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| Shalom Congregants and Friends.....
I hope your Passover sederim were enjoyable and fulfilling! To an extent greater than other holidays, Passover is clearly a family and home-centered experience! Service attendance was minimal, AND WE DIDN'T EVEN HAVE A MINYAN THE SECOND DAY. Hopefully Shabbat and the last days of the festival will be better! Iris and I shared in the community / congregational seder held at Tikvoh. It was attended by over 50 from the three congregations of Tikvoh, Beth Hillel, and B'nai Shalom. I enjoyed sharing organizing the seder with Rabbis Cantor and Landau!
This coming Shabbat is Shabbat HolHaMoed Pesach, the "Intermediate Days of the Holiday." Nothing special planned... just the opportunity to draw close to God through the vehicles of prayer and Torah Study. The last days of the holiday begin Sunday evening, with Yizkor Tuesday morning.
Do come to the special Brotherhood/Sister program Sunday AM. Where else can you go out for a delicious gourmet kosher l'Pesach breakfast and enjoy a great program as well!
The office will be closed Monday and Tuesday and will reopen Wednesday morning. Service schedule is below.
Remember: Lots of good books and current periodicals/magazines in the synagogue library. We have a copy of Ruth and Rabbi Lazowski's video, Faith and Destiny, in the library as well.
Lots of good synagogue programming coming up in May! Stay involved! Get involved!
Shabbat Shalom and a Joyous Passover....... Rabbi Gary and Iris Atkins
"All it takes to study Torah is an open heart,
a curious mind and a desire to grow a Jewish soul." |
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Shabbat Services & Candle Lighting Times
CANDLE LIGHTING Friday, April 22, NLT 7:19pm DST
SHABBAT SERVICE TIMES
Friday, April 22 8:00pm Saturday, April 23, 9:30am,
7:15pm Mincha/ Maariv/ Havdalah
There are congregants who need a ride to Friday evening services... if you want to help someone attend our worship... as well as doing a mitzvah, call Rabbi Atkins. |
Joke of the Week
The waters receded, the ark settled on dry land, and Noah told the animals to go out and multiply. They all did so gladly, except for a pair of snakes in the corner. Noah told them, "Didn't I tell you to go forth and multiply?" They replied, "We can't multiply; we're adders!"
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Passover Service Times 5771 - April 2011
HOL HAMOED SHABBAT FRI NIGHT 4/22 8PM
SHABBAT 4/23 9:30 AM / SHABBAT AFTERNOON 7:30 PM
SEVENTH DAY PESACH SUN EVE 4/24 7:30PM
SEVENTH DAY SHACHARIT MON AM 4/25 9:30AM
MINCHA/MAARIV 7:30PM
EIGHTH DAY TUES 4/26 SHAHARIT 9:30AM -
YIZKOR ~11:15AM
MINCHA/MAARIV 7:30PM
PESACH ENDS 8:20PM |
Congregational Announcements
THE ANNUAL SISTERHOOD TAG SALE IS COMING The storage room for accepting your donations is now open. Feel free to bring in your donations during synagogue hours!!
Yellow Candles.... Yom HaShoah
Our Brotherhood is now distributing yellow candles to remember those martyred in the Shoah. Pick up your candle at the office TODAY. Put the Community Remembranc e Service... Sunday, May 1, 7pm, on your calendar as well.
Membership Drive
Every member of Beth Hillel should consider himself/herself a member of the Membership Committee. Beth Hillel is hosting a prospective member Shabbat on May 6 --- know anyone we shlould invite? Contact the office or Norman Cohen, 860-242-1498, norman0112@comcast.net. |
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Social Action Updates
There are congregants who need a ride to Friday evening services... if you want to help someone attend our worship... as well as doing a mitzvah, call Rabbi Atkins.
DONATIONS OF FOOD ARE GREATLY NEEDED FOR THE KOSHER AND REGULAR FOOD BANKS!! PLEASE DONATE AT THE SYNAGOGUE NOW!! BUT PLEASE DON'T BRING HAMETZ INTO THE SYNAGOGUE OVER PASSOVER!!
It opened April 2 - Bloomfield Soup Kitchen.... Hosted at Bloomfield United Methodist Church
Coming.... May 1... Foodshare annual "Walk for Hunger." Sign up to join the team at:
http:/site.foodshare.org/goto/bethhillel
Be aware of those less fortunate than we are!! Carry out the mitzvah of tikkun olam!
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Upcoming Synagogue & (Selected) Community Events
APRIL 24 - SPECIAL BROTHERHOOD/SISTERHOOD BREAKFAST PRESENTATION... THE JUDY DWORIN DANCE PROGRAM TO HELP CHILDREN OF INCARCERATED PARENTS. AFTER 9AM MINYAN.
APRIL 28 - LUNCH AND LEARN (POSTPONED FROM THE PREVIOUS WEEK)
MAY 4, SISTERHOOD FASHION SHOW.... RESERVATIONS MUST BE MADE BY APRIL 27
MAY 9... RABBI'S SPRING ADULT EDUCATION CLASS... BRUCE FEILER, AMERICAN PROPHET: MOSES AND THE AMERICAN STORY . CONTINUES ON MAY 16 and 23.
SAVE THE DATE: BHS MAJOR FUNDRAISER: SUNDAY EVENING, MAY 15, COMEDY EVENING!! YOU'VE RECEIVED THE INFO.....MAKE YOUR RESERVATIONS NOW......
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Israel News
Editorial of The New York Sun | April 20, 2011
If Prime Minister Netanyahu ends up delivering a speech directly to a joint meeting of the United States Congress, well, let's just say it won't be the first time he made such a demarche to defuse tensions with an American administration. The prospect that the Israeli leader may make just such a speech is being reported this morning in the New York Times this evening. In July of 1996, in the thick of the tug of war over policy between Israel and America, Mr. Netanyahu, then a newly minted premier, bypassed the Clinton administration and went directly to Capitol Hill.
The way the editor of The New York Sun characterized it last year in a retrospective piece in the Wall Street Journal is that the "young prime minister, a free-market reformer from a country that had long suffered from socialist economic policies, was speaking to a Congress in which another free-market reformer, Newt Gingrich, had recently acceded as speaker. " It was an electrifying speech that brought the Congress to its feet several times.
But by far the most memorable part of the speech concerned Jerusalem, which was then, as now, at the center of the dispute. Mr. Netanyahu spoke of how, in his boyhood, he "knew that city, when it was divided into enemy camps, with coils of barbed wire stretched through its heart." Then, the Sun's editor recalled in the Wall Street Journal, he said: "Since 1967, under Israeli sovereignty, united Jerusalem has, for the first time in 2,000 years, become the city of peace . . .
"For the first time," Mr. Netanyahu continued, "a single sovereign authority has afforded security and protection to members of every nationality who sought to come to pray there. There have been efforts to re-divide this city by those who claim that peace can come through division, that it can be secured through multiple sovereignties, multiple laws and multiple police forces. This is a groundless and dangerous assumption, which impels me to declare today: There will never be such a re-division of Jerusalem. Never."
When Mr. Netanyahu repeated the word "never," the Sun's editor recalled, "suddenly the whole chamber rose, on both sides of the aisle. The ovation lasted nearly a minute."
It happens that Prime Minister Begin used to warn against fighting the battle of Jerusalem in the halls of Congress. We were told of that years ago by Senator Moynihan, and we've repeated the story here on a number of occasions, including when Mr. Obama, as a presidential candidate, made his own trip to Jerusalem in 2008.
It is going to be illuminating to see whether Mr. Netanyahu, if he gets the chance to address the Congress, makes that point again. He would be coming to the Congress, according to the report in the New York Times, at the invitation of the new speaker, John Boehner. And also at a most dangerous time, when an administration that has been floundering on the democratic movements in the Arab countries and Iran can't seem to get it's policies aligned with a Jewish state that is the only democracy in the Middle East save for Iraq. It is also a moment when the Palestinian Arabs are trying to make an end run around the United Nations Security Council by taking their case for statehood directly to the General Assembly.
It is clear that Mr. Netanyahu is aware that it is a dangerous game for the head of government of a foreign country to play off the White House and the Congress. It is less clear whether the White House comprehends that it - because of the shabbiness of its own treatment of Mr. Netanyahu and of Israel - has left itself open to just such a demarche as Mr. Boehner made when he issued the invitation to Mr. Netanyhu. In any event there is also at least the opportunity for something constructive to come out of a visit by Mr. Netanyahu to Capitol Hill, including a reminder that there has been broad, bipartisan support in the Congress for the idea that in the Battle of Jerusalem, America and Israel are on the same side. |
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Weekly Torah Portion Commentary -
Courtesy of Rabbi Michael Gold
One of the most enjoyable moments of the Passover Seder is the final song - Chad Gadya "One Little Kid." It tells of the baby goat that father bought for two zuzim. Then come a series of events - the cat eats the goat, the dog bites the cat, the stick beats the dog, the fire burns the stick, the water quenches the fire, the ox drinks the water, the shochet (ritual slaughterer) slaughters the ox, the angel of death kills the shochet, and with final justice, the Holy One slays the angel of death. What goes around comes around and in the end, justice prevails.
One of my fondest memories of my Passovers seders growing up in Los Angeles, are my Uncle Max belting out at the top of his lungs - chad gadya. He may not know a lot of Hebrew, but he certainly enjoyed singing those two Aramaic words. I have not been to a seder in Los Angeles for many years, but I believe my uncle, now ninety-seven, still belts out those words. I have been to seders where the song is sung in Yiddish, and occasionally in other languages. I have seen people act out each of the characters in the song. In my seder I always see if someone can sing the entire song in one breath - either in English translation or for the truly talented, in the original Aramaic. The song is a piece of great fun, put at the end of the seder so that the children will stay interested.
However, taking the song more seriously, there is a difficult message. God in the end will slay the angel of death. God will overcome death. As John Donne wrote in his famous sonnet Death be not Proud, "And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die." This strikes me as a strange ending. If the all powerful God wanted to slay the angel of death, why has God not done so already? In the Passover story, isn't the angel of death God's messenger? God uses the angel of death against the hapless Egyptians?
I have been considering this question for a long time. And an answer is beginning to formulate in my mind. Death is entropy. It is the tendency in nature for all things to fall apart. Death is the drive in all matter to return to primordial chaos. All physical things must eventually die. It is the nature of items to fall apart over time - whether a new car, a human body, or the sun itself. Death is what came first. It is chaos - what the Torah calls tohu v'vohu "void and unformed." It is built into the universe that all things must die.
But there is another force at work in the universe, a force that goes from chaos to order. It is the force that begins with the primordial chaos and turns it into living things. It is the force that Ezekiel first envisioned when he spoke of a valley of bones coming to life. In fact, this is the haftarah (prophetic portion) we will read this coming Shabbat for Hol HaMoed Pesach. There is a force at work in the universe that turned random hydrogen atoms into carbon, carbon atoms into organic molecules, organic molecules into living beings, and living beings into you and me. There is force for life. And we Jews call that force for life God.
Once may say that there are two forces at work in the universe (although we must be careful. Judaism rejects a Gnostic dualism.) One force is entropy, leading from order to chaos. The other is God, leading from chaos to order, from the simple to the complex, from mere matter to life. The song teaches that the God will overcome the forces of chaos in the universe. Order will triumph in the end. God will slay the angel of death.
We often make choices in life. Are we following the forces of chaos in our lives? Or are we following the forces that bring out order? If we do, we are joining God in the sacred task of slaying the angel of death. Let us use this Passover to move from chaos to order.
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