NANUET HEBREW CENTER AFFILIATED WITH THE UNITED SYNAGOGUE OF CONSERVATIVE JUDAISM 411 S. LITTLE TOR ROAD, NEW CITY, NY 10956 (845) 708-9181 Visit us at: http://www.nanuethc.org E-mail address: [email protected] June 2021 Sivan — Tammuz 5781 Volume 50, Number 10 The Seventeenth of Tammuz The Babylonian Siege and Destruction of Jerusalem, David Roberts (1850) This is what the Lord Almighty says: “Just as I had determined to bring disaster on you and showed no pity when your ancestors angered me,” says the Lord Almighty, “so now I have determined to do good again to Jerusalem and Judah. Do not be afraid. These are the things you are to do: Speak the truth to each other, and render true and sound judgment in your courts; do not plot evil against each other, and do not love to swear falsely. I hate all this,” declares the Lord. The word of the Lord Almighty came to me. This is what the Lord Almighty says: “The fasts of the fourth, fifth, seventh and tenth months will become joyful and glad occasions and happy festivals for Judah. Therefore love truth and peace.” This is what the Lord Almighty says: “Many peoples and the inhabitants of many cities will yet come, and the inhabitants of one city will go to another and say, ‘Let us go at once to entreat the Lord and seek the Lord Almighty. I myself am going.’ And many peoples and powerful nations will come to Jerusalem to seek the Lord Almighty and to entreat him.” Zechariah 8:14-22 More on p. 18 June Calendar Inside, p. 27 Please let the NHC office know of all important Nanuet Hebrew Center life events & occasions, including births, Published monthly by the Nanuet Hebrew Center weddings, etc., illness and deaths. CLERGY Office: 845-708-9181 [email protected] Paul Kurland Rabbi 845-623-0407 [email protected] SERVICES Barry Kanarek Cantor [email protected] SHABBAT EXECUTIVE BOARD Friday evening Shabbat services at 6:00 p.m. Gail Kaiser Co-President The 1st Friday of each month is Family Shabbat Jeffrey Schragenheim Co-President Saturday morning services at 10:00 a.m. David Katz Vice President Please call the office the Wednesday before Andrew Toplitsky Vice President Shabbat if you would like an aliyah on Saturday Nathan Schlanger Treasurer Jeffrey Tepper Financial Sec'y MINYAN Charyl Zweigbaum Corresponding Sec’y Jay Jaffe Recording Sec’y Sunday thru Thursday evening at 7:30 p.m. ARMS Wendy Spelman Ritual Comm. Chairperson Please try to attend minyan as often as possible to John Fogelman Ritual Co-Chair Emeritus enable mourners and those who are observing Mitchell Spiegel Men’s Club Co-President yahrzeits to say Kaddish. Eric Zweigbaum Men’s Club Co-President Donna Smith Sisterhood President Other Departments/Contacts Rebecca Bernstein Educational Director [email protected] Cynthia Schneider, Peggy Tepper Catering [email protected] Estelle Eisenkraft Tree of Life/Stones Candle lighting times (New City area) Frieda Levitas Chair, Comm. of Education Dates Starts Ends Esther Spiegel HAZAK Flora Silver Chesed Committee Co-Chair Marion Fuld Chesed Committee Co-Chair June 4-5 8:07 9:16 Gift Shop [email protected] June 11-12 8:11 9:20 Judy Friedlander [email protected] June 18-19 8:14 9:23 NOTE FROM THE EDITOR—All articles, photos, June 25-26 8:15 9:25 ads or other info contributed for publication in the Bulletin must be received by the 15th of the month, to be published the following month, subject to space availability and editor's approval. Contributed OFFICE Hours: material may be edited as necessary. Please email Closed during the current crisis. We may be your attached word documents, PDF files, or JPG reached by email or you may leave a message photos as attachments to an email with the Subject on the machine. line: BULLETIN.” Page 2 NHC Bulletin Sivan — Tammuz 5781 June 2021 In This Issue: Mazal Tov to Graduates . 22 From Co-President Gail Kaiser. 4 Hazak . 25 Makom News . 6 June Calendar . 27 USY/Kadima . 13 Mail . 29 Some Observations on Antisemitism. 17 Life Cycle . .. .. 32 More on Seventeenth of Tammuz . 18 Tzedakah . .. .. .36 June 2021 Sivan — Tammuz 5781 NHC Bulletin Page 3 From the Co-President Every month comes with a bounty of lights, blessings, and challenges that are its particular gift to the year. Tammuz, this fourth month of the year, is filled with paradox, in part because of its infamous distinction as the beginning of our fall from grace. The Torah starts its counting of the months with Nissan (and Passover), for that was our birth day as a people. And so, the year begins with a surge of exhilaration, as we escape from so many years of slavery and witness the most mighty nation in the world reduced to ruin by the G-d of Israel. Then, fifty days later we experience the most powerful revelation of light and truth that has ever transpired on this planet. And yet, we still lost our grip on faith and sinned with the Golden Calf. This was a transgression of horrendous proportions which set in motion a downward spiral that culminates next month with Tisha B’Av, the day of inconsolable mourning for our shattered Temple and broken lives. Kabbalah teaches that all the failing, suffering, and darkness of our people throughout history began with the Golden Calf. Both of these months, Tammuz and Av, were going to be times of enormous blessing. Although the Torah was revealed at Sinai, Moses spent the next forty days working together with G-d to transform the source of spiritual enlightenment into sentences paragraphs, and practices that would pull G-d’s consciousness down from the heavens into the moment-by-moment daily life of the Jewish people. On the 16th of Tammuz, the people expected Moses to return to camp, G-d’s law in hand. The people had miscalculated the forty days, and this tragic technical misunderstanding had far reaching consequences. When Moses was delayed in coming down from the mountain according to their reckoning, the people assumed the worst and feared that he had died on the mountaintop. In a panic, and thinking of themselves as now leaderless, the Israelites allowed themselves to be convinced by some of the Egyptians who had accompanied them and some of their own people who were disbelievers in Moses’s vision, to fashion an idol, hence the Golden Calf, and return to the “security” of graven images. Upon his descent on the 17th of Tammuz, when Moses beheld their desecration, he cast the Tablets to the ground. They shattered, and the spiritual luminescence of their message flew back to their creator. The Israelites had been mere hours away from experiencing one of the most significant events in all of human history, one so full of the hope for attainment of eternal paradise more so than they could have ever anticipated or imagined – having the Tablets in their possession. Instead it became the start of all our woes. Page 4 NHC Bulletin Sivan — Tammuz 5781 June 2021 There have been a number of other traumatic events that have occurred on the 17th of Tammuz. To some degree or another, they are echoes of the tragedy that took place in the time of Moses: In the First Temple Era, the priests in the Temple stopped offering the daily sacrifice on this day due to the shortage of sheep during the siege, and the next year (586 BCE) the walls of Jerusalem were breached. During the period of Roman persecution, an idol was placed in the holy sanctuary of the Temple and Apostomos, the captain of the occupation forces, publicly burned the Torah – both acts considered open blasphemy and desecration. These events were followed by Titus and Rome breaching the walls of Jerusalem in 70 CE. In 1239 Pope Gregory ordered the confiscation of all manuscripts of the Talmud. In later years, this day continued to be a dark one for Jews. In 1391 more than 4,000 Jews were killed in Toledo and Jaen, Spain. In 1559 the Jewish Quarter of Prague was burned and looted. The Kovno ghetto in Lithuania was liquidated on this day in 1944. In 1970 Libya ordered the confiscation of Jewish property. Does this mean that the month of Tammuz is tainted by this day and is “a bad month”? Far from it. It’s a month of challenge and confrontation. Without challenge, there’s no growth. Without confrontation, there’s no way to see things as they really are. Through our stumbling and suffering G-d trains us to see the good that hides in the ordeals and dark pits of our life. He sensitizes us to even minute concentrations of hidden good. This is how we learn to see in the dark. It’s easy to see G-d in the dramatic fire of Sinai, but it takes a whole other level of maturity and openness to G-d to see him in the darkness. Gail Kaiser, Co-President, Nanuet Hebrew Center June 2021 Sivan — Tammuz 5781 NHC Bulletin Page 5 We have come to the end of our school year, having accomplished so much! We had joy in celebrating many of our 7th graders becoming B’nai Mitzvot. We look forward to seeing them at our services and family events in the coming months and years and continue to share many simchas together. The adorable Pre-K and Kindergarten students had a l’hitraot Friday afternoon Shabbat event with Morah Jody Prusan on May 21st.