B’nai Jacob BulletinMarch/April 2020 • Adar/Nisan/Iyar 5780 Don’t Miss The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. Buy your tickets today to reserve your seat at the Bee!! How do you spell F-A-B-U-L-O-U-S? Congregation B’nai Winner of the Tony and the Drama Desk Awards for Jacob’s award-winning theater company, The B’nai Jacob Best Book, this musical comedy about a fictional spelling Players is proud to present The 25th Annual Putnam bee set at the Putnam Valley County Middle School has County Spelling Bee--a wonderful evening of dinner & charmed audiences with its effortless wit and humor. musical theatre on Saturday, April 4, 2020. In addition to a Don’t miss this chance to revisit your own middle school truly fun show you will be treated to a retro dinner that will memories. take you right back to your middle school cafeteria. To purchase tickets (adults $54, children $36) for Saturday CBJ’s own Cantor Malachi Kanfer (Musical Director) along night April 4th, use the order form on page 7 or visit with Cindy Gerber and Susan Jacobs (Co-Directors/cast) bnaijacob.org. Or join us for the Preview Performance (no lead an amazing cast of multiage performers who portray dinner) on Thursday, April 2nd for a suggested minimum quirky middle school spelling bee contestants. donation of $18/ticket. You can further support BJ players with an ad for your favorite thespian/s in the playbill! The B’nai Jacob Players Sponsorship opportunities are also available and greatly include veterans David appreciated. Mindell, David Reis and Harry Schwartz, Questions? Please contact the B’nai Jacob office or our along with newbies producers, Amy Mindell, Miriam Sivkin and Ros Sperling, L. Faith Miller, Andy at [email protected]. See you at the Bee! Dows and Dawn Kopel. Rounding out the cast is Stacey Battat, the See more information and ticket/sponsorship incomparable Cantor order form on page 7, or visit our website, Malachi Kanfer, and a wonderful chorus of spellers. bnaijacob.org, for online purchases. Religious Services • March & April 2020 Shabbat Zachor Candlelighting 5:31pm Congregation B’nai Jacob Fri Mar 6 6:30pm Kabbalat Shabbat Service Sat Mar 7 9:45am Shabbat Morning Service Rona Shapiro Rabbi Malachi Kanfer Cantor Lynn Ginzberg Office Manager Shabbat Parah Candlelighting 6:39m Malachi Kanfer RS Education Director Fri Mar 13 6:30pm Kabbalat Shabbat Service Lynn Ginzberg Communications Director Sat Mar 14 9:45am Shabbat Morning Service and RS Administrative Director Joshua Konigsberg Cantor Emeritus Shabbat Hachodesh Candlelighting 6:46pm Fri Mar 20 6:30pm Kabbalat Shabbat Service Officers Sat Mar 21 9:45am Shabbat Morning Service Glenn A. Duhl President Lauren Miller 1st Vice President Abby Silbert 2nd Vice President Candlelighting 6:54pm Shabbat Vayikra Ros Sperling Treasurer Fri Mar 27 6:30pm Kabbalat Shabbat Service Roz Atkins Secretary Sat Mar 28 9:00am Shir Hadash 10:00am Torah Service The complete list of the Board of Directors and committee chairs can be found on our website. Shabbat Gadol Candlelighting 7:01pm Fri Apr 3 6:30pm Kabbalat Shabbat Service Sat Apr 4 9:45am Shabbat Morning Service Shabbat Hol Hamoed Pesach Candlelighting 7:09pm Fri Apr 10 6:30pm Kabbalat Shabbat Service Sat Apr 11 9:45am Shabbat Morning Service Shabbat Shemini Candlelighting 7:17pm Fri Apr 17 6:30pm Kabbalat Shabbat Service CONGREGATION B’NAI JACOB (USPS 128-600) Sat Apr 18 9:45am Shabbat Morning Service is published bimonthly for $1.00 per year by Con- gregation B’nai Jacob, 75 Rimmon Road, Wood- bridge, CT 06525-2098. Periodical postage paid at New Haven, CT. Shabbat Tazria-Metzora Candlelighting 7:24pm Fri Apr 24 6:30pm Kabbalat Shabbat Service Subscription: $1.00 per annum Bulletin Permit Number: 128600 Sat Apr 25 9:00am Shir Hadash Circulation: 400 10:00am Torah Service Lynn Ginzberg Bulletin Editor Congregation B’nai Jacob 75 Rimmon Road Woodbridge, CT 06525 Telephone • 203-389-2111 Fax • 203-389-5293 www.bnaijacob.org [email protected] Daily Minyan Services Monday - Saturday 7:45am Sunday 9:00am Saturday Afternoon 1:00pm Sunday - Friday 6:00pm Every Shabbat: National Holidays Times vary Fridays 6:00pm Shabbat Schmooze - Welcome Shabbat with wine & cheese Saturdays 9:00am Bread & Torah - Discuss weekly Torah portion with Rabbi Shapiro over bagels & coffee 2 From the Rabbi Rabbi Rona Shapiro After the destruction of the Temple by So in reality, Maxwell House is its the Romans in the year 70CE, Rabban generation’s riff on a story that has been Gamliel, the second head of the Sanhedrin, in the process of being written for over essentially created the seder as we know 2000 years. The invitation to us, if we it. Do you remember him from your want to be traditional, is to do what our haggadah? He is the one who says, if you ancestors did – add our voices to the have not discussed these three things, you chorus of the past! A seder is and always have not fulfilled the mitzvah of seder. has been like a jazz composition – a new The three things are matzah and maror, riff on an old theme. A Traditional Seder: Is Tradition which you eat, and Pesach, the lamb, What We Think It Is? or shankbone, which you no longer eat Many years ago, at a seder in my home but which symbolizes the Passover lamb in Berkeley, the question was asked, Several years ago, I wrote an article sacrificed at the Temple. In other words, “Why do we have an orange on the about tips for a successful Passover he maintains the symbols of Passover seder plate?” A four-year old guest seder. A congregant whom I love dearly as practiced in the Temple but shifts the responded in all innocence, “Because and respect greatly later said to me, context – now the mitzvah of seder is it is traditional.” She had never seen a “You know I talked to the kids and we not eating your lamb, but talking about seder plate without one – hence, it was all agreed that we like just doing the these three central symbols! Now it need tradition. Tradition is not and has never traditional thing. We are sticking to not take place in Jerusalem but rather been written in stone. Tradition is a Maxwell House.” wherever Jews gather to celebrate! Now the highly flexible concept that allows us to High Priest is not the officiant – you are! recreate the traditions of our ancestors Although I suspect many people feel Each of us becomes our own high priest, in radical ways, just as Rabban Gamliel, similarly, there is delicious irony in his every table becomes its own altar. the creator of the seder did, and call it statement. After all, the Maxwell House Tradition! Haggadah was first published in 1933 by If you are thinking this is a radical the Joseph Jacobs Advertising Agency. transformation, you are right! And yet, by I bless you all to have seders steeped in While its publication made Maxwell maintaining continuity with the symbols tradition this Pesach! House a household name with Jewish of old, Rabban Gamliel enabled Jews to families, it was, in actuality a clever feel that they were preserving their past as Passover begins this year on Wednesday marketing strategy by Maxwell House to much as they were taking a giant leap into night, April 8 and concludes at nightfall convince Jews that coffee was kosher for the future. on April 16. Sell hametz by Wednesday Passover. They hired an Orthodox rabbi morning, April 8, at 9am. who asserted, correctly, that a coffee bean So, where did the haggadah come from? was not a legume and hence kosher for Other parts of the seder date back to the Passover. In any case, despite the myriad time of Rabban Gamliel. But, in reality, wine stains on all of our Maxwell House every generation has added its own words Haggadot, it hardly dates back to Sinai. and traditions to the seder. Opening the door for Elijah is a medieval custom. So is So, where does the haggadah come from? Dayenu and Had Gadya. In fact, I am the Well, definitely not from Sinai because proud owner of a copy of the “Polychrome the tradition of seder as we know it dates Haggadah” which designates the time to the first century CE. Allow me a little period in which each section of the history lesson. If you were a Jew who haggadah comes to us by its color. As you lived when the Temple stood, Passover may have guessed by now, it is a rainbow! meant that you and your family went up to Jerusalem with a lamb and offered it as a sacrifice at the Temple. Your lamb was roasted on the altar and then you ate it together with matzah and maror as a family. Were there special words you said? Probably. Did you recline and ask the four questions? Definitely not. 3 From the President Glenn A. Duhl Spring into Laughter Following the fun and frolic of Purim and then April Fool’s Day, I invite each of you to join our congregation at the When we were younger, we laughed far more frequently. As April 2 Preview Performance and April 4 Opening Night adults, life has become more complicated and serious; laughter Dinner Theater performance of the BJ Players presentation is less frequently enjoyed. By spending a few hours with your of the musical comedy “The 25th Annual Putnam County BJ community in which you will enjoy an opportunity for Spelling Bee.” I do not just invite you – I invite you to bring humor and laughter, you will improve your emotional health, as many family, friends and other guests as you can to fill strengthen your relationships, find greater happiness—and add up our auditorium for this masterpiece.