BULLETIN Volume 106, Number 4 • April 2019 Remembering Our Passovers…
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
WILSHIRE BOULEVARD TEMPLE BULLETIN Volume 106, Number 4 • April 2019 Remembering Our Passovers… assover Seder table celebrating the ancient Jews’ escape together. Every year I get a different copy—and a wonderful trip Pfrom slavery in Egypt. One by one we’ll read the through down a different memory lane.” the Haggadah, discuss its parts, drink four cups of wine, ask Amy Conroy found a way to make four questions, hide the afikoman, and sing songs. Our Passover the Passover story more meaningful for the Seders are alike in so many ways; yet, no two are the same in the children at their table. “We dress up as the memories they evoke or the meanings they hold. Every member characters to engage the kids more,” she said. of the Wilshire Boulevard Temple community has personal “So when [her daughter] Courtney was one, memories and meanings of Passover. Here are a few: we put her in a basket, and she was baby “The most memorable for me took Amy Conroy, Moses. The rest of us were other characters place many, many years ago, when I was an Congregant from the story!” undergraduate and a teacher at the Temple’s Temple Associate Executive Director Religious School,” said Dr. Gary Schiller. “I Jodi Berman finds that the Passover experience provides benefits invited a Grade 7 student and his mother. well beyond the traditional Seder. “It’s a They had no one else in the world and were time of great significance, and has even very much outsiders. In those days, we had all more meaning as we look through the Gary Schiller, our Jewish holidays at the apartment of my lens of what is happening in our modern Congregant grandmother. After that seder, we maintained world,” she said. “As we clean out our a close Temple relationship with the boy’s homes preparing for Passover, I’m struck mother for the rest of her life.” by the lightness I feel after spending weeks Jodi Berman, Associate “In the Haggadah that we’ve used over the going through items and deciding what to Executive Director last couple of decades,” Drew Kugler explained, keep and what to give away. We not only “our extended family has created writing identify the areas we need to clean up physically, we also do the space on the inside covers to write on at the spiritual work of evaluating our emotional baggage, our pride, our conclusion of each year’s Seder. Each person resentment, our emotional ‘chameitz,’ getting rid of the things writes the date, their name, and a comment that don’t spark joy for us emotionally.” Drew Kugler, about anything related to the time we’ve spent Congregant continued on page 2 This Month Words and Writers: Nathan Englander kaddish.com a novel More on page 7 Wednesday, April 3 Sunday, April 7 Friday, April 26 Glazer Campus (east) Irmas Campus (west) Glazer Campus (east) 7:30 p.m. More on page 7 4:00 p.m. More on page 7 6:00 p.m. Torah Portion The Four Children Deuteronomy 6:20, Exodus 12:26, 13:8, and 13:14 assover has always been at the heart of our people’s of learning styles: The text acknowledges that sometimes PJewish practice. It is the most commonly and widely our questions are generated from our own wisdom—and celebrated of our holidays, and our central text is the so we meet the wise child. At other times, we can become Haggadah. L’hagid in Hebrew means to tell, and the so befuddled and perplexed that we cannot even give our Haggadah is our telling book, the road map to our people’s questions shape and form—and so we meet the child who story that we are commanded to recall each year. On my does not know how to ask. There are occasions when we seek office bookshelf I have six or seven different publications straightforward, unembellished information—and so we of the Tanakh, but I have more than 40 publications of meet the simple child. There also are those times when the the Haggadah, and even more at home. There are so many questions we ask are provocative and add depth and emotion themes and ways that we tell our story, and the very core of to the answers—and so we meet the wicked child. our storytelling is based on asking questions. Each of us has asked questions in these four ways. There are four times when the Torah instructs Thus, our celebration of Passover is so much more than a us to tell our children about our Exodus from Egypt celebration of our freedom; it is a celebration of the many (Deuteronomy 6:20, Exodus 12:26, 13:8, and 13:14). types of inquisitive learners who populate our families and Concluding that there must be hidden meaning since it’s our schools. Whichever way you ask this year, may your a repetition, the ancient authors of the Haggadah retelling of our people’s story bring you closer to the identified four distinct types of children who, answers you seek. Chag Sameach! for us today, represent four types Rabbi Elissa Ben-Naim Cover (continued) Words & Writers: Special Event Passover Opportunities at Wilshire Boulevard Temple Nathan Englander Discusses His New Novel, kaddish.com WOW Women’s Seder Monday, April 15 6:00 p.m. Join our second consecutive Women’s Seder! Wednesday, April 3, 7:30 p.m. Conducted by Rabbi Susan Nanus with heartfelt Glazer Campus (eastside) musical accompaniment by Cantor Lisa Peicott. Bring your mothers, sisters, grandmothers, daughters, Nathan Englander, the celebrated and aunts! Come learn, come sing, come eat! For Pulitzer finalist, Guggenheim Fellow, reservations, visit wbtla.org/wowseder and prize-winning author of Dinner Adult Seder Friday, April 19 6:00 p.m. at the Center of the Earth and What Celebrate Passover with your Temple family and We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank, will be interviewed friends at a creative, inclusive Seder with beautiful by David Ulin, former Los Angeles Times book editor, on the occasion music, stories, discussion, and a sumptuous of the release of Englander’s new book, kaddish.com. The novel is a traditional Passover meal catered by Micah Wexler. streamlined comic masterpiece about a son’s failure to say Kaddish for Rabbi Susan Nanus and Cantor Lisa Peicott lead his father. Sharp, irreverent, and hilarious, Englander’s tale of a son who the Seder. Cost is $50 per person, and $36 for age 80 and over. For makes a diabolical compromise captures the tensions between tradition reservations, visit wbtla.org/adultseder and modernity. Second-Night Family Seder Saturday, April 20 5:00 p.m. Ulin is an accomplished author in his own right, most recently, of the Enjoy a fun and engaging Second Night Seder novel Ear to the Ground. A 2015 Guggenheim Fellow, his other books FAMILY SEDER 2019 especially suitable for children and their families. 2nd Night of Passover include: Sidewalking: Coming to Terms with Los Angeles; Labyrinth; A fun and engaging Seder for families with young children The Lost Art of Reading: Why Books Matter in a Distracted Time; and Rabbi David Eshel will lead us through a child- SATURDAY, APRIL 20 AT 5 P.M. friendly Haggadah and a lively, multi-generational GLAZER CAMPUS (EASTSIDE) The Myth of Solid Ground: Earthquakes, Prediction, and the Fault Line RSVP at participator service as we retell the story of slavery WBTLA.ORG/FAMILYSEDER Between Reason and Faith, which was selected as a best book of the and freedom. For reservations, visit wbtla.org/familyseder year by the Chicago Tribune and the San Francisco Chronicle. Attention Parents of College Students: A Taste of Passover This special Words and Writers event is presented in association with During Pesach we are not always able to be with our children who are away Chevalier’s Books and sponsored by the USC Casden Institute. at college. This year, if they cannot be home with us, we want to send a RSVP at wbtla.org/manyways. little bit of home to them. Please forward your child’s current college mailing address to Hannah Gole at [email protected] or (424) 208-8932 ASAP, so we can send a special care package for the holiday. 2 Glazer and Mann Early Childhood Centers Investigations and Acts of Kehillah et’s go see if the excavator is there today!” said a located at the Glazer campus. “It’s a place for people who don’t “Lthree-year-old, referring to the Audrey Irmas Pavilion have any food to stop and get food they really like,” explained construction site. At our early childhood centers, curriculum a four-year-old girl. One classroom went on a tour with often is inspired by the Glazer and Irmas campuses. The Elizabeth Green, the Center’s Associate Director of Volunteer children are invited to explore the environments in deep Engagement, and they sorted and bagged Food Pantry items; it and meaningful ways and to socially construct theories. In was a hands-on mathematical learning experience rooted in the one classroom, the children were particularly fascinated by value of kindness. the demolition and construction that they get to witness The early childhood centers this year are once again firsthand, and were inspired to create their own buildings. To focusing on the value of kehillah (community), which further their investigation, a small group of children put on provides great opportunities to explore our broader Wilshire their child-size construction vests, hard hats, and glasses and Boulevard Temple community—its spaces, programs, and most mapped a pathway to the Audrey Irmas Pavilion construction importantly, the people, who make everything possible.