Rabbi's Message
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Shofar Cheshvan - Tevet 5781 • November/December 2020 In this issue...you can click on the Rabbi’s Message page you would like to read first. Acts of Tzedakah ....................................... 12 Thanksgiving in a Time of Pandemic? Being Jewish ...............................................7 Blood Drive .............................................. 13 Thanksgiving and the pandemic sound like a contradiction in terms. A plague is ravaging our country. Calendar .............................................22-23 What have we to be grateful for? A lot, actually! And, it is Cantor ........................................................ 4 precisely when we are beset by troubles that it becomes all the more important to practice gratitude, if for nothing other Chanukah Happenings ............................. 11 than our mental health. Clothing Drive ........................................... 17 Giving thanks reminds us that what is negative, as real as it is, doesn’t constitute the whole story — that the good in our lives doesn’t go away Food Drives ................................................9 because bad things are happening. Seeing that good can lift our spirits and give Interfaith Service ........................................3 us strength to cope with the very real challenges we face. Lifecycle (TBE Family News) ...................... 11 Continued on page 3 Painting of Peace ...................................... 15 President .................................................... 5 Rabbi’s Message..................................... 1, 3 Recipes ..................................................... 14 Interfaith Service of Thanksgiving, November 24, 7:00 p.m. Renaissance ............................................. 16 Sisterhood ................................................ 17 Blood Drive, November 29, 8:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. (see page 13) Social Action (IHN) ..............................18-19 Shabbat Service Welcoming New Members, Welcome to the World ............................. 17 December 4, 6:30 p.m. Worship Schedule ......................................2 Chanukah Happenings (see page 11 for descriptions) Yahrzeits ..............................................21-22 Chanukah Chibbuk, December 6 Chanukah Gift Shop Sidewalk Sale, December 6 Chanukah Food Drive, December 6 to 13 The Art of Making Great Latkes, December 8 Shabbat Chanukah with Menorah Lighting, December 11 Chanukah B’chayon - Chanukah in the Parking Lot, December 13 The History of Chanukah, December 15 Temple Beth-El • 67 US Highway 206 • Hillsborough, NJ 08844 • (908) 722-0674 • www.ourbethel.org Click here to return to Page 1 Worship Schedule All worship services are being conducted online during the COVID crisis. Please join us. For more information about Zoom and how to use it, visit https://www.ourbethel.org/connect-with-zoom/ Standard Zoom Links for all Friday Evening Services Friday Night Services Saturday Morning Services Via Zoom: https://tinyurl.com/TBEErevShabbat Via Zoom: https://tinyurl.com/TBEShabbatMorning Passcode: Sh@bbat Passcode: Shalom Or by phone: 929-436-2866; Meeting ID: 983 6550 9442; Passcode 0119497 Or by phone: 929-436-2866; Meeting ID: 693 812 954; Passcode: 049452 NOVEMBER Friday, November 6 Saturday, November 14 Tuesday, November 24 6:30 p.m. Erev Shabbat Service Online (See link above) Parashat Chayei Sarah; Genesis 23:1−25:18 7:00 p.m. Interfaith Service of Thanksgiving 10:00 a.m. Shabbat Morning Service and Torah Study Honoring IHN Saturday, November 7 with Bar Mitzvah of Benjamin Manrique https://tinyurl.com/IHNThanksgiving2020 Parashat Vayeira; Genesis 18:1–22:24 (See link above) 10:00 a.m. Shabbat Morning Service and Torah Study with Friday, November 27 Bat Mitzvah of Julie McCloskey (See link above) Friday, November 20 6:00 p.m. Kabbalat Shabbat Service Online 6:30 p.m. Erev Shabbat Service Online (See link above) (See link above) Friday, November 13 6:30 p.m. Erev Shabbat Service Online (See link above) Saturday, November 21 Saturday, November 28 Parashat Tol’dot; Genesis 25:19−28:9 Parashat Vayeitzei, Genesis 28:10−32:3 10:00 a.m. Shabbat Minyan Service and Torah Study 10:00 a.m. Shabbat Minyan Service (See link above) (See link above) DECEMBER Friday, December 4 Saturday, December 12 Thursday, December 17 6:30 p.m. Erev Shabbat Service Online Welcoming New Parashat Vayeishev, Genesis 37:1−40:23 Chanukah, Eighth Candle Members (See link above) 10:00 a.m. Shabbat Morning Service with Torah Study and Bar Mitzvah of Ethan Fastag-Rosenfield Friday, December 18 Saturday, December 5 (See link above) Last day of Chanukah Parashat Vayishlach, Genesis 32:4−36:43 Chanukah, Third Candle 6:30 p.m. Erev Shabbat Service Online (See link above) 10:00 a.m. Shabbat Minyan Service Online (See link above) Sunday, December 13 Saturday, December 19 Chanukah, Fourth Candle Parashat Mikeitz, Genesis 41:1−44:17 Thursday, December 10 4:00 p.m. Chanukah B’chayon – Chanukah in the 10:00 a.m. Shabbat Minyan Service Online First Night of Chanukah Parking Lot and Menorah Lighting (See link above) First Candle Monday, December 14 Friday, December 25 Friday, December 11 Chanukah, Fifth Candle Temple Offices Closed for Christmas Day Chanukah, Second Candle 6:00 p.m. Kabbalat Shabbat Service Online 6:30 p.m. Shabbat Chanukah Service and Menorah Tuesday, December 15 (See link above) Lighting (See link above) Chanukah, Sixth Candle Saturday, December 26 Wednesday, December 16 Parashat Vayigash, Genesis 44:18−47:27 Chanukah, Seventh Candle 10:00 a.m. Shabbat Minyan Service (See link above) Shofar Submissions and Deadline Torah Portions In the subject line, please use the following The next issue of the Shofar will be You can read a Weekly Torah naming convention: Shofar Month/Shofar/ Commentary by visiting the Union of January-February 2021. PLEASE NOTE: The Committee Name or Professional Staff Name. deadline for submissions is December 15. Reform Judaism’s web page: Submit articles via email to: Temple Calendar Webpage www.reformjudaism.org/learning/ [email protected]. https://www.ourbethel.org/about/calendar/ torah-study Temple Beth-El Shofar 2 Cheshvan-Tevet 5781 Click here to return to Page 1 Rabbi’s Message, continued from page 1 Having an attitude of gratitude at such times also helps So let us look to Thanksgiving not with disappointment us to recognize and appreciate the good things that are for what it might not be this year. Let us look instead to happening in response to those challenges. Chief among the many blessings we have received by the love and grace these are all the acts of kindness and caring that are being of God. And let us respond with love and generosity to performed by caregivers, first responders, and essential share those blessings with those who are in need. workers, all of whom are acting heroically to serve the This year we will join, once again, with our interfaith needs of others. We owe it to them and to ourselves to partners to celebrate Thanksgiving in song and prayer, and recognize and appreciate their great goodness. in support of our shared commitment to IHN, the Interfaith For most of us, our annual Thanksgiving family Hospitality Network for the Homeless. Please join us for gatherings will be a casualty of the pandemic, and that will this joyful celebration on Tuesday, November 24 at 7:00 be greatly disappointing. But we can soften the blow by pm at this Zoom link: realizing that we still have so much to be thankful for — https://tinyurl.com/IHNThanksgiving2020 the fundamental blessings of life and health, the food that May God’s blessings of abundance be with you and your sustains us, and the freedoms that we cherish. loved ones now and always. As people of faith, the heart of our Thanksgiving is the belief that our fundamental rights and blessings are L’shalom, derived from the very source of life. They are gifts of God, who has lovingly bestowed them upon us all. Pausing to Rabbi Arnold S. Gluck remember this should bring us all joy and uplift. Interfaith Service of Thanksgiving In Celebration and Support of the Interfaith Hospitality Network of Somerset County (IHN) The brief service will be led by the clergy, musical direction, choirs, and musicians from The Roman Catholic Church of St. Bernard of Clairvaux, North Branch Reformed Church, and Temple Beth-El. November 24, 7:00 p.m. Direct Zoom Link: https://tinyurl.com/IHNThanksgiving2020 Or www.Zoom.us with Meeting ID: 881 3449 3908; Passcode: ThanksIHN Or dial in: +1 929 436 2866; Meeting ID: 881 3449 3908; Passcode: 326981360 Temple Beth-El Shofar 3 Cheshvan-Tevet 5781 Click here to return to Page 1 A Note From Our Cantor I recently purchased the Robert Alter translation of the feeling many of the same things, at TaNaKh, the Jewish Bible*. This award-winning translator the very same time. We were glued offers a fresh look at the Biblical text, seen so often to our televisions and computers, in less dynamic and precise language. Reading Alter’s checking our phones, or trying to translation gave me a new motivation to reread the texts find a way to stay calm – praying, of the Psalms, the 150 tehilim. These are poems from our nervous, hopeful, and doubting that ancient past, used by Jews for the purposes of worship, our highest hopes might, or might not, accompanying the sick and guarding or burying the dead, be realized. for sustaining ourselves through difficult times, and really In a moment of for any spiritual practice that requires some form of profound political division, citizens turned out to vote written inspiration. in the highest numbers in history. We proved that even Even the liturgy of our prayerbook, our siddur, contains in a time when democracy appears to be in danger, it is quotes from psalms sprinkled throughout, which the simultaneously summoned up to do what it was designed careful eye can detect, not to mention that we use a series to accomplish. of them in their entirety as a warm-up to the main service. The columnist George Packer wrote the following on The psalms form a critical corpus of our Biblical Election Day: literature, and were sung by the Levite singers in the “Today, with the outcome of the election still unclear, these ancient Temple in Jerusalem.