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THE TEMPLE A Monthly Newsletter of The Templ e -Tifereth Israel Beachwood, Ohio August 2019 THE TEMPL E Tammu z/ Av 5779 TIFERET H ISRAEL THE AUGUST ISSUE OF THE TEMPLE TIMES IS MADE POSSIBLE BY THE SARA R. & W ILBERT J. L EVIN MEMORIAL FUND IN HONOR OF THE BIRTHDAY OF WILBERT J. L EVIN OF BLESSED MEMORY . Congregational tiPmicneics Join us on Saturday, August 24 Family Activities - 4:00 PM • Dinner - 5:00 PM • Rock My Havdalah Service - 6:00 PM Join our Temple family as we celebr ate summer! Games, art projects, bounce house, facepainting, great food, fun and much, much more! Dinner cost: Adults $10 each; Children $5 each Reservations and payments can be made online at http://bit.ly/ttticongregationalpicnic or contact Allison Shippy at 216.455.1703 or email [email protected]. Please RSVP by Tuesday, August 20 Let’s grab this opportunity to come together to spend time with family and friends and maybe even meet some new ones. Let’s turn The Temple Picnic into The Temple’s Family and Friend’s Friends Picnic . The idea is to get our friends and your friends together. You come to the picnic and invite your friends and they invite their friends and so on ... and before we know, there will be lots of friends, new and old, joining in the fun. The Temple Picnic is a great way to bring the family together for some quality time, of course while enjoying the good company and all the yummy food! The cost of the picnic is only $10 per adult and $5 for kids. How - ever, if you think that any of your friends might be interested in becoming a part of The Temple family, you can invite them as our guests. Just provide us their contact information and we’ll do the rest. At 6:00 PM , following family activities and dinner, we will experience a special Rock My Havdalah together. This special service marks the end of Shabbat and the transition back into “everyday time.” For younger children, Havdalah is a memorable send-off to the week, with flames and spices still dancing in their heads. For the rest of us, it’s something else: a lovely mini-ritual that often gives a quick injection of energy with which to start the week. You can make your reservations and payments online or contact Allison Shippy at 216.455.1703 or email [email protected]. To include your friends in the fun, make sure you add their names and contact information, in the special box on your online picnic reservation form. In conjunction with The Temple’s Social Action Committee, please bring a pair of new socks to be donated to the Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless. THE TEMPL E -TIFERETH ISRAEL page 2 SHABBAT SERVICES MAZEL TOV TO OUR B’NAI MITZVAH FRIDAY , AUGUST 2 Lizabeth “Lizzie” Jani Walsh Kabbalat Shabbat - 6:00 PM Torah Portion: Mattot/Massei; Saturday, August 10 at 4:30 PM Numbers 30:2-36:13, Numbers 33:1-36:13 Lizzie is the daughter of Alisa and Jonathan Walsh. If you are celebrating a birthday or anniversary this month, please join us on this Shabbat to She is a student at Solon Middle School. Lizzie is be called to the bimah for a special blessing! volunteering with the Broadway Buddies musical ________________________________ theatre camp for her Mitzvah Project. As a volunteer FRIDAY , AUGUST 9 for this group of kids and adults with special needs, Lizzie will assist with camp activities such as acting, Kabbalat Shabbat - 6:00 PM Torah Portion: Devarim; Deut. 1:1-3:22 singing, swimming and arts & crafts. Festive Summer TGIS - 7:30 PM In our outdoor chapel if weather permits Mikayla Rose Goldman SATURDAY , AUGUST 10 Saturday, August 31 at 11:00 AM Shabbat Service - 4:30 PM ________________________________ Mikayla is the daughter of Debbie and Mitch Goldman. She attends the Joseph and Florence FRIDAY , AUGUST 16 Mandel Jewish Day School. For her Mitzvah Project, Pre-Oneg - 5:15 PM Mikayla will be donating school supplies to the Sponsored by Temple Women’s Association Thomas Jefferson International Newcomers Academy. Kabbalat Shabbat - 6:00 PM Torah Portion: Va'etchanan; Deut. 3:23-7:11 ________________________________ Jacob Declan Gearity FRIDAY , AUGUST 23 Kabbalat Shabbat - 6:00 PM Saturday, August 31 at 4:30 PM Torah Portion: Ekev; Deut. 7:12-11:25 Jacob is the son of Scott Gearity and Susan Moskowitz. He is a student at Shaker Middle School. For his SATURDAY , AUGUST 24 Mitzvah Project, Jacob is volunteering at the Greater Rock My Havdalah - 6:00 PM ________________________________ Cleveland Food Bank. FRIDAY , AUGUST 30 Kabbalat Shabbat - 6:00 PM Torah Portion: Re’eh; Deut. 11:26-16:17 SATURDAY , AUGUST 31 ADULT Shabbat Services - 11:00 AM & 4:30 PM ________________________________ B’NAI MITZVAH THERE WILL BE NO TORAH STUDY SESSIONS IN AUGUST PROGRAM LED BY CANTOR KATHY SEBO DO YOU LOVE Are you ready for one of the great thrills of Jewish life? MAKING SOUP? Have you always wanted to become a Bar or Bat Mitzvah? We are scheduling cooks for The Temple will honor our next cohort of Adult B’nai Mitzvah our Soup-er Onegs which will in a special Shabbat service on Friday evening, May 1, 2020. start up again in a couple of months. If you would like to Save the date for an Informational Meeting share your favorite soup Wednesday, September 4 at 7:00 PM with our congregational To reserve your spot in the 2020 Adult B’nai Mitzvah class, family, please contact Chris Fox at please contact Cyndi Wilson at [email protected] or call So up-er 216.455.1720 216.455.1695. Oneg or email [email protected]. WE HOPE YOU WILL JOIN US ON THIS MEANINGFUL JOURNEY. WWW.TTTI.ORG page 3 FROM THE RABBI’S STUDY CONSCIENCE AND COMPASSION The first paragraph on the front page of today’s New York Times (July 3, 2019) hit me hard: “Over - crowded, squalid conditions are more widespread at migrant centers along the southern border than initially revealed, the Department of Homeland Security’s independent watchdog said Tuesday. Its report describes standing-room-only cells, children without showers and hot meals, and detainees clamoring desperately for release.” What kind of country are we if we allow this sort of thing to happen? What kind of people are we if we do not stand up against inhumane harshness, against the gratuitous cruelty which we are now witnessing? Nancy Pelosi puts the matter starkly: “The inhumanity at the border is a challenge to the conscience of America.” It is more than clear to me that our Jewish tradition stands firmly against this kind of thing even as it also stands for the rule of law and the need for regular processes. It is significant that the Torah commands humane treatment of the stranger more than thirty-six times for that very fact suggests both a recognition of our instincts and a plea to transcend them. The stranger, after all, can be frightening to us. What strange, even hostile, ideas, attitudes and actions might the stranger bring to our shores? How might large numbers of strangers begin to alter our sense of who we are as a country? And so we are admonished, over and over again, not “to wrong the stranger,” at first, on the principle of empathy… “for you were strangers in the land of Egypt” (Exodus 22:20) and “You know the feelings of the stranger” (Exodus 23:9). And then the foundation is extended to a central postulate of the very first chapter of the Bible which declares that human beings have an inherent dignity by virtue of the fact that all of us come into the world already “made in the image of G-d.” And more: calling upon the Bible’s fundamental “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” long interpreted by our tradition as respect: “You shall respect, give weight, to your neighbor as you give respect to yourself and want others to give respect to you.” Moreover, in the hands of Hillel, this concern is elevated to the very pinnacle of biblical ethics: “What is repugnant to you, do not do to your fellow human beings. All the rest is commentary.” “All the rest is commentary” implies that all of Judaism, all the ways by which we extend the meaning and reach of Judaism, can be seen as expansions of the fundamental idea that we must treat the other, whether family or friend or neighbor or stranger, with the dignity he or she inherently deserves. In addition, the rabbis point to the biblical conviction that we are all descendants of one pair of ancestors to mean that all humanity is one family, one group of brothers and sisters. Deep down and despite all our differences, some off-putting, some even frightening, we are all connected with one another by mutual obligation. Here, as Rabbi Gerson Cohen summarizes it, genealogy is transformed into a moral message. Indeed, human life is precarious and our brothers and sisters at our southern border have experienced, and are now experiencing, the perils that nature, governments and other human beings can bring to fragile humanity. And we must protect the fragile. Mine is not a plea for open borders and passage without process and regulation. Mine is a plea for conscience and compassion as guides to the way we treat one another, especially the vulnerable strangers in our midst. We cannot sit back and accept the current situation.

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