Beth Chaverim Humanistic Jewish Community
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Volume 15 Issue 3 Winter 2016 Beth Chaverim Humanistic Jewish Community Upcoming Events Dedicating Ourselves to Bringing Light to the World No Sunday School This year marks an unusual event as Let each of us work to achieve December 18, 25 & January 1 Chanukah begins on Christmas Eve and reconciliation and understanding with then lasts until New Year’s Day. It is a (Winter Break) those with whom we differ; let us truly merger on the calendar of two religious listen to the concerns and hurts of traditions. But what if it were more than those with whom we disagree; and let Chanukah a calendar oddity? What if the us extend a helping hand to those less December 24-January 1 intersection of these holidays helped fortunate than we are. bridge the divides between people Adult Education based on religion, or on race, or on gender? What if these two holidays For you see, Chanukah is also known Bible Study coming at a time when actual light in as the Festival of Lights. It annually December 14 , 2:00pm the world is at its minimum could comes at or near the winter solstice January 18 , 2:00pm instead be used to maximum the light when the days are shorter and light is February 15 , 2:00pm needed in the world? Imagine the at a premium. When the tradition of Barnes & Noble, Deerfield enormous force for good that could lighting candles began, a debate arose usher in the secular new year of 2017 if between the two great schools of Book Club we each committed ourselves to Jewish thought. Should we start with January 9 bringing the messages of freedom, eight and count down to one, lighting one less each night? Or should we February 7 peace and understanding each day going forward. start with one and increase each night February 27 by lighting an additional candle? The April 17 custom that prevailed was the latter The word Chanukah means as it was thought to increase our joy Watch Party & “dedication.” It derives from the and celebration. Clearly that is the Falafel Dinner holiday’s origins when the Temple in case. But of even greater importance, Jerusalem was re-dedicated after the it increases the light in our homes, in Netflix Showing of “Fauda”, an award Maccabean war against the Assyrian our hearts and thereby in the world winning Israeli drama Greeks to retake the Temple. It was a with each additional candle. Our Saturday, February 4 battle for religious freedom; and though dedication to acts of kindness and we treasure that essential value, we are 6:00pm acts of generosity brightens our world. probably more philosophically aligned Let us merge not only the holidays this The Rusnak Home with the Hellenistic Jews who were season but let us merge the two acculturated in Greek ways than with Tu B’Shevat Seder understandings of Chanukah. Let the Maccabees. We of course think of Sunday, February 12 each of us dedicate ourselves to Chanukah as an eight-day holiday with bringing light into the world. 9:30am the rituals of lighting a chanukiah (the The Center for Enriched Living eight branched menorah) each night, eating latkes or potato pancakes until Wishing you a joyous holiday and a we are sated, and in a nod to our own very happy secular new year, acculturation, giving gifts. But if we return to the meaning of the word, let B’shalom, us try to dedicate ourselves to good works and acts of lovingkindess in the coming year. Let us try to heal the Rabbi wounds and salve the scars wrought by a long and arduous political year. PAGE 2 From The Steering Committee Dear Friends, It was a glorious late summer Saturday at the close of a Farmer’s Market. The rain passed through, and vendors packed up early. A gathering of people with empty bags formed at the table where the farmers and bakers had begun depositing donated items that had gone unsold. As the small group descended upon the table at the appointed hour, it was the eager face of one preteen boy whose image stayed with me as he tore into the bread his mother passed along to him while she packed her bag with fruit. Whether his appetite reflected an empty stomach plagued by chronic hunger or if it was more of the bottomless pit variety seen in many growing boys wasn’t really my business. That we, as part of the Beth Chaverim Humanistic Jewish Community might have played whatever small part in bringing comfort to even one person, made our work worthwhile. Our participation within the Beth Chaverim community allows us the honor to shine light on the dignity of each person while we individually and collectively try to make the world a better place. This ‘gleanings’ project, a newer undertaking for us working as part of a larger group of Deerfield faith-based organizations, allowed Beth Chaverim members over several Saturdays this past summer to distribute excess produce to low-income families and elderly residents. This year several of our innovative members also created a giving board which they displayed at the High Holidays to allow more people to become active participants in the PADS program. Through this cooperative effort, the year’s first PADS breakfast cooked by the Beth Chaverim Sunday School students and teachers was delivered in October, followed by our delivery in November to First Presbyterian Church of Deerfield. The PADS shelter there serves about 1,000 people each year. Our community is so fortunate to be able to help out in a time when the world needs our actions, our encouragements and all our good intentions. If the past several weeks taught us anything, it would be that the way we see our world can change overnight. In a year where a Cubs fan can see her team win the World Series and where a billionaire who never ran for or held public office can ascend to the highest public position in the land, anything is possible. We celebrate the good, and we commiserate the bad. Then we do whatever it is we do, and we get back to work. We keep paying attention to life. The craziness is that what is considered good and what is considered bad depends upon whether you are a Cubs fan or an Indians follower, a supporter of one candidate or a believer in the other. One of my favorite things about Beth Chaverim is that it offers us all - together - the opportunity to see the larger world and our tiny apartment-like view through an expanded lens that shifts between wide and narrow angles. Nowhere does this become more apparent than in the Beth Chaverim Book Club where new perspectives alter fundamental qualities in how one considers a wider view. Our group has devoured books that reveal the breadth and depth and width of real differences and varying interpretations. Beth Chaverim Steering Committee Members President : Deb Rusnak Past President: Robin Chessick Treasurer: David Kantor Members At Large: Vivian Kramer Carolyn Lewis Dan Lewis Secretary: Steve Rusnak Laurie Matlin Sue Pinkus Alan Solid PAGE 3 From The Steering Committee We learned about Jews in the slums of the Dominican Republic (Forgiving Mariela Camacho by A.J. Sidransky) and about Yemeni Jews in the early twentieth century (Henna House by Nomi Eve). We discussed Israelis and the IDF from a female perspective (The People of Forever Are Not Afraid by Israeli author Shani Boianjiu) and how Jewish life on the tropical island of St. Thomas in the early 1800s influenced the painter Camille Pissarro (A Marriage of Opposites by Alice Hoffman). By the time you read this, we will have taken on the subject of Steven Spielberg’s next movie, The Kidnapping Of Edgardo Mortara, based on the book by Pulitzer Prize-winner David Kertzer who retells the story of the seizure of a Jewish boy from his family by Papal States in the 1850s. As much as we love learning the subject matter, we are even more privileged to experience a bit of personal camaraderie, of civil discourse and of connection. There was even one night late last summer when the anticipated book discussion was scrapped in order to make way for life’s more pressing concerns when unexpected surprises trod intrusively into our group - a serious car accident in St. Louis the week before, a daughter hospitalized with a mysterious virus in Chicago that day, an urgent phone call regarding an elderly relative who had an ambulance called to their home. On that night, it turns out, we gathered together for what we thought was a book but was really for each other, glad that we had some larger perspective of time and space to understand that life can be simultaneously brutal and beautiful and yet, all would still be OK. History shows us again and again that we will have opportunities to choose how to interpret any situation and what we will do with that understanding: choosing to engage or to speak out, to contribute or to turn a blind eye, to extend a hand or to invite someone on the outside into our circle. For today, I would like to invite any of you into our readers’ circle. The books we are discussing in the upcoming months are listed in this newsletter, and all are welcome. If you are a viewer instead, perhaps you can connect with many in our group who will gather in early February to watch an Israeli political thriller television series that is sure to educate, entertain, and instigate conversations (see more information inside of this newsletter).