaps there are things to understand that you might not have imagined. Mindfulness - You might also just try sitting in silence. The quiet won’t last long before your mind begins to spin. Many think that the work of meditation is about quieting the mind. In my experience it more often is about observing what arises in the mind. If you do this repeatedly, you will inevitably notice certain patterns of thought or certain recurring emotional responses to your thoughts. Such insights are the starting point for teshuva. Sometimes, a little quiet will leave just enough room for a challenge in your life or a moment of difficult action to rise to the surface. Others times the insights will be more subtle, as we ask ourselves why it is that our minds gravitate toward certain thought patterns. Why is it that I respond to quiet with comfort or discomfort? How do these observations play out in other areas of my life? Start Now! Whatever you do, don’t fool yourself, you have work to do.You know that you can do better. Do we need to beat ourselves up? Of course not! However, it is a waste not to take advantage of this spiritual opportunity to deepen the meaning in our lives. Sure we are pretty good people, but just as surely we could be much better. So start today, right now, and start the work that we will finish together during Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.
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Co-Presidents continued • Purim carnival and schpiel • Living room chats offered to every congregant as a part of the Jewbilation end-of-year auction and raffle • Jewbilation’s innovative and successful fundraiser • Inaugural BK salon • Friday night havurah series of informative speakers and engaging conversation • A visit from Shefa Gold and a wonderful day of chanting • And so much more… This spirit and enduring ruach that make Bnai Keshet such a special place are reflective both of the congregants who make up the community and of the rabbinical leadership we are so lucky to have. As we move into the High Holy Days, we take a moment to be thankful for and to celebrate the commitment that our rabbis have made to us, that the congregation has made to them, and that we all have made to the Bnai Keshet community. It is an honor and privilege to continue to serve as your copresidents. With continued gratitude and warm wishes, Richard Freedman and Craig Levine
Elul 5773/Tishrei 5774
Observations “Education is the path from cocky ignorance to miserable uncertainty,� Mark Twain The first day of a new class often has a familiar pattern. Students are a little shy around each other, but they’re also a little competitive – they want to show off what they know, and they want to establish the class hierarchy as soon as possible. If they’re well-trained, they will shoot up their hands to answer questions; otherwise, they’ll shout over each other to be the first to answer. By the end of the year, if their teacher is really skilled, they will be more confident – not of their answers but of their peers. They will hold back a little and might answer a question with another question. They will listen to what a fellow student has to say and change their own answer because of it. They will much more frequently volunteer an, “I don’t know,� because they actually want to know, not because they’re trying to avoid the conversation. Many of us as students prefer to stay in “first day� mode forever. It feels much more comfortable to be confident of our answers and to not be pushed into uncomfortable uncertainty. And because we’re adults, we can game the system a little. Unlike children, who have little choice in the subjects they study, we can choose to go only where we know we will excel. But to do this stunts our own learning. The goal of learning is not to be made more comfortable, but to be stretched beyond ourselves. Lev Vygotsky called the space of greatest learning the “zone of proximal development.� In this zone, we require everything we have learned in the past along with colleagues and teachers to move us along. It is the space we can’t reach on our own, but we must bring our whole selves to it. Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson says, “There is a fundamental human need for context, a need for meaning, a larger narrative in which our own personal story makes sense.� In Judaism, that context and that narrative are multivariate and multivocal. The larger narrative is actually the narrative of millions over the course of millennia, which we choose to see and to sanctify as one cohesive whole. We have constructed a faith tradition that understands Leviticus, Ecclesiastes, the Talmud, and more as all springing from the same fundamental source and harmonizing to provide a complete and full Jewish answer to the issues of human life. As the narrative reaches the modern age, though, it becomes fragmented. We begin to identify the individuals who contributed to it in their uniqueness and stop seeing their harmony. But the harmony is still present. We simply
don’t have enough space, time, and perspective to see it. Those who took Talmud study from a rarefied and rare Jewish activity to a ubiquitous one are in need of those who took fragments of Torah and turned them into chants. Those who write modern midrash are in need of those who are rediscovering ancient halakha and applying it to their lives. Those who move broader rely on those who move deeper and vice versa. For this reason our Bet Midrash focuses in the school years on exposing children to ancient Jewish wisdom, to original texts, to modern commentary, and to the voices of their classmates. Likewise, as we begin to expand our teen program, we are building a curriculum that starts in a fixed place, but is expandable to meet the multiplicity of interests in the classroom. For adults, this year there will be many opportunities to stretch ourselves and live in “miserable uncertainty� in the embrace of a supportive community. We will be offering the breadth of learning, from Talmud to chanting, that has been the hallmark of Bnai Keshet’s educational program. In addition, there will be many more opportunities for adults to teach one another and bring their own voices into the harmony over the course of the year (if you’re interested, contact me, Roberta Elliott, or Ruth Lowenkron). If you’re a “regular,� come do some learning that stretches you in a new way – whether it’s chanting, traditional text study, poetry, or something else. If you’re not a regular, challenge yourself to just come for three weeks in a row. We at Bnai Keshet are like a beautiful chorus that is forever being enhanced as new choristers step in. I hope you will join in: Don’t look at the schedule, just show up. We’re looking forward to having your voice!
Engage your mind Nourish your soul
Come to us for the holidays Our doors are always open Please visit bnaikeshet.org for service times and to make reservations for Rosh Hashanah & Yom Kippur Services 99 South Fullerton Avenue Montclair s BNAIKESHET BNAIKESHET ORG WWW BNAIKESHET ORG s &ACEBOOK COM "NAI+ESHET
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September 2013
Making a Man Out of Me I’m six or seven years old, riding back home with my grandfather and my Cuban grandmother from my tía Onelia’s house. Her son Juan Alberto is effeminate, “un afeminado,” my grandmother says with disgust. “¿Por qué? He’s so handsome. Where did she go wrong with dat niño?” she continues, and then turns to me in the back seat: “Better to having a granddaughter who’s a whore than a grandson who is un pato faggot like you. Understand?” she says with scorn in her voice. I nod my head yes, but I don’t understand: I don’t know what a faggot means, really; don’t even know about sex yet. All I know is she’s talking about me, me; and whatever I am, is bad, very bad. Twenty-something years later, I sit in my therapist’s office, telling him that same story. With his guidance through the months that follow, I discover the extent of my grandmother’s verbal and psychological abuse, which I had swept under my subconscious rug. … I play wrong: “I told your mother not to get you those crayons for Christmas.You should be playing outside like un hombre, not coloring in your girly books like dat maricón Juan Alberto.” I speak wrong: “Hay Santo, you sound like una niña on the phone. When is your voice going to change?” And I walk wrong too: “Stop clacking your sandals and jiggling like a sissy. Straighten up por Dios--we’re in public.” I am wrong (“I’ll make a man out of you yet . . .”), afraid to do or say anything (“. . . you’ll see . . .”), scared to
want or ask anything (“. . . even if it kills me . . .”), ashamed to be alive… They can’t always say what they mean; and don’t always mean what they say. My grandmother loved me as best she could, the way she herself was loved, perhaps. Her trying to make me a man was an odd, crude expression of that love, but it inadvertently made me the writer I am today. And for that I feel oddly thankful, I realized fourteen years ago: I’m standing alone at her bedside at Coral Gables Hospital: She’s drugged up. The tubes down her throat don’t let her speak; she can’t say terrible things to me anymore. Watching her, I flash back through all the sound bites of her verbal abuse, and start scribbling down a few lines for a poem I tentatively title “Her Voices.” The first poem I will ever write for her, about her, and my sexuality. My first out poem. I’m twelve, I’m thirty-eight, I’m seventeen, I’m thirty-one, I am a man when she wakes up, opens her eyes wide for a moment, looks at me and squeezes my hand, then slips away, quietly, silently, without a word--and I let her go. From Elledge, Jim and David Groff,WHO’SYER DADDY? GAY WRITERS CELEBRATE THEIR MENTORS AND FORERUNNERS. © 2012 Richard Blanco, 44, read his poem One Today, at the 2013 presidential inauguration. In addition to being the youngest of the five inaugural poets in history, he is the first Latino and gay man to serve the role. Richard Blanco Excerpt contributed by Martin Golan
Make BK Your Own Volunteer. Walk up to someone you don’t know and introduce yourself. Embrace the space. Move some chairs. Clean up your messes and more. Speak up about what you would like Bnai Keshet to be or offer. Remember everyone has their off days. Smile and be kind, it will come back to you in abundance.
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Elul 5773/Tishrei 5774
Member Mentionings Michael Davis, Ed Davis’s son and a BK alumnus, has been appointed director of the Center for Cardiovascular Biology (CCB) through Emory University and Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, joining the team of Pediatric Research Center. Davis’s research is focused on bioengineering and stem cell approaches to treating adult and pediatric heart disease. He has several federally funded research grants, three patents, and more than 40 published articles. Betty Murphy will be joining her mother, Flory Jagoda, and 20 other musicians in a performance of Sephardic music at a celebration concert honoring Flory and her life’s work. The concert will be part of a documentary on Flory’s life by JEMGLO (BK members Ellen Friedland and Curt Fissell) at the Library of Congress Coolidge Auditorium, September 21, 2013. Tickets at www.brownpapertickets.com. Warm congratulations to Sarah Wolman, Ken Levine and their kids, as they decamp for two years in Switzerland, where Sarah will be serving as Programme Director at LEGO Foundation. We wish them bon voyage and eagerly await their return. Thanks to Martin Golan for sharing his talents in helping edit this issue of the Rainbow Reporter.
IHN Thanks
Let’s start to train together for the Hazon NY Bike Ride
We would like to express our gratitude to the 53 members of Bnai Keshet and staff, who helped in so many ways to make our week of hosting four families from The Interfaith Hospitality Network successful. You range in age from little eight month old, Hélène Fitzpatrick to, well, many decades older. From setting up Red Gables to receive guests, to preparing and serving meals, playing with the children, driving to the laundromat, or sleeping overnight, to post-hosting clean up, every one of you helped to repair a small corner of the world as you welcomed our guests during a very difficult time in their lives. You also made our first experience as Co-Coordinators go as smoothly as possible. TODAH RABAH TO Kevin & Tobias Fried, Betty Murphy, Susan Youdovin, Andrea Rawicz, Debbie Wohl, Elissa Siegel, Melissa Schaffer, Emil Schattner, Lauren Meyer, Wendy & Abigail Callaghan, Jacquie Ruderman, Ellen & Marshall Kolba, Linda Fisher, Melody Kimmel & Sofia Nigro, Peggy, Steve & Jonathan Jurow, Jen, Samara & Amanda Zinman, Kate, Charlie & Matthew Hymowitz, Craig Levine, C. Lynn Carr, Liz Lipner, Richard Freedman, Maia Kamil,Yael, Tacy & Tova SilverbergUrian, Alma Schneider, Lori Becker, Noemi Giszpenc and Leo & Hélène Fitzpatrick, Jon Grupper, Jill & Andrew Jeszeck, Howard, Jeffrey & Griffin Kerbel, Alice Heeger, Jack & Debbie Hall, Stuart Brown, Nadia Christiansen, Rabbi Ariann and Cindy Herman. And special thanks to Jill Jeszeck for her patience with us as we found our way and attempted to fill her shoes! Beth Fuqua, Anne Gelman & Jane Susswein
NOW IS THE TIME TO SIGN UP AND BE PART OF TEAM BK!!! We’ll start some training together as a team in June, working our way toward…
Labor Day Weekend:
August 30th to September 2, 2013 -The Hazon NY Bike Ride will take us through the Berkshires, Hudson Valley, ending in Manhattan. -It’s an incredible weekend that includes a Shabbat retreat and 2 days of cycling. -Multiple routes to suit your level. - Discounted registration fee- $150.
Contact Monica (monrawicz@gmail.com) with any questions and to sign up as part of the BK team.
Hazon supports that encourage environmental sustainability for the Jewish community and the world. Your fundraising helps us continue to provide for these groundbreaking programs and resources, and also helps support smaller projects of partner organizations. Additional information at: http://www.hazon.org/ programs/new-york-ride/
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September 2013
Holiness in Our Community: A Favor That Can Never Be Repaid It’s been called the greatest of all mitzvot, this gentle favor that can never be repaid. For at least 1,000 years and probably longer, Jewish communities have followed biblical and Talmudic injunctions to bury their dead expeditiously and without extravagance, whether poor or rich, in simple white clothing and buried in a plain, unadorned wooden casket. The Hebrew word for casket, “aron,” is the same as a synagogue’s ark. In fact, a body from which a soul has departed is considered akin to and treated with the same reverence as a Torah that can no longer partake in communal worship and learning, emptied of the divine spark yet deserving the utmost honor. As such, being a vessel crafted in the Ineffable’s image, any effort to alter its essence, whether with cosmetics, physical intrusion (e.g., breaking bones or sewing shut mouths for a particular effect or presentation), embalming, done to slow down the natural “return to dust” that Jews and Muslims welcome with open arms, has been interpreted as an affront to the Creator and the person who has died. Instead, our traditions call on us to perform the mitzvot during this transitional life juncture with Kavod ha-meit and Nichum avelim, by honoring the person now dead and comforting the mourners who live and grieve. How do we honor the meit or meitah, the person for whom a community performs these final mitzvot? First and foremost, the body is never left alone from the moment of death until burial. Our tradition tells us that this can be a confusing time for the soul, and especially if death came unexpectedly. So we, the living, friends and/or family, those on in years as well as youth, sit in the same room with the body as shomrim, guards who watch over the meit/ah. We are told that the soul, which remains close to the departed body until burial, is comforted by the recitation of Psalms. Today, it is also common to read poetry or other literature that the meit/ah enjoyed when alive or to softly sing, chant or even gently play a musical instrument. It is a time for the shomrim to reassure the departing soul that, in the journey ahead, he or she will be fine and loved, as they were in life, and that they won’t be alone. We also honor the meith/ah in the way that we prepare him or her for burial, with men caring for a meit and women for a meitah. Traditions vary in small details, but there are commonalities. Teams of 3-4 persons in a tahara team carefully remove, as feasible, any medical care remnants (e.g., tubes used for fluids or drainage). The body is then gently bathed for a final time, while reciting passages from the Song of Songs, extolling a beloved’s beauty. Nail polish is removed, nails cleaned and hair is combed or brushed. Hair, nail clippings and most other substances originating from the meit/ah are collected in a bag, placed in the aron and buried with the meit/ah. A continual stream of water, from head to toe, is poured from buckets, completing the purification ceremony. After drying, the meit/ah is clothed in
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the simple, white burial clothing, the tachrichim, tying knots that symbolize the Hebrew name, Shaddai, the All-Powerful, as if he or she were the High Priest about to enter the Holy of Holies. If the meit/ah wore their own white kittel on Yom Kippur, it is used as the final piece of burial clothing on top of the tachrichim. Lastly, the dressed meit/ah is lifted and placed in the aron, wrapped in a sheet and, if preferred, in one’s own tallit. The tahara team then asks forgiveness from the meit/ah for any inadvertent discomfort that they might have caused. The casket is closed, a memorial candle is lit and placed on the lid, and the aron – often covered – is then wheeled to a room where shmira continues until the funeral. Up until the mid-20th century in America, a community’s chevra kadisha, or “holy fellowship,” was entrusted with these end-of-life responsibilities. Now, Jews typically turn to the profit-based, American funeral industry to “take care of the details.” Many Jewish funeral homes are no longer operated by the families that started them and may be owned by large, corporate conglomerates. There is an alternative, however. For roughly the past 30 years, there has been a movement afoot within Jewish communities to reclaim some of the traditional terrain in this life cycle domain. Synagogues have successfully engaged in the following initiatives: forming denominational/ inter-denominational congregational and community chevre kadisha; negotiating favorable funeral packages with Jewish and non-Jewish funeral homes; creating the means to provide all congregants with pre-arranged funerals and burials as benefits of synagogue membership; assisting and sustaining aging Jewish cemeteries; and establishing a growing number of “green” cemeteries that limit the human footprint within their boundaries. Last Yom Kippur, some speakers noted that Bnai Keshet would be creating a chevra kadisha in the coming year. And we did. When the moment revealed itself, a full brigade of community members volunteered for shmira, sewed tachrichim, took part in tahara, chanted in the funeral home and accompanied our friend to her final resting place. In so doing, we collectively and intensively manifested brit kehillah, a covenantal relationship with our community and this year’s congregational theme. Baruch ha-Shem. In the coming year, we will build on these experiences. We will continue to learn and to build the capacities we choose as our reclaimed Jewish tradition. There will be programming throughout the year, including a full weekend of learning this fall. If you are so inclined to take part in these activities or are interested in learning more about them, please do not hesitate to contact me. Joel Ackelsberg jackelsberg@verizon.net
Elul 5773/Tishrei 5774
Celebrate your family and friends or remember a beloved one with a Bnai Keshet donation. Whether it is a life cycle event, a special occasion, a remembrance of a beloved person, or just to let someone you know that you appreciate them, turn to Bnai Keshet to recognize the event or moment. Your donation will also help Bnai Keshet.
Tributes What is a Tribute? A tribute is a great way to tell someone you care. Perhaps you wish to acknowledge a life cycle event, a simcha, or just let someone know you’re thinking of them. Your tribute in celebration or in memory of someone will be listed on the website and also on a list distributed at Shabbat services. The recipient of your tribute will receive an immediate e-mail announcement. Nonmember recipients will receive a card via US mail. We welcome any donation, but suggest that it be given in increments of chai, $18. Prayer Book Donations Celebrate and remember with a donation of a prayer book. Whether it is a life cycle event, a special occasion, or to honor a dearly beloved with a lasting memorial, dedicate a Shabbat siddur, a humash, or a High Holy Day mahzor to your family or friends. A bookplate will be placed in
the book of your choice along with your your name and the recipient’s name. Each time the book is opened, your dedication will be reaffirmed. Siddur - $36 Humash- $54 High Holy Day Mahzor- $72 Ways to make your donation: 1) Go to the Bnai Keshet website, bnaikeshet.org 2) Contact the synagogue office via email with the necessary information at bnaikeshet@bnaikeshet.org 3) Mail or drop off the information and payment to the synagogue office, 99 S. Fullerton Ave. Montclair, NJ 07042 Visit bnaikeshet.org to make your tributes.
BK kids at Camp JRF
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The Rainbow Reporter Bnai Keshet’s Quarterly Newsletter Rabbi: Director of Congregational Learning: Co-Presidents:
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Elliott Tepperman
Editors: Laurie Waite-Fellner & Lois Infeld Associate Editor: Judith Kalmanson
Assistant Rabbi: Rabbi Ariann Weitzman
We welcome articles
Richard Freedman & Craig Levine
Rabbi Elliott Tepperman
VP Religious Life:
Jordan Sklar
VP Membership & Community Development:
Cheryl Marshall-Petricoff
Contact Lois at: lois_infeld6@hotmail.com Rabbi’s Study: 973-783-2511 E-mail: rabbielliott@bnaikeshet.org Rabbi Ariann Weitzman
VP Tikkun Olam: Urian
Yael Silverberg-
School Office: 973-746-0244 E-mail: rabbiariann@bnaikeshet.org
VP Development:
Sharon Pollack
Synagogue Office (Mon. – Fri.)
VP Education:
Ruth Lowenkron
VP Finance:
Harvey Susswein
VP Communications:
Marian Golan
Director of Operations:
Stuart Brown
Assistant Director of Operations:
Nadia Christiansen
Synagogue office: 973-746-4889 Fax: 973-746-4963 E-mail: bnaikeshet@bnaikeshet.org Website: www.bnaikeshet.org Please contact Stuart Brown, Director of Operations, for more information.