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JANUARY 2020 | TEVET/SHEVAT 5780 REGISTER AT AGUDATH.ORG/EVENTS JANUARY 2020 | TEVET/SHEVAT 5780 Contents 2. Super Bowl 11. New Member Shabbat 21. Sisterhood . 4 Services Education Calendar 22. Environmental Committee 5. From the Pulpit: Rabbi Silverstein 12. Adult Education 23. B'nai Mitzvah 6. From the Pulpit: Rabbi Lucas 14. Development News 24. Tributes & Donations 8. Cantor's Notes 16. Social Worker: Resilience and Refuah 32. Yahrtzeit Donations . 9 CAI Men's Club Blood Drive 18. Night with the NJ Devils 10. Education Matters 19. Men's Club 34. Personals • MEMBER OF CONGREGATION AGUDATH ISRAEL • This message above an ad means the advertiser is a member of Congregation Agudath Israel. Please thank them for supporting CAI by supporting them! Special thanks to Abby Meth Kanter for her assistance in editing this publication Cover image by Ellen Oxild All program information — including class descriptions, times, and locations listed in the Voice — is subject to change. Get up-to-date information at agudath.org/events The Voice is published monthly from September to June by Congregation Agudath Israel of West Essex. 20 Academy Road, Caldwell, New Jersey 07006 973-226-3600 | fax 973-226-7480 | www.agudath.org Affiliated with United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism www.agudath.org | JANUARY 2020 3 Services Monthly Schedule Friday, January 3 Shabbat in PJs ........................................................ 5:30 pm Erev Shabbat Service .............................................. 4:20 pm Saturday, January 18 Saturday, January 4 Shacharit ............................................................... 9:15 am Shacharit ............................................................... 9:15 am Mincha/Talmud Study/Maariv/Havdalah ..................... 4:30 pm Shabbat Meditation ................................................. 9:30 am Friday, January 24 Mincha/Talmud Study/Maariv/Havdalah ..................... 4:15 pm Erev Shabbat Service ............................................. 4:45 pm Friday, January 10 Saturday, January 25 Erev Shabbat Service ............................................. 4:30 pm Shacharit .............................................................. 9:15 am Religious School Shabbat Service and Dinner .................. 6 pm Mincha/Talmud Study/Maariv/Havdalah ..................... 4:40 pm Saturday, January 11 Shacharit .................................................................... 9 am Friday, January 31 Erev Shabbat Service ............................................. 4:50 pm Bar Mitzvah — Yehonatan Ashkenazi .................................am Superbowl Shabbat ...................................................... 6 pm Mincha/Talmud Study/Maariv/Havdalah .................... 4:25 pm Friday, January 17 Saturday, February 1 Shacharit .............................................................. 9:15 am Erev Shabbat Service .............................................. 4:35 pm Mincha/Talmud Study/Maariv/Havdalah ..................... 4:50 pm Candle Lighting Times Daily Services Friday, January 3 .................................................... 4:23 pm Mornings Shababt ends, Saturday, January 4 ........................... 5:33 pm Monday & Thursday ................................................ 6:45 am Tuesday, Wednesday, & Friday ....................................... 7 am Friday, January 10 .................................................. 4:30 pm Sunday Talmud Study .............................................. 8:15 am Shabbat ends, Saturday, January 11 ......................... 5:40 pm Sunday Shacharit......................................................... 9 am Friday, January 17 .................................................. 4:38 pm Evenings Shabbat ends, Saturday, January 18 ......................... 5:48 pm Sunday-Thursday .................................................... 7:30 pm Friday, January 24 .................................................. 4:46 pm Friday (see schedule) Shabbat ends, Saturday, January 25 ......................... 5:56 pm Friday, January 31 .................................................. 4:55 pm Saturday Schedule Shabbat ends, Saturday, February 1 ......................... 6:05 pm Services begin ....................................................... 9:15 am (When B'nei Mitzvah) ................................................... 9 am Torah Study Group ....................................................... 9 am Shabbat Meditation (per monthly schedule) ............... 9:30 am All program information is Torah Reading Chug (twice a month, ages 9-12) ................................10:15-11 am subject to change. Get up-to-date Torah for Tots (ages 0-4) ............................................. 11 am information at agudath.org Shabbat Friends (twice a month, grades K-2) ................ 11 am Jr Congo (grades 3-6)................................................. 11 am facebook.com/ linkedin.com/company/ instagram.com/ CongregationAgudathIsrael Congregation-Agudath-Israel Congregation-Agudath-Israel 4 Congregation Agudath Israel of West Essex From the Pulpit RABBI ALAN SILVERSTEIN Abraham Joshua Heschel and Social Justice Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel’s lives,” he declared, “could be yahrtzeit is in January. His memory saved by changing the attitudes inspires us to remember that of Christendom toward the Jewish promoting goodness must be a responsibility for the death of Jesus!” necessary outcome of God’s gift to Heschel’s 1963 Yom Kippur sermon us of human free will. ignited the grassroots movement on Heschel’s spiritual work, his sense of behalf of millions of Jews trapped in “radical amazement, wonder, awe,” the Soviet Union. Heschel fearlessly led him to an active sense of our defended the State of Israel against indebtedness to God. We are in debt its critics. Heschel courageously to God since it was God who brought protested against the Vietnam war us into this world, and God asks of and counseled Jewish conscientious us something in return. objectors. Why? After all, “God needs Heschel forcefully engaged in humankind.” Why? Because God is Heschel, left, presenting the Judaism and the Civil Rights movement. In intensely caring, suffering when any World Peace Award to Martin Luther King, Jr., 1963, he accepted an invitation human beings are suffering. God December 7, 1965 to address the seminal National feels tormented by the suffering of Conference on Religion and Race the poor, the hungry, the helpless, and the hopeless. convened in Washington by the National Conference of Christians and Jews. Heschel’s address applied the biblical But God expects to have a partner in effecting a remedy. Exodus story to modern times: Pharaoh — in the form God wants us to fulfill our responsibility to battle evil. of racism — is still not ready to capitulate, he said. The Heschel taught that the very essence of being human is to Exodus began 3,000 years ago, but we are still stranded in take “moral responsibility.” For Heschel, just as a pious Jew the desert. Indeed, it was easier for the Israelites to cross must make a “leap of faith,” so, too, must we take a leap the Red Sea, he said, than for men and women of color to into social justice activity. enter many American institutions, colleges, universities, Heschel’s social activism was prompted by his painful and neighborhoods. experiences during the Holocaust. Heschel witnessed At that Civil Rights conference, the keynote speakers — first-hand that people stood on the sidelines and did not Rabbi Heschel and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. — called out intervene against evil. In 1971, Heschel told a young against the sin of racism. They came to see each other University of Pennsylvania student press reporter — future as kindred moral spirits, friends, and partners. Months JTS chancellor Arnold Eisen — “It is a ‘hillul Hashem,’ a later, they shared the podium at the convention of the profaning of God’s name, when people are silent in the face Conservative movement’s organization, United Synagogue. of evil deeds.” Heschel introduced King as a moral gift to American society In Heschel’s phrasing, the Torah demands “moral and presented him with the Solomon Schechter Award. mysticism,” acts of goodness, of kindness, of self- Dr. King in turn praised Heschel for his moral clarity, which transcendence. In the process, we discover parts of our he likened to that of the prophets of old — calling him better selves. We become a shutaf, a partner with God in “my Rabbi” and “Father Abraham.” Tikkun Olam, in repairing brokenness in our world. In the spring of 1968, only 10 days before he was How did this manifest itself in Heschel’s life? In the early assassinated, at the Rabbinical Assembly convention and 1960s, Heschel was invited to Rome to participate in the celebration of Heschel’s 60th birthday, Dr. King was greeted deliberations of Vatican II, liberalizing Roman Catholicism’s by a thousand Conservative rabbis singing “We Shall view toward the Jews. Heschel felt obligated to travel to Overcome” in Hebrew. Heschel told the RA that Dr. King’s Rome even though it meant he had to remain there for presence was “a sign that God had not forsaken the USA. Rosh Hashanah. Heschel insisted that pikuach nefesh, God has sent him to us. His mission is sacred…. I call upon saving lives, takes precedence above all else. “How many (continued on page 7) www.agudath.org | JANUARY 2020 5 From the Pulpit RABBI ARI LUCAS One Woman’s Journey to Becoming a Rabbi BY MARGE WISE, CAI RABBINIC INTERN In the year and a half since Marge