בס”ד

נא לא לדבר בשעת התפילה Saturday night, at 12:55 AM, we begin reciting . We continue reciting PLEASE NO CONVERSATION DURING SERVICES Selichot every weekday morning through Erev Yom Kippur (this year even on Erev Rosh Hashanah as it falls on a Sunday). WEEKDAY DAVENING INFORMATION Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday (9/2) (9/3) (9/4) (9/5) (9/6) (9/7) Earliest Talit 5:25 AM 5:27 AM 5:28 AM 5:29 AM 5:30 AM 5:31 AM 8:15 AM 8:00 AM 5:45 AM 5:45 AM 5:45 AM 5:45 AM Gedolah 1:28 PM 1:28 PM 1:28 PM 1:27 PM 1:27 PM 1:26 PM - 7:05 PM 7:05 PM 7:05 PM 7:05 PM 7:05 PM 7:00 PM Shkia 7:28 PM 7:26 PM 7:24 PM 7:23 PM 7:21 PM Tzait 8:13 PM 8:11 PM 8:09 PM 8:08 PM 8:06 PM שבת פרשת כי תבא PARSHAT KI TAVO Giving choices to our members to actualize their spirituality remains a 21 ELUL/SEPTEMBER 1 rock steady commitment of our shul, as we realize that one size does Pirkei not fit all. In that vein, starting this Shabbat, there will be some changes (קומי אורי) Haftorah is Isaiah 60:1-22 Avot Chaps. 3 & 4. to our Hashkama minyon, including (1) beginning at 8:00 AM, (2) a short D'var Torah each Shabbat, (3) regular shul announcements, and FRIDAY NIGHT MINCHA - 7:00 PM (4) on applicable Yomim Tovim a Yizkor appeal. If interested in CANDLE LIGHTING - 7:13 PM coming regularly or on occasion, please email [email protected], as TZAIT - 8:16 PM we will need to get commitments before each Shabbat until the minyon is firmly established. SATURDAY HASHKAMA - 8:00 AM SHACHARIT MAIN - 9:00 AM SHIUR FOR WOMEN LAST KRIAT SHEMA - 9:39 AM On Sept. 4, Rebetzin Chana Shestack will be giving her GEMARA SHIUR - 5:55 PM final shiur in the series entitled Love in the Time of MINCHA - 6:55 PM SHKIA - 7:29 PM Nach: Exploring Relationships in Neviim and SHABBAT ENDS - 8:14 PM , to take place at the Shestack residence, 18-19 SELICHOT - 12:55 AM Saddle River Rd., Tuesday night, 8:15 – 9:15 PM.

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CONGREGATION AHAVAT ACHIM Start Elul off right helping to re-stock the Jewish Family Service Food 18-25 SADDLE RIVER ROAD Bank. Please pick up an empty bag in the shul lobby and return it full FAIR LAWN, NJ 07410-5909 by September 4. 201-797-0502 WWW.AHAVATACHIM.ORG

BULLETIN INFORMATION TO REQUEST A BULLETIN Welcome to our Friday Night End of Summer Dinner ANNOUNCEMENT (BY 7:00 PM Thank you Randi Spier for arranging. For all those joining us, we WEDNESDAY) OR DEDICATE A BULLETIN FOR $36 ($54 W/PHOTO), look forward to a spiritually meaningful and oneg-filled Shabbat! EMAIL [email protected]

Rabbi Ely Shestack President Aryeh Brenenson 1 Ahavat Achim Future Events ע”הKiddush Information Gita Cooperwasser If you are around when the Rabbi Youth Program Sept. 8 - Seudat Shilishit is sponsored by your assistance in Youth groups are on the Agress family on the Yahrzeit of ,”על המחיה“ says Amy’s father Ha'Rav Yisroel Yehuda Ben clean up would be appreciated. hiatus until further .ז”לEphraim Michal Ha'Levi Pruzansky To sponsor a Kiddush notice. Look out for more info soon! ($1000/$613/$318 plus scotch) send Sept. 22 - Kiddush is sponsored by the an email to [email protected]. Goldberg family on the Yarhtzeit of Tot Shabbat Joan’s father. 10:40 AM, this week Sept. 25 - Kiddush is sponsored by the Adult Education featuring special story Winchester family on the Yarhtzeit of time reader Gloria Steve’s mother Helen Winchester, ע”הGEMARA SHIUR - One hour Lewissohn! Miriam Hendl bas Shimon before Mincha, through the first Sept. 1, Play & Stay, at the Wigod March 9 - Yachad/Yavneh Shabbaton Shabbat in November. home, 15-26 Landzettel Way, at 4:30 DAYTIME TORAH VOYAGES - PM. Community- Please get the Events name(s) you Thursdays at 2:00 PM. wishN/A to be in this year's Yizkor Booklet to Joyce Heller by Sept. FUNDAMENTALS OF JEWISH Todah Rabah 3, 14 Kershner Pl., Fair Lawn, THOUGHT - After Kiddush. Thank you to our Perek NJ 07410 or via email at PEREK ON THE LAWN, Pirkei on the Lawn presenters [email protected]. Avot Periodic Shiur. this season, R. Shestack, - Please get your Rosh Hashana Margo Heda & Ilana Scroll info into Natasha Borsuk Men’s Club Schwitzer; and to our host by Sept. 2, 82 Garwood Rd., Fair .families, Sonnenblick, Garfunkel, Spier, Lawn, NJ 07410 ע”הSept. 16 (Sunday) - Sylvia Latkin Sukkah Assembly, volunteers needed. Salazar/Carrion, Greene, & Bernstein; - Yomim Noraim are almost upon us. Email Marty at Sept. 16 (Sunday) - Arbat Haminim and to all those who attended! Looking [email protected] to arrange (Lulav & Etrog) sale. forward to next year’s POTL! for High Holiday Seats. Sept. 24 (Monday) - Sukkah Hop! To volunteer your Sukkah, contact Elliot at [email protected]. October 28 (Sunday) - Avraham Groll from JewishGen.Org will discuss "History of Jews in Poland”. Points To Ponder 1st - what promise does the bringing of bikurim explain that Hashem fulfilled? 4th - why does Hashem want us to write the torah on a rock when we cross the Jordan Babysitting on Rosh river? Hashanah will be from 5th - which of these arur's doors the chofetz chaim explain is a reference lashon hara? 10:30 AM - 2:00 PM, 7th - [bonus] why do we need the tochacha, the warning of all that Hashem could/ and on Yom Kippur would/will do to us in the future in order to have ears to hear and eyes to see?

from 10:30 AM - 3:00 5th - (27:24) "hitting" your neighbor in secret. in neighbor your "hitting" (27:24) - 5th

PM. Parents must assure that their (27:3). us with

children are with the babysitters or coming is and it do to us enabled happen, would this told Hashem that indicate to - 4th

are sitting in the sanctuary! Light (26:9). place this to us bringing "vheiveisi", exodus, the of promise the 1st- nut-free snacks available! Ponder To Points to Answers

Sisterhood Annual Coat Drive, for Center For The Sisterhood is looking for vibrant dedicated women Hope and Safety, will be Sunday, November 4 to take over its leadership reigns, shape it in accordance (Mitzvah Day in Bergen County), 9:00 AM - 5:00 with their vision, and prepare it to serve the next PM, 36-02 Hale Pl., Fair Lawn. Gently worn, not torn, outer garments generation of women in the shul. Please step up, speak for all ages. For more info, contact Audrey at [email protected]. to Aryeh, and let’s keep the momentum going!

Shirley Vann has dedicated this week’s Covenant & Conversation (used with permission .ע”הof the Office of Rabbi Sacks) in memory of her beloved mother Necha bat Yitzchok 2

JFCS Food Pantry

Needs your help!

Stop by Ahavat Achim for a reusable grocery bag.

Fill it with unopened, unexpired and food items.

Items needed include:

Canned Items: fruits, vegetables, soups, beans, tuna/sardines, tomato sauce; Spices: salt/ pepper; Broths: chicken, meat; Pasta; Kosher Mac n’ Cheese; Rice; Cereal; Oatmeal; Shelf Stable Milk; Kosher Grape Juice; Toilet Paper; Paper Towels; Toothpaste; Soap: Bars/ Liquid; Shampoo/ Conditioner ; Deodorant

Please return the full bag to our shul by Tuesday, September 4th. We thank you in advance for your participation in this most important mitzvah.

For more information on Jewish Family & Children’s Services of Northern New Jersey please call 201-837-9090 or visit www.jfcsnnj.org

presents Jewish Federation

October 31 - November 18, 2018

Tickets and Information Tickets are $10 in advance and $15 at the door www.jfnnj.org/filmfestival [email protected] • 201-820-3907

Committee Suzette Diamond (Chair), Lauri Bader, Susan Benkel, Ariella Drori, Nancy Eichenbaum, Etti Inbal, Nina Kampler, Donna Kissler, Joan Krieger, Lynn Karpo-Lantz, Gail Loewenstein, Jo Resnick Rosen, Marian Salamon, Ava Silverstein, Wendy Zuckerberg

This program is made possible in part by a grant administered by the Bergen County Division of Cultural & Historic Affairs from funds granted by the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. SCAFFOLDING BENEATH THE SILENCE ohnudhp ohnukv Wednesday, October 31 PLUS SHORT FILM Teaneck Cinemas STANDUP pt-sbyx OUTDOORS Tuesday, November 13 khkdc ,hc Teaneck Cinemas Monday, November 5 Wayne YMCA SHELTER ru,xn HEADING HOME Wednesday, November 14 PLUS SHORT FILM Warner Theatre, Ridgewood GETTING SERIOUS Thursday, November 15 xusrcut United Synagogue of Hoboken Tuesday, November 6 Warner Theater, Ridgewood THE CAKEMAKER ihkrcn vputv THE TESTAMENT Sunday, November 11 ,usgv Hamilton House, Jersey City Thursday, November 8 Sunday, November 18 Teaneck Cinemas Kaplen JCC on the Palisades, Tenafly

All films begin at 7:30 pm Tickets and Information www.jfnnj.org/filmfestival Tot Shabbat Parents & Me:

For kids 5 and under Starting at 10:40 AM STORY TIME, TEFILLAH, SHABBAT SONGS AND FREE PLAY

Fair Lawn, NJ Info: [email protected] SHABBOS DAY

PARENTS AND ME

PLAY Congregation& STAY Ahavat Achim

Kids 10 and Under are Welcome!

September 1 Wigod Home @ 4:30 15-26 Landzettel Way COOL info: [email protected] BS’D

AHAVAT ACHIM ORTHODOX CONGREGATION OF FAIR LAWN 18-25 Saddle River Road Fair Lawn, New Jersey 07410

July 20, 2018

Dear shul member,

Yes it’s that time again. In preparation for the Yomim Noraim, High Holy Days, I would like to establish the seating requirements so that members have the opportunity to choose their seats. Members wishing to retain their Shabbos seats may do so if their reservation is received no later than Sunday, August 26th.

Once again it will be the policy of the shul to provide free seats to children of members from first grade through Bar/Bat Mitzvah. Only after these requests are handled will seats be sold to non-members.

As per shul policy, all families must have their June 30, 2018 outstanding balances paid in full before reservations for High Holy Day seats can be accepted. Note: Associates are not entitled to member’s rates.

I would greatly appreciate and strongly urge you to take a few moments to complete the attached form and return it to me as soon as possible. Your prompt response will assist me in more efficient planning and also avoid disappointment. The deadline again is Sunday, August 26 2018. Please return this form to me at: 6 Kershner Place Fair Lawn, New Jersey 07410 or E-mail your response to me at: [email protected].

If you have any questions please call me at 791-8775. Thank you for your cooperation.

Sincerely,

Marty Sonnenblick Gabbai Rosh Hashanah-Yom Kippur 5779 (2018)

Family Name ______[ ] I plan to be here on Rosh Hashanah [ ] I plan to be here on Yom Kippur

Child or Child or Non Non A name Adult grandchild grandchild Guest of Adult member’s member’s must be Male/ Member of Member of Member Member Non- child child under filled in Female and child over 1st grade to (excluding Member bar/bat bar/bat for every 22 years Bar/Bat Bar/Bat Fair Lawn mitzvah to mitzvah seat and Mitzvah to Mitzvah residents) 22 years request above 22 years old old Price $150 $75 $0 $175 $250 $125 $75

****Associates pricing Adults-$200 Bar/Bat Mitzvah-22 years old-$100 1st grade-Bar/bat Mitzvah-$50 Please return this form to: Marty Sonnenblick 6 Kershner Place Fair Lawn, New Jersey 07410

Or Email to: [email protected]

In case of financial hardship or special circumstances, please speak in confidence with the President, Aryeh Brenenson. Please note: Associates are not entitled to members rates. בס״ד

Congregation Ahavat Achim’s

Rosh Hashana Scroll

Yes, please include me/us on the Rosh Hashana Scroll.

Please PRINT my/our name(s) as follows:

Cost for Inclusion in the Scroll is $10 per family

Please return this form and your check to:

Natasha Borsuk 82 Garwood Road Fair Lawn, NJ 07410 [email protected] 917-796-9933

Please make your check payable to SISTERHOOD OF AHAVAT ACHIM. Kindly respond by September 2nd. Thank you for your participation.

May Hashem grant us all a happy, healthy & peaceful New Year.

The Story We Tell Ki Tavo 2018 / 5778

The setting: Jerusalem some twenty centuries ago. The occasion: bringing first fruits to the Temple. Here is the scene as the Mishnah describes it.1 Throughout Israel, villagers would gather in the nearest of 24 regional centres. There, overnight, they would sleep in the open air. The next morning, the leader would summon the people with words from the book of Jeremiah (31:5): “Arise and let us go up to Zion, to the House of the Lord our God.”

Those who lived near Jerusalem would bring fresh figs and grapes. Those who lived far away would bring dried figs and raisins. An ox would walk ahead of them, its horns plated with gold and its head decorated with an olive wreath. Someone would play a flute. When they came close to Jerusalem they would send a messenger ahead to announce their arrival and they would start to adorn their first- fruits. Governors and officials of the city would come out to greet them and the artisans would stop their work and call out, “Our brothers from such-and-such a place: come in peace!”

The flute would continue playing until the procession reached the Temple Mount. There, they would each place their basket of fruit on their shoulder – the Mishnah says that even King Agrippa would do so – and carry it to the Temple forecourt. There the Levites would sing (Psalm 30:2), “I will praise you, God, for you have raised me up and not let my enemies rejoice over me.”

The scene, as groups converged on the Temple from all parts of Israel, must have been vivid and unforgettable. However, the most important part of the ceremony lay in what happened next. With the baskets still on their shoulders the arrivals would say, “I declare today to the Lord your God that I have come to the land that the Lord swore to our ancestors to give us.” Each would then hold their basket by the rim, the Cohen would place his hand under it and ceremoniously wave it, and the bringer of the fruit would say the following passage, whose text is set out in our parsha:

1 Mishnah, Bikkurim 3:2-6.

The Story We Tell 1 Ki Tavo 5778 “My ancestor was a wandering Aramean. He went down into Egypt and lived there as a stranger, few in number, and there became a great nation, strong and numerous. The Egyptians mistreated us and made us suffer, subjecting us to harsh labour. We cried out to the Lord, God of our ancestors. The Lord heard our voice and saw our suffering, our toil and our oppression. The Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with terrifying power and signs and wonders. He brought us into this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey. And now I am bringing the first fruit of the soil that you, O Lord, have given me.” (Deut. 26:5-10)

This passage is familiar to us because we expound part of it, the first four verses, in the Haggadah on Seder night. But this was no mere ritual. As Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi explained in his Zakhor: and Memory, it constituted one of the most revolutionary of all Judaism’s contributions to world civilisation.2

What was original was not the celebration of first fruits. Many cultures have such ceremonies. What was unique about the ritual in our parsha, and the biblical world-view from which it derives, is that our ancestors saw God in history rather than nature. Normally what people would celebrate by bringing first-fruits would be nature itself: the seasons, the soil, the rain, the fertility of the ground and what Dylan Thomas called “the force that through the green fuse drives the flower.” The biblical first-fruits ceremony is quite different. It is not about nature but about the shape of history, the birth of Israel as a nation, and the redemptive power of God who liberated our ancestors from slavery.

This is what was new about this worldview: “Our ancestors saw God in [1] Jews were, as Yerushalmi points out, the first to see God in history rather than history. nature.”

[2] They were the first to see history itself as an extended narrative with an overarching theme. That vision was sustained for the whole of the biblical era, as the events of a thousand years were interpreted by the prophets and recorded by the biblical historians.

[3] The theme of biblical history is redemption. It begins with suffering, has an extended middle section about the interactive drama between God and the people, and ends with homecoming and blessing.

[4] The narrative is to be internalised: this is the transition from history to memory, and this is what the first-fruits declaration was about. Those who stood in the Temple saying those words were declaring: this is my story. In bringing these fruits from this land, I and my family are part of it.

[5] Most importantly: the story was the basis of identity. Indeed, that is the difference between history and memory. History is an answer to the question, “What happened?” Memory is an answer to the question, “Who am I?” In Alzheimer’s Disease, when you lose your memory, you lose your identity. The same is true of a nation as a whole.3 When we tell the story of our people’s past, we renew our identity. We have a context in which we can understand who we are in the present and what we must do to hand on our identity to the future.

2 Yosef Hayyim Yerushalmi, Zakhor: Jewish History and Memory, University of Washington Press, 1982.

3 The historian Andress has just published a book, Cultural Dementia, subtitled How the West Has Lost its History and Risks Losing Everything Else (London, Head of Zeus, 2018), applying a similar insight to the contemporary West.

The Story We Tell 2 Ki Tavo 5778 It is difficult to grasp how significant this was and is. Western modernity has been marked by two quite different attempts to escape from identity. The first, in the eighteenth century, was the European Enlightenment. This focused on two universalisms: science and philosophy. Science aims at discovering laws that are universally true. Philosophy aims at disclosing universal structures of thought.

Identity is about groups, about Us and Them. But groups conflict. Therefore the Enlightenment sought a world without identities, in which we are all just human beings. But people can’t live without identities, and identity is never universal. It is always and essentially particular. What makes us the unique person we are is what makes us different from people in general. Therefore, no intellectual discipline that aims at universality will ever fully grasp the meaning and significance of identity.

This was the Enlightenment’s blind spot. Identity came roaring back in the nineteenth century, based on one of three factors: nation, race or class. In the twentieth century, nationalism led to two World Wars. Racism led to the Holocaust. Marxist class warfare led eventually to Stalin, the Gulag and the KGB.

Since the 1960s, the West has been embarked on a second attempt to escape from identity, in favour not of the universal but the individual, in the belief that identity is something each of us freely creates for him- or herself. But identity is never created this way. It is always about membership in a group. Identity, like language, is essentially social.4

Just as happened after the Enlightenment, identity has come roaring back to the West, this time in the form of identity politics (based on gender, ethnicity or sexual orientation). This will, if allowed to flourish, lead to yet more historical disasters. It is a major threat to the future of liberal democracy.

What was happening in Jerusalem when people brought their first-fruits was of immense consequence. It meant that that they regularly told the story of who they were and why. No nation has ever given greater significance to retelling its collective story than Judaism, which is why Jewish identity is the strongest the world has ever known, the only one to have survived for twenty centuries with none of the normal bases of identity: political power, shared territory or a shared language of everyday speech.

Clearly, not all identities are the same. Characteristic of Jewish identities and others inspired by the are what Dan McAdams calls “the redemptive self.”5 People with this kind of identity, he says, “shape their lives into a narrative about how a gifted hero encounters the suffering of others as a child, develops strong moral convictions as an adolescent, and moves steadily upward and onward in the adult years, confident that negative experiences will ultimately be redeemed.” More than other kinds of life story, the redemptive self embodies the “belief that bad things can be overcome and affirms the narrator’s commitment to building a better world.” “No nation has ever given What made the biblical story unique was its focus on greater significance to redemption. In partnership with God, we can change the world. This retelling its collective story is our heritage as Jews and our contribution to the moral story than Judaism”

4 In his new book, 21 Lessons for the 21st Century (London, Jonathan Cape, 2018), Yuval Harari argues passionately against stories, meanings and identities and opts instead for consciousness as the basis of our humanity, and meditation as a way of living with meaninglessness. He takes a position diametrically opposed to everything argued for in this essay. In the modern age, Jews – whether as philosophers, Marxists, postmodernists or Buddhists – have often been leaders of the opposition to identity. The late Shlomo Carlebach put it best: “If someone says, ‘I’m a Catholic,’ I know that’s a Catholic. If someone says, ‘I’m a Protestant,’ I know that’s a Protestant. If someone says, ‘I’m just a human being,’ I know that’s a Jew.”

5 Dan McAdams, The Redemptive Self: Stories Americans Live By, Oxford University Press, 2006.

The Story We Tell 3 Ki Tavo 5778 horizons of humankind. Hence the life-changing idea: Our lives are shaped by the story we tell about ourselves, so make sure the story you tell is one that speaks to your highest aspirations, and tell it regularly.

Shabbat shalom. LIFE-CHANGING IDEA #45 Make sure the story you tell is one that speaks to your highest aspirations, and tell it regularly.

** DON’T MISS: Rabbi Sacks’ new BBC radio series on ‘Morality in the 21st Century’ ** Starng on Monday 3rd September, Rabbi Sacks will be presenng a five-part series on BBC Radio 4 which explores morality in the 21st century. Over the daily episodes Rabbi Sacks and a host of expert contributors will explore topics that include ideas around moral responsibility and who sll has it; the impact of social media on young people; Arficial Intelligence and the future of humanity; the impact of individualism and mulculturalism on communies and who young people see as their moral role models.

Each programme will be broadcast between 9am and 9.45am (UK me) and will be available on the BBC Radio 4 website aerwards. The series will also be available internaonally as a podcast together with the extended interviews with the other contributors. More details to follow.

LIFE-CHANGING IDEAS IN SEFER DEVARIM

• DEVARIM: If you seek to change someone, make sure that you are willing to help them when they need your help, defend them when they need your defence, and see the good in them, not just the bad. • VA’ETCHANAN: To make love undying, build around it a structure of rituals. • EIKEV: Listening is the greatest gift we can give to another human being. • RE’EH: Never define yourself as a victim. There is always a choice, and by exercising the strength to choose, we can rise above fate. • SHOFTIM: To lead is to serve. The greater your success, the harder you have to work to remember that you are there to serve others; they are not there to serve you. • KI TEITSE: Never be in too much of a rush to stop and come to the aid of someone in need of help. • KI TAVO: Make sure the story you tell is one that speaks to your highest aspirations, and tell it regularly.

The Story We Tell 4 Ki Tavo 5778