The High Holidays & Fall Program Catalog 5780 / 5781
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The Pharisee Underwritten by a generous grant from the TBH-BE Sisterhood. VOLUME 63 • NUMBER 1 SEPTEMBER 2020 ELUL-TISHRI 5780-81 The High Holidays & Fall Program Catalog 5780 / 5781 שָׁ נָׁהטוֹבָׁה ּומְתּוקָׁ ה A Good & Sweet Year 1001 Remington Road | Wynnewood, Pennsylvania | www.tbhbe.org 1 From the President Joel Freedman generation of members – from the all of our parents down to the youngest congregants preschoolers. to join us in לדור ודור our celebrations of the holidays. Even though we will not all be As synagogue president, I have had together in person, we will e are all familiar with the W the pleasure of attending many of definitely be together in spirit as we Hebrew phrase L’dor V’dor, the varied activities that take place continue to follow the teachings of commonly translated as “from in our shul. My Shabbat’s have L’dor V’dor - both from older to generation to generation”. been enriched by my visits to Tot younger and younger to older. Traditionally, this refers to the Shabbat and the Oreo Minyan. I responsibility of passing on have celebrated the religious school spiritual knowledge and culture opening day with our families, the from one generation to the next – ECC Back to School Picnic and L’shanah tovah grandparents and parents to even had a brief stint as a dodgeball children and grandchildren. We referee. In each interaction, I have tikateivu recite these words during the Bar/ learned much from our younger Bat Mitzvah ceremony and in the families. The young adults and v’teichateimu Kedushah. The importance placed children have given me a positive on this idea is one of the reasons for outlook for the future of our the survival of the Jewish people community. It is the beauty of our לשנה טובה and our traditions. multi-generational atmosphere that has opened up my eyes to how our traditions are being learned, תכתבו ותחתמו The traditional meaning of L’dor understood and applied in this new V’dor has applied to most of my world. adult life: Sharon and I have strived to pass along our beliefs and traditions to Alex and Dylan. I know it has been hard to interact However, as they have grown older, with anyone over the past five it has been amazing to see how months and we are not sure when much they continue to teach us we will be able to congregate about Judaism, about the world and together again. Once we are back in about ourselves. My time at Temple our building, please take the Beth Hillel – Beth El has led to opportunity to look around and similar experiences. Yes, I have watch how joyful our young people learned so much from our more are at services and other events. seasoned members, incorporating Continue to set an example for the many traditions that I have gathered next generation, while also being from our shul into my own life. But open to learning from them. what has really made the difference for me is what I have learned from those younger than I – our next As we look to the new year, I invite 2 From the Rabbi’s Study Rabbi Neil S. Cooper Conservative Movement to create Community? what would become the Today, we are Beyond the Virtual Reconstructionist Movement. dependent on Raised in an Orthodox home in Zoom and Livestream Community and Europe, Kaplan also served for technologies. Since the strict many years as the rabbi of guidelines due to the pandemic Social Distancing: Kehillath Jeshurun, an Orthodox have been in place, services, Congregation in New York. But classes, and meetings appear his ideas about the role, purpose, online. Attendance has a new Thoughts as we and mandate of synagogues in meaning. Involvement looks today American Society were anything much different than it did last year approach the High but Orthodox. He articulated the at this time. Holidays vision of synagogues as Jewish Today, we are personally isolated, Community Centers, the focus of leaving our homes only when Jewish culture, art, and social necessary, maintaining safe interaction. For Orthodox distances between us when we synagogues, which saw synagogues Mordechai Kaplan was a great interact, fastidious about primarily as houses of worship, cleanliness and consumed by the thinker, educator, and force for Kaplan’s vision of a more frightening possibility of progressive new ideas in the expansive center for Jewish Life contracting or conveying this American Jewish Community for was radical and dangerous. Today, dangerous virus. With these and nearly the entire twentieth century. however, those ideas are not only other differences, can we still call Kaplan taught at the Jewish embraced within the Orthodox ourselves a community? My Theological Seminary (JTS) and world, but Kaplan’s ideas about the answer is an emphatic yes. My served as Dean of the newly notion of the Jewish Community guess is that Kaplan would created Teachers Institute at JTS and synagogue life continue to embrace and extol the virtues of the for 5 decades. He was a prolific challenge, to motivate change and new face of the American Jewish writer and influential figure to inspire. Community. beginning in the early 20th century Of late, I have wondered what Although we gather differently, we and continuing until the day he Rabbi Mordechai Kaplan would still gather. Although we maintain died, at age 103. Despite the say about today’s American Jewish contributions he made to the safe distances from one another, we Community, a community which still enjoy each other’s company. American Jewish Community has changed significantly from through his work at JTS, it was his Although our desire for physical what it was during Kaplan’s time. proximity remains, we have used personal philosophy of Judaism Over the last six months, we have which distinguished him and put the latest technology to provide us seen a radical transformation of the with the “Facetime” that we crave. him at odds with the faculty of JTS. American Jewish Community, His new ideas were expressed in made necessary by COVID 19. For many months, we have his major philosophical work, Specifically, how would Kaplan planned, discussed, and debated the Judaism as a Civilization (1934). assess today’s re-structured and re- question of how best to run our Eventually, he broke away from the defined American Jewish High Holiday services. We have 3 been working to organize the wide It is real. It is substantive. It is participation will be via Zoom. range of options for you and your thriving. Whether attending remotely or in children, without compromising the And more: the distance we person, regardless of the distance meaning, message, and quality you maintain between us is not an you preserve between you and the have come to expect from our example of social distancing. As a person next to you, you will still services. community, we are as close as ever feel the warmth, support and pull of Most important, however, when we to each other. The distance we our community. You will still feel gather for the High Holidays, we provide is physical, not spiritual, the friendship and embrace of those renew our connections with old and not social. from whom we maintain a physical distance. friends, we wish our neighbors a High Holiday services will, no “Shanah Tovah,” and we discuss doubt, be different in some ways This year, the High Holidays, the rabbi’s sermons (with varying from those you and I have though somewhat different in degrees of approval!). I expect all experienced for many decades. The appearance and execution, aspire to these familiar aspects of the High crowded parking lot, the full similar goals for our services: to Holidays will be the same this year sanctuary, the formal recitation of inspire, to uplift and to motivate. I as they have been in the past. The prayers by the Cantor and his Choir think that Mordechai Kaplan would community which gathers will, this year, be modified a bit. heartily approve. electronically, our remote Our services will be shorter, and community, is anything but virtual. 4 From our Rabbinic Intern Noam Kornsgold of the High Holidays. In reflecting upon the High Holidays, this year Whether it be in particular I am struck by the in-person or Meet Our image of the shofar’s blast. “Blast,” virtual, I am excited to meet you Rabbinic Intern! however, is a bit of a misnomer. over the next year. As we welcome Although we are most familiar with in the Jewish New Year of 5781, I (and excited for) the tekiah pray that we heed the call of the gedolah, the long shofar blast, the shofar, gathering in many forms in fact is that we interact the most our collective hesitation, looking Hello folks! My name is Noam with the shorter, broken blasts of towards and building a world of Kornsgold, and I am thrilled to be the shevarim (three medium notes) which we can be proud. your Rabbinic Intern for the and the teruah (nine staccato upcoming year! Over the next ten notes). In the Babylonian Talmud months, I look forward to being (Rosh Hashanah 33b), we learn that part of your community, learning the origins of these sounds come with and from you, and cultivating from the mother of Sisera, the relationships across the various wicked Canaanite general who demographics of TBH-BE. appears in the Book of Judges. As Sisera’s mother waited patiently for As the beginning of my internship her son to return home, she quickly is fast approaching, I wanted to turned to worrying and sobbing, share a few details about myself.