בס"ד

EIKEV | JULY 30 - AUG 6, 2021 | 21 AV - 28 AV | CANDLE LIGHTING 7:56 PM | HAVDALAH 8:58 PM

SHABBAT THIS Please email [email protected] to learn more. FRIDAY, JULY 30 The CDC currently recommends that even those fully vaccinated consider is around the corner SHACHARIT 6:30 AM wearing masks while indoors in places which means it’s time to sign up to be of substantial or high transmission. With included on the Sisterhood’s Rosh 6:30 PM our members' high vaccination rate, Hashanah Scroll and enroll as a Sister- mask-wearing in shul for fully vaccinated hood member for 5782. Sign up here! EARLIEST CANDLE LIGHTING 6:44 PM individuals will continue to be optional. We are compiling an updated Yizkor CANDLE LIGHTING 7:56 PM However, all unvaccinated individuals, including children 2 years and older, (Remembrance) Booklet to be utilized SATURDAY, JULY 31 must where a mask at all times while on , , Pesach inside the shul. Needless to say, if you and in 5782. Listings are $20 HASHKAMA 8:15 AM are experiencing any symptoms of Covid per name. Sign up here by Sunday, -19, you should refrain from attending August 29th to have your names includ- SHACHARIT 9:00 AM shul. We continue to monitor the situa- ed. LAST KRIAT SHMA 9:27 AM tion and will make changes as appropri- ate. UPCOMING EVENTS MINCHA 7:55 PM The Hashkama minyan will be located in Join the fun at the Ahavat Achim Sum- MAARIV 8:58 PM the main sanctuary starting at 8:15 am. mer Tie Dye Party on August 15 @ 11 is recited at Mussaf Until the air conditioning is repaired, AM featuring a visit from an ice cream אב הרחמים .is recited at Mincha the main minyan will take place in the truck! RSVP by 8/8 צדקתך צדק ע”ה IN OUR FAMILY Schwitzer Social Hall. The next meeting for the book club will

Children ages 0-5 are invited to join be on Shabbos, August 28 at Esther's Refuah Shleima to Ron Dworkis who is their friends for outdoor groups on house at 20-18 Saddle River Rd. at 4:00 recovering from surgery. Shabbat mornings from 10:15-11:15 in pm. The discussion book will be "Hour

the parking lot. Children under 3 must of the Witch" by Chris Bohjalian. Mazal Tov to the Finkelstein family on be accompanied by a designated adult. celebrating Coby's Bar this past Please inform Kira if you will be drop- On Sunday, August 29th, Rephael week. ping off: [email protected]. Hirsch will be onsite checking mezuzot

in preparation for the High Holidays. The Rabbi is away on vacation until Mezuzot can be dropped off between Tuesday, August 10. For urgent issues, IN OUR SHUL 8am-12pm. Cost: $11 per klaf. Join us he can be contacted on his cell phone. The youth committee is seeking youth at 8:30am for a brief presentation on leaders to help run groups in the fall. the variety and quality of mezuzot. ZEMANIM SUNDAY MONDAY TUESDAY WEDNESDAY THURSDAY FRIDAY

8/1 8/2 8/3 8/4 8/5 8/6

Shacharit 8:00 AM 6:20 AM 6:30 AM 6:30 AM 6:20 AM 6:30 AM

Mincha/Maariv 8:00 PM 7:59 PM 7:58 PM 7:57 PM 7:56 PM 6:25 PM

Earliest Talit 4:50 AM 4:51 AM 4:52 AM 4:53 AM 4:55 AM 4:56 AM

Gedolah 1:38 PM 1:38 PM 1:38 PM 1:38 PM 1:38 PM 1:37 PM Shkia 8:12 PM 8:11 PM 8:10 PM 8:09 PM 8:08 PM Tzait 8:52 PM 8:51 PM 8:50 PM 8:49 PM 8:48 PM 8:46 PM

בס"ד JULY 30, 2021

gghgh FROM THE PRESIDENT

Dear Membership,

As many of you are aware,18- 25the Saddle air Riverconditioning Road, Fair Lawn,in the NJ main 07410 Sanctuary 201.797.0502 is WWW.AHAVATACHIM.ORGno longer operational. Due to a chip shortage (which impacts the replacement system) there is a significant backlog in equipment, and we do not anticipate being able to replace the air conditioning system prior to the Yomim Noraim (High Holy Days). As such, our primary minyan will be social hall. Assuming there is sufficient interest and commitment and / or the need dueע"ה held in the David Schwitzer to space constraints, we will have a second minyan outdoors under a tent for Rosh Hashana morning and all of Yom Kippur. Due to the logistical planning required in having multiple minyanim and the potential indoor space constraints, we ask that those planning to attend davening for the Yomim Noraim submit their seating requirements as soon as possible, but not later than Sunday, August 8th. We will do our best to accommodate everyone’s wishes.

In accordance with present CDC guidelines, masks are required to be worn indoors by anyone not fully vaccinated. Cur- rently, we anticipate that the indoor seating configuration will not have any restrictions relative to social distancing. Needless to say, COVID-19 and related guidelines is a fluid situation and subject to change at any time.

As per shul policy, all families must have their June 30, 2021 outstanding balances paid in full before reservations for High Holy Day seats can be accepted. In addition, associate members are not entitled to member rates.

I would greatly appreciate and strongly urge each of you to take a few moments to submit the online Google form. If you have difficulty with the Google form, please contact me and I will provide a hard copy of the form. Once again please note the deadline of Sunday, August 8th.

- Stephen Agress

FROM THE YOUTH COMMITTEE

While it gives us great pleasure to see the updated youth rooms put to good use by our members, we are writing with a gentle reminder to please clean up the rooms after you/your children use them. When toys are left on the floor, it makes it very hard for the cleaning crew to adequately wash the floors and creates risk that someone might trip. In ad- dition, board games that are used should be returned to the cabinet where they were found in order to ensure that we do not lose them. Please remember that when a mess is left in those rooms when your children are done playing, oth- ers are left to tidy them. We look forward to many more years enjoying our beautiful play spaces!

- The Youth Committee

IN OUR SHUL

Have something to add to the bulletin? Check out our new form submission process on the website!

Please contact David Garfunkel if you wish to sponsor a kiddush or seudat shlishit.

To sponsor a celebration for your child's birthday at Shabbat groups email [email protected]! $25 per family.

ע״ה Shirley Vann has dedicated the attached Covenant & Conversation (used with permission of the Office of Rabbi Sacks) in memory of her beloved mother Necha Bat Yitzchok Outdoor Tot Shabbat & Groups @ Congregation Ahavat Achim Parents & children ages 0-5 are invited to Daven and play together! Shabbat mornings from 10:15-11:15 AM To learn more about drop off options, please email [email protected] Masking required for children 2 and older. Join The Ahavat Achim Youth Department Summer Tie Dye Party & Ice Cream Truck Extravaganza Shul Parking Lot Sunday, August 15 @ 11 AM

RSVP to [email protected] by 8/8

$5 per child, $8 max per family

C O N G R E G A T I O N A H A V A T A C H I M P R E S E N T S Mezuzot Checking! On 8/29, Rabbi Rephael Hirsch will be onsite checking mezuzot. Mezuzot can be dropped off between 8am- 12pm & picked up in the evening. Cost: $11 per klaf checked, in addition to klafim (starting at $65) &cases for sale. Join us at 8:30am for a brief presentation on the variety and quality of mezuzot.

Sponsor a shul mezuzah for $36! To sponsor a celebration for your child's birthday at Shabbat groups email [email protected]!

$25 per family Rabbi Sacks zt”l had prepared a full year of Covenant & Conversation for 5781, based on his book Lessons in Leadership. Te Rabbi Sacks Legacy Trust will continue to distribute these weekly essays, so that people all around the world can keep on learning and fnding inspiration in his .

To Lead is to Listen Eikev 5781

“ “If only you would listen to these laws…” (Deut. 7:12). Tese words with which our parsha begins contain a verb that is a fundamental motif of the book of . Te verb is sh-m-a. It occurred in last week’s parsha in the most famous line of the whole of , Shema Yisrael. It occurs later in this week’s parsha in the second paragraph of the Shema, “It shall be if you surely listen [shamoa tishme’u]” (Deut. 11:13). In fact, this verb appears no less than 92 times in Devarim as a whole.

We ofen miss the signifcance of this word because of what I call the fallacy of translatability: the assumption that one language is fully translatable into another. We hear a word translated from one language to another and assume that it means the same in both. But ofen it doesn’t. Languages are only partially translatable into one another. Te key terms of one civilisation are ofen not fully reproducible in another. Te Greek word megalopsychos, for example, Aristotle’s “great-souled man” who is great and knows he is, and carries himself with aristocratic pride, is untranslatable into a moral system like Judaism in which humility is a virtue. Te English word “tact” has no precise equivalent in Hebrew. And so on.

Tis is particularly so in the case of the Hebrew verb sh-m-a. Listen, for example, to the various ways the opening words of this week’s parsha have been translated into English:

To Lead is to Listen 1 Eikev 5781 If you hearken to these precepts… If you completely obey these laws… If you pay atention to these laws… If you heed these ordinances… Because ye hear these judgments…

Tere is no single English word that means to hear, to listen, to heed, to pay atention to, and to obey. Sh-m-a also means “to understand,” as in the story of the tower of Babel, when God says, “Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand [yishme’u] each other” (Gen. 11:7).

As I have argued elsewhere, one of the most striking facts about the Torah is that, although it contains 613 commands, it does not contain a word that means “to obey.” When such a word was needed in modern Hebrew, the verb le-tzayet was borrowed from Aramaic. Te verb used by the Torah in place of “to obey” is sh-m-a. Tis is of the highest possible signifcance. It means that blind obedience is not a virtue in Judaism. God wants us to understand the laws He has commanded us. He wants us to refect on why this law, not that. He wants us to listen, to refect, to seek to understand, to internalise and to respond. He wants us to become a listening people.

Ancient Greece was a visual culture, a culture of art, architecture, theatre and spectacle. For the Greeks generally, and Plato specifcally, knowing was a form of seeing. Judaism, as Freud pointed out in and Monotheism, is a non-visual culture. We worship a God who cannot be seen; and making sacred images, icons, is absolutely forbidden. In Judaism we do not see God; we hear God. Knowing is a form of listening. Ironically, Freud himself, deeply ambivalent though he was about Judaism, invented the listening cure in psychoanalysis: listening as therapy.

It follows that in Judaism listening is a deeply spiritual act. To listen to God is to be open to God. Tat is what Moses is saying throughout Devarim: “If only you would listen.” So it is with leadership – indeed with all forms of interpersonal relationship. Ofen the greatest gif we can give someone is to listen to them. “Often the greatest gift Viktor Frankl, who survived Auschwitz and went on to we can give someone is create a new form of psychotherapy based on “man’s search for to listen to them.” meaning,” once told the story of a patient of his who phoned him in the middle of the night to tell him, calmly, that she was about to commit suicide. He kept her on the phone for two hours, giving her every conceivable reason to live. Eventually she said that she had changed her mind and would not end her life. When he next saw the woman he asked her which of his many reasons had persuaded her to change her mind. “None,” she replied. “Why then did you decide not to commit suicide?” She replied that the fact that someone was prepared to listen to her for two hours in the middle of the night convinced her that life was worth living afer all.

To Lead is to Listen 2 Eikev 5781 As Chief Rabbi I was involved in resolving a number of highly intractable agunah cases, situations in which a husband was unwilling to give his wife a get so that she could remarry. We resolved all these cases not by legal devices but by the simple act of listening: deep listening, in which we were able to convince both sides that we had heard their pain and their sense of injustice. Tis took many hours of total concentration and a principled absence of judgment and direction. Eventually our listening absorbed the acrimony and the two sides were able to resolve their differences together. Listening is intensely therapeutic.

Before I became Chief Rabbi, I was head of our rabbinical training seminary, ’ College. Tere in the 1980s we ran one of the most advanced practical rabbinics programmes ever devised. It included a three-year programme in counselling. Te professionals we recruited to run the course told us that they had one precondition. We had to agree to take all the participants away to an enclosed location for two days. Only those who were willing to do this would be admited to the course. We did not know in advance what the counsellors were planning to do, but we soon discovered. Tey planned to teach us the method pioneered by Carl Rogers known as ‘non-directive’ or ‘person- centred’ therapy. Tis involves active listening and refective questioning, but no guidance on the part of the therapist.

As the nature of the method became clear, the began to object. It seemed to oppose everything they stood for. To be a Rabbi is to teach, to direct, to tell people what to do. Te tension between the counsellors and the Rabbis grew almost to the point of crisis, so much so that we had to stop the course for an hour while we sought some way of reconciling what the counsellors were doing with what the Torah seemed to be saying. Tat is when we began to refect, for the frst time as a group, on the spiritual dimension of listening, of Shema Yisrael.

Te deep truth behind person-centred therapy is that listening is the key virtue of the religious life. Tat is what Moses was saying throughout Devarim. If we want God to listen to us, we have to be prepared to listen “If we want God to listen to to Him. And if we learn to listen to Him, then we us, we have to be prepared to eventually learn to listen to our fellow humans: the silent listen to Him. And if we learn cry of the lonely, the poor, the weak, the vulnerable, the to listen to Him, then we people in existential pain. eventually learn to listen to our fellow humans.” When God appeared to King in a dream and asked him what he would like to be given, Solomon replied: lev shome’a, literally “a listening heart” to judge the people (1 Kings 3:9). Te choice of words is signifcant. Solomon’s wisdom lay, at least in part, in his ability to listen, to hear the emotion behind the words, to sense what was being lef unsaid as well as what was said. It is common to fnd leaders who speak, very rare to fnd leaders who listen. But listening ofen makes the difference.

Listening maters in a moral environment as insistent on human dignity as Judaism. Te very act of listening is a form of respect. To illustrate this, I would like to share a story with you. Te royal

To Lead is to Listen 3 Eikev 5781 family in Britain is known always to arrive on time and depart on time. I will never forget the occasion – her aides told me that they had never witnessed it before – when the Queen stayed for two hours longer than her scheduled departure time. Te day was 27 January 2005, the occasion, the sixtieth anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. Te Queen had invited survivors to a reception at St James’ Palace. Each had a story to tell, and the Queen took the time to listen to every one of them. One afer another came up to me and said, “Sixty years ago I did not know whether tomorrow I would be alive, and here I am talking to the Queen.” Tat act of listening was one of the most royal acts of graciousness I have ever witnessed. Listening is a profound affirmation of the humanity of the other.

In the encounter at the Burning Bush, when God summoned Moses to be a leader, Moses replied, “I am not a man of words, not yesterday, not the day before, not from the frst time You spoke to Your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue” (Ex. 4:10). Why would God choose a man who found it difficult to speak to lead the Jewish people? Perhaps because one who cannot speak learns how to listen.

A leader is one who knows how to listen: to the unspoken cry of others and to the still, small voice of God.

1. Will this concept of listening enhance the way you say the prayer of Shema?

2. How do you think our leaders of today could beneft from greater listening?

3. How can you develop your capacity for listening, both in listening to God and to other people?

To Lead is to Listen 4 Eikev 5781