JANUARY, FEBRUARY 2013 TEVET, SH’VAT, ADAR 5773 UPCOMING CLASSES and EVENTS JANUARY FEBRUARY Learning in Chevruta, 7:30 pm every Wednesday Learning in Chevruta, 7:30 pm every Wednesday 8 CSA, from 7 - 9 pm 4 and 25 Peoplehood with Rabbi Elkin, 7 - 9 pm 12 Liturgy Study with Rabbi Shekel, 9:45 am 5 CSA, from 5 - 7 pm Post Kiddush with Mordechai Drache 9 Liturgy Study with Rabbi Shekel, 9:45 am 14, 21 and 28 Peoplehood with Rabbi Elkin, 7 - 9 pm Post Kiddush with Yaniv Feller 17 Film “Sister Kay”, 7:30 pm 17 Hamantaschen Bake and Purim Toy Drive, 11 am 22 CSA, from 5 - 7 pm 23 Post Kiddush with Cliff Orwin 25 Shabbat Dinner / Tu B’Shvat Seder 7:15 pm Purim: Shpiel, Megilah reading & Carnival from 7 pm 26 Post Kiddush Zmirathon - Shabbat Shira 24 Purim: Shacharit and Megilah reading, 9 am FIRST NARAYEVER CONGREGATION 187 Brunswick Avenue, Toronto, Ontario M5S 2M4 Phone: 416.927.0546 Fax: 416.927.0486 email: [email protected] website: www.narayever.ca NARAYEVER NEWS PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE The Heart of the Matter safe in adult care? Might it be that they know that the older kids are being taught by our paid youth coordinators I am writing this in mid-December. Today I received four and some of those kids will be future leaders in their letters mailed to me by charities and a letter advertising a synagogues? Or are they aware that a troubled congregant gift book on cosmology. The annual year end deluge by may be spending private counselling time with the rabbi charities appealing for donations is well under way. I threw and thereby possibly changing their life forever? How do out the four letters from the charities, unopened. They they feel in their hearts when they see a were all no doubt promoting worthy middle aged woman nervously but proudly causes. I opened the cosmology envelope on the bimah working through her first and read every word. What compelled me aliya? to do that? I am passionate in my interest in the universe and my place in it. When I Our shul, our community, joins the long line look up to the dark sky and contemplate of charitable institutions with their hands the Milky Way I am transfixed. It speaks to out asking to share some of our hard-earned my soul. It reaches to the core of who I am. dollars, assuring its survival. With over 85,000 registered Canadian charities out I believe that we humans are made up of there you chose to give to the Narayever. three components that inform how we What is it about the shul that strikes an interact with the world: our mind, heart emotional chord for you? What is it about and soul. I made a decision to throw out the letters. That our shul that keeps you coming back? Do you have a was my rational mind acting. I became angry at those special, personal story to tell that changed your feeling appeals. That was my emotional heart feeling one of four about the shul? Do you remember the first time you key emotions (happiness, sadness, fear, and anger). But visited the Narayever? Did that visit have a special my excitement and passion reading about the cosmos, resonance for you? that was my soul rejoicing. There may be specific reasons for giving a donation, such When I am sitting in my customary seat in the shul on as a yahrzeit, but why give to the shul? What does the shul Shabbat I get a good view of the congregation. At times I do for you that it deserves such an honour? On the other wonder what motivates us to be there. Are we there for a hand, if you do not donate, what is the feeling that specific reason (e.g. as a guest at a baby naming)? That is prevents you from doing so? When you begin to think our rational mind working. Is it because we feel happy and about donating, to feel and then to act, do you examine content being there (in our emotional heart)? Or are we why you are donating? Please do some introspection and there for deeper contemplation; a sense of being closer to then share with me, in confidence, how you feel. Share our creator (our soul dominates)? We are a diverse group your stories with me. Please e-mail at the Narayever and I am sure there are as many rational [email protected] or write a letter to me at the shul. reasons as there are people for being connected to the It's just between you and me. shul. Each Shabbat I make my announcements including thanking those who donated to the kiddush fund. I On behalf of the Narayever Board at this special time of wonder what motivated that diverse group of people to year I wish you all a happy and healthy secular New Year. give. Could it be to help pay for the weekly Shabbat babysitting service which frees parents to attend services Joel Edelson upstairs knowing their tots are having a good time while [email protected] 2 JANUARY, FEBRUARY 2013 TEVET, SH’VAT, ADAR 5773 NARAYEVER NEWS RRAABBBBII’’SS MMEESSSSAAGGEE Dear Friends, Israelis go to the polls in January. The leaders they choose will face impossible decisions about how to deal with The late Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai wrote: “My son was Hamas, how to deal with Iran, how to respond to the drafted. We visited him at the army base, in the desert, the chaos in Syria and Egypt, what to do about negotiations desolation that tents with their ropes and tent-pegs try to with the Palestinians, and about Jewish settlements. make us forget. The whitewashed stones along the path so blinding white-hot I covered my eyes like a Jewish woman Most of us here in the Diaspora have opinions about these lighting the Sabbath candles. issues, because we care deeply about Israel. We are entitled to our opinions, but we of course I sat down on a stone near an empty can, don't vote. That privilege and weighty and the music of the wind in that empty responsibility belongs to the citizens of can was all that had ever happened, all Israel alone. that ever would. From the distant sand dunes I heard scattered shots like a The Israel-Diaspora relationship is not only nervous, insistent thumbing through the about differences. There are also Book of Life and Death. commonalities, as Amichai’s images of the woman lighting Shabbat candles, and the My son’s barefoot steps when he was a Books of Life and Death, remind us. We baby were louder than his heavy boots in share a heritage, a tradition, and a covenant the fine mealy Negev sand. with Jews in Israel and around the world. I I want my son to be a soldier in the British army, guarding a devote my career to sustaining and nurturing that palace in the rain. A tall fur hat on his head, everyone common culture here in our corner of the Diaspora. When staring at him while, without moving a muscle, he is we meet Israelis, either here or there, it is always laughing inside.” comforting to find those commonalities that help us maintain our sense of kinship with each other as members I was drawn to this poem as part of my reflections on the of the same Jewish people. I write this column anticipating war between Israel and Hamas that took place in our first shul trip to Israel in nine years – and I’m looking November. The poem, and the war, highlight some of the forward to helping participants on that journey find some ways in which the experience of living in Israel is so very of those points of contact when we're there. I’m also different from our lives here in the Diaspora. Very few of us looking forward to teaching a course on Jewish know what it's like to see a child drafted into the army. We Peoplehood at our shul in January and February, in which visit our kids at university, not at an army base with shots we explore some of the similarities and differences being fired in the distance. The poet's desire for his son to together, and consider what really binds us together as a be a soldier in a different army, a safer army, in which the people when many of our experiences are so very challenges are not life and death – this is a desperate different – I hope you'll consider signing up and being part craving we in Canada can perhaps understand on an of the conversation. intellectual level, but it is not our reality. Let's not lose hope that the experience of our brothers Missiles and rockets being launched at our towns and cities and sisters in the land of Israel will be, like ours here in is also not our reality. The need to make excruciating Canada, one of peace with their neighbours. And let’s decisions about how to respond wisely and effectively and resolve to strengthen our understanding of each other, humanely to such attacks has also not been a part of our and our ties with each other, as a people with both a reality. It's not as if we don't have important societal issues precious homeland and a worldwide Diaspora. to deal with here in Canada.