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FALL 2020/5781 EDITOR’S NOTE Contents TEMPLE BETH-EL OF GREAT NECK SHEMA HAS BEEN LOVINGLY ENDOWED BY SANDRA ATLAS BASS VOLUME 5 • NUMBER 1 | FALL 2020/5781 EDITOR’S NOTE Contents I don’t know why I love you like I do, exposing deadly inequities in our system. High Holy Days observance in The Tale of the Mystery Torah: Editor’s Note Part 1 of an Interview with After all these changes that With schools opening and an election a pandemic: By Len Schiff Marjorie Kurcias and Eileen Walk you put me through. bearing down, it feels like we’ve spent “...throw open the traditions and say, 2 18 By Len Schiff —Al Green, “Take Me to the River” months running backward, eyes fixed on ‘What are the parts of our tradition Lay-led Shabbat Mornings: the past, bracing for the next shock. that we have an ability to maintain Hope + Healing + Love Deepening Community I woke up this morning, out of a dream Times as they are, nobody would and what’s the best way to maintain By Rabbi Meir Feldman 4 21 By Jennifer Still-Schiff where I had witnessed our first contact blame us if we put High Holy Days them?’ Find a way to do some sort with an alien species. In my dream, services on hold for a while, maybe took of recognition, not just the people in The Healing Power of Apocalypse, Nu? a twisting spindle of fog had appeared a nap until 5782—but that’s not what’s the temple who died in the last year, Community in a Time of Change 5 22 By Len Schiff above the great lawn of Astoria Park— happening. Everywhere I look, Jews are but around the country, who have not By Rabbi Tara Feldman drawing a mass of onlookers. It shed finding ways to seek joy and renewal been properly mourned. You can find Advocating for LGBT Inclusion ragged scraps of cloud as it turned, taking at the end of this very imperfect year. The a dozen ways to give people a sense of Cantor’s Notes with Herb by My Side By Cantor Adam Davis on shape and definition until it finally Kotzker Rabbi Menachem Mendel (1787- connectedness that are different from 6 25 By John Hirsch-Leiman resolved, to the crowd’s amazement, 1859) reminds us, “There is nothing more the way they normally get it, and maybe into an old-school flying saucer. Great, whole than a broken heart, and nothing some of them will even be better.” Getting to Know Our New People Want to Help: A Conversation I thought, one more thing to deal with. more upright than a crooked ladder.” In these pages, you’ll find stories of 8 Temple President, Gary Slobin 28 with Jane and Gary Stone This issue’s theme is Change, of which I miss standing together in prayer— change: confronting it, learning from it, By Howard J. Herman By Stuart Botwinick all of us, like Al Green, have had a little but only in a Zoom service do we see creating it. I hope you find something to TriBE! Your Community Within Book Review of MaNishtana’s too much. Sure, we coasted through the each other’s faces. This year, we won’t inspire you as we face whatever changes Your Community Ariel Samson: Freelance Rabbi first weeks of the year, but by mid-March celebrate side-by-side, but soul-by-soul. 5781 has in wait. 9 By Jaqui McCabe 31 By Jennifer Still-Schiff we knew 2020 would be like nothing On a recent podcast, Andy Slavitt, Give kavod, not COVID! we’d ever seen. COVID brought us to who ran the Centers for Medicare and Ruach) Wind, Breath, Soul) רּוחַ Adapting to Change a standstill; George Floyd’s murder Medicaid Services under President L’Shana Tovah! 10 By Vicki Perler 31 By Nina Koppelman brought us to the streets—both events Barack Obama, offered some advice for Len Schiff Kulanu: Our New Joint Religious Education Program with Temple Israel Much Ado About Noshing Puzzle 12 By David Woolfe 32 SENIOR RABBIS OFFICERS 2020-2021 EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE TRUSTEES EX-OFFICIO HONORARY Meir Feldman MEMBERS-AT-LARGE VICE PRESIDENTS Improving Our Temple Home Tara Feldman PRESIDENT Leslie Abrams, PRESIDENT OF Howard J. Herman Preplanning at Beth Moses Cemetery Gary Slobin Past President BROTHERHOOD William K. Peirez 13 By Elliot Rosenzweig 33 CANTOR Franklin S. Abrams, Matthew Moshen Adam Davis VICE PRESIDENT Past President SISTERHOOD CHAIRS HONORARY TRUSTEES So Long, Farewell: Saying Goodbye to Sheila Aronson Ronald M. Epstein, Lessons from Lockdown RABBI EMERITUS Sandy Lubert David A. Cantor Rabbi Muhlbaum and Cantor Lapin Immediate Past President Compiled by Len Schiff and Sheri ArbitalJacoby Jerome K. Davidson, DD VICE PRESIDENT Rochelle Rosenbloom Louise Feldman 14 35 Compiled by Sheri ArbitalJacoby Doug Bernstein Judi Rosenzweig Ann Finkelstein CANTOR EMERITA BOARD OF TRUSTEES Jennifer Still-Schiff Cindy Gold Lisa R. Hest VICE PRESIDENT 2020-2021 Alan Greene COVID Creations Stuart Lempert Who We Are Andrew Aaron PRESIDENTS Shari Isacowitz Compiled by Sheri ArbitalJacoby EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR 15 36 Sheila Aronson OF CLUB CHAI Gloria Landsberg Stuart Botwinick VICE PRESIDENT Doug Bernstein Ann Finkelstein Jerry Landsberg Jordana Levine Joanne Davis Ellen Permut DIRECTOR OF Norma Levitt Our First Zoom Bar Mitzvah Jason Gilbert Linda Rice EARLY CHILDHOOD VICE PRESIDENT PAST PRESIDENTS By Barbara and David Podwall Stuart Lempert Bobbie Rosenzweig 16 EDUCATION Barbara Podwall Marjorie B. Kurcias Jordana Levine Amy Spielman Vicki Perler, MS SAS Stephen G. Limmer FINANCIAL SECRETARY Felisa Myer Michael Zarin Roger Tilles EDUCATOR Barbara Podwall Andrew Aaron Shelley M. Limmer David Woolfe Philip Ross Franklin S. Abrams SECRETARY David Schwartz SHEMA Nina Koppelman DIRECTOR OF Randi Weiler Lawrence Siegel Len Schiff, Editor Leslie Abrams CONGREGATIONAL Jennifer Still-Schiff Sheri ArbitalJacoby, ENGAGEMENT Ronald M. Epstein TREASURER Gary Slobin Managing Editor Jaqui McCabe Philip Ross David Sutin Leslie Abrams and Grant Toch Howard J. Herman, Peter Tufel Proofreaders Randi Weiler 2 SHEMA | FALL 2020/5781 TEMPLE BETH-EL OF GREAT NECK 3 HOPE + HEALING + LOVE THE HEALING POWER OF COMMUNITY IN A TIME OF CHANGE But how can G-d, or Torah, command created b’tzelem Elohim, in the image of ince March, our world, our ramifications for our emotional and an emotion? How can anyone tell us G-d. We are all touched with the Divine, nation and our beloved Temple physical health. what to feel? all made of the same, infinitely precious SBeth-El community have been In these trying days, we are newly In the 19th century, the sage Naftali stuff. How can we not, then, love our cast into a period of deep uncertainty; aware of our interdependence. Our Zvi Yehuda Berlin, whom we call the neighbors as ourselves? we have collectively experienced actions and choices have the power to Netziv, addressed this question. But let’s return to that odd equation isolation, fear, tremendous suffering and hurt or heal, to infect or protect. Your The problem, says the Netziv, is I mentioned, 1+1=26, for one last loss. Mi Sheberach, our prayer for powerful and heartfelt response to our that we are used to thinking of love as a perspective from the ancient tradition healing, is always a central fixture of our many Zoom classes, volunteer outreach feeling when really it’s an action. Look of Gematria. worship experience, but this High Holy calls, virtual Shabbat services, Shabbat BY RABBI at the phrase v’ahavta l’reiakha, love Days season, it has a renewed poignance bag deliveries, robocalls and video BY RABBI MEIR FELDMAN your neighbor. That lamed at the and urgency. As we face the new year messages is an expression and affirmation TARA FELDMAN start of l’reiakha makes neighbor 5781 together, we, your rabbis and of our ancient Jewish wisdom: Even into the direct object of love, a verb. cantor, feel called as never before to when physical distance is essential, we refu’ah: healing. need human connection in order to heal. burdened by illness, separation from רְפּואָ ה Amar Rabbi Akiva Love, says the Netziv, can’t just be focus on .a thing we sit around and feel—it But how can we begin the process The Talmud contains a story that loved ones and fears for our future אָמַר רַ ּבִי עֲקִ יבָ א, Rabbi Akiva said: demands action and can only be of healing body or spirit when a vaccine illustrates this reality: But, perhaps, we can also experience a embodied in deeds. We don’t have has yet to be found, when we have Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai was known newfound humility, an awareness of the V’ahavta l’reiakha kamocha, love—we do love. It happens when still not returned to life as we knew for his healing powers. Visiting another sanctity of all life. Each of us matters and we reach out to another, whether it and the full ripple effect of this rabbi who was ill, Rabbi Yohanan would every moment of health and even illness וְאָהַבְּתָלְרֵ עֲָךּכָ מֹוָך “‘You should love your neighbor family, friend, acquaintance or pandemic continues to unfold before speak with him, extend his hand and is a gateway to holiness, for our tradition as yourself.’ stranger. When we sit quietly and our eyes? What wisdom might our raise up his suffering friend. But one day, teaches that G-d’s very presence hovers listen to the concerns of another or tradition have to offer? Yohanan ben Zakkai became sick and above the head of the one who is ill. Zeh klal gadol ba’Torah we donate or deliver food from the First and foremost, Judaism teaches was visited by Rabbi Hanina.
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