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Rabbi's Ramblings......
Shalom Congregants and Friends.....
I hope you will agree with my assessment that Rosh Hashanah services went very well. Everyone seemed most happy with the davenning of our guest cantor, Kenneth Cohen. We had lots of fun joking about his Hawaiian address, and he brought some interesting Hawaiian melodies for Adon Olam! Copies of my sermons are available in the office or by email for those who might be interested.
Now we look forward to Yom Kippur... when it "falls" on Shabbat there is a double measure of kedushah/holiness present in our prayers. It literally becomes "Sabbath of Sabbaths." The schedule of service times is below. Remember, if for medical reasons your doctor tells you that it is inadvisable to fast, YOU SHOULD NOT FAST! Actually, because of the late date of Yom Kippur, the sky will be getting dark an half-hour sooner than it often would.... so you'll be able to enjoy either the congregational break-fast or the seudah/meal wherever you might be going a little sooner. And, if one additional act of tsedakah will make you feel better before the holy day, then send a donation to the synagogue to help with the costs of the wonderful break-fast that has been traditionally provided to all by Myrna Kahan and her dedicated crew.
I express again sincere thanks in advance to our office and custodial staff for the extra "push" in getting ready for the Holy Days, as well as to officers and members of the Ritual and House Committees who also gave lots of time in getting things prepared.
The congregational sukkah in the Vogel courtyard looks wonderful after it was decorated last Monday evening. MOST SINCERE thanks to the dozen-plus congregants who helped decorate it, and to Brotherhood members who made the delicious pizza! You will really enjoy being in our sukkah this year. And please note now, if you haven't already, that on the first evening of Sukkot, Wednesday, October 12, there will be a special Oneg Yom Tov in our congregational sukkah after services.
Iris and I cordially invite you all to "hop to our sukkah," for light refreshments and conversation Sunday, October 16, between 10:30 and 11:30am. Our address is 53 Vista Way in Bloomfield.
Israel has somewhat receded in the news this past week, with the public activity at the United Nations over and the "Quartet" of world powers pushing for the renewal of negotiations, which Israel has agreed to participate in. I invite you again to pick up an America-Israel solidarity pin at services!
Last Tuesday afternoon, October 4, I went down to New Haven, joining other JWV (Jewish War Veterans) members, to share in a a memorial program for Jewish chaplains who died while in military service. A plaque is being dedicated to their memory at Arlington National Cemetery on October 24, and the plaque is traveling around the country. This is a significant part of my personal life-history, and I am glad it is finally taking place!
Next week's e-shul will come out either Tuesday or Wednesday AM in advance of the Sukkot holiday and will be an abbreviated edition. Look forward to celebrating "z'man simchataynu," the joyful holiday!
Shabbat Shalom and Tzom Kal (an easy fast)
May we all be SEALED in the book of life for a good year.
....... 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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Yom Kippur Services & Candle Lighting Times
CANDLE LIGHTING
Friday,October 7, NLT 6:03pm
YOM KIPPUR
Friday, Oct. 7
- Services/ Kol Nidre, 6:00 P.M.
- Services over approximately 8:30P.M.
Saturday, Oct. 8
- Services Start 8:30A.M. - over Approximately 2:00P.M.
Sermon approx 11A.M./ Yizkor approx 11:20A.M.
- Afternoon Break
- Mincha, 4:15P.M.
- Neilah, 5:30P.M., Standing before the Aron Kodesh
- Maariv, SOUNDING OF THE SHOFAR, 7:00 P.M. (Approximately)
Bring A Shofar - Participate in our Group Tekiah Gedolah after services |
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Jokes of the Week
A man was on trial up in Nome, Alaska. The judge turned to him and asked, "Where were you the night of October to April?
Did you hear about the robbery at NPR? The thieves got away with over $25,000 in pledges! |
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Social Action Updates
Bring food for Project Isaiah before Kol Nidre Services this Friday evening!!!
Make a donation to MAZON to help the hungry in our communities....
Be aware of those less fortunate than we are!! Carry out the mitzvah of tikkun olam!
A mitzvah we can ALL DO: Visit a friend in a nursing home or assisted living center or who otherwise can't get out! Or bring someone to a service here who couldn't get here on their own!
An appeal from Dr. Joe Olzaki...... "Dr. O"
Every year since 2005, we have provided needy families of our students with full turkey dinners for the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays. Last year, we discreetly provided 25 turkey dinners for the holidays and this year, we believe the number of needy families district wide will be around 60 so this email is a call to action. We need your help to provide dinners to needy students and their families.
We have many proud families in Bloomfield. Mothers and fathers who work 2, 3 or 4 jobs to try to make ends meet but they just do not have money for "the extras". The government calls this subsistence living. Many are to proud to ask for help from social agencies set up for just this purpose so, we go to them.
Geisslers Supermarket in Bloomfield is giving us a deal for our turkey dinners.
For $24.00, each family will receive a turkey, potatoes, sweet potatoes, a green vegetable and a medium sized pumpkin pie. This is a great deal. Your gift and the presentation of the turkey dinners is completely anonymous and we assure that the dignity of the student / family is paramount. Your donations are needed by 10/30/2011. Please, spread the word!
Please send whatever you can spare to:
DR. O. 5 Huckleberry Lane Bloomfield, CT
Thank you for your support and your love of our students. We really need your help. |
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Community Events
Monday, October 24, Special showing: Nuremberg - Its Lessons for Today.... the suppressed film! Sponsored by Voices of Hope, 7PM JCC
Wednesday, October 26, Women and Domestic Violence: A Jewish Issue, 5:30pm - Federation Community Services Building |
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Beth Hillel Synagogue Library
Lots of new books and videos......
Read contemporary newspapers and magazines!!
New for this year: The Revised Edition of the Encyclopedia Judaica!
Donated to our Library by the Bloomfield Prosser Library.....
Coming October 28-29
Annual Library / Scholar-in-Residence Shabbat ......
Guest Speaker ..... Dr. Alfredo Roitman of the Hebrew University |
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Upcoming Synagogue Events
Sukkot first night Special Oneg Yom Tov, Wednesday evening, Oct. 12, 6:30pm
"Hop to the Sukkah" - open sukkah at Rabbi and Iris' home, Sunday morning, Oct. 16, 10:30-11:30am
Saturday Sundaes, October 22 after mincha
Sisterhood Paid Up Membership Dinner, October 26
First Shmooze and Lunch, Thursday, October 27
Brotherhood Mtg, Sunday, October 30 after morning minyan |
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News from Israel...
Israeli Scientist wins Nobel Prize
Israeli scientist Daniel Shechtman has won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his controversial discovery of non-repeating patterns in atoms called quasicrystals.
He is the third Israeli to win the award in chemistry, and the 10th Israeli to win a prestigious Nobel Prize in the country's 63-year history.
The Nobel Committee for Chemistry at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said Shechtman, a professor at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, had discovered quasicrystals, that appeared to be like "fascinating mosaics of the Arabic world reproduced at the level of atoms" and which never repeated themselves.
Shechtman, who was born in Tel Aviv in 1941, had to fight hard for his science. He received his undergraduate and post-graduate degrees from the Technion, and joined the faculty in 1975. It was while he was on sabbatical at John Hopkins University and working with the National Bureau of Standards in 1982 that he discovered a startling anomaly in the atom patterns of a quasicrystal, a metallic alloy. Until this discovery, scientists believed that atom patterns inside quasicrystals had to repeat themselves symmetrically. The atoms that Shechtman saw through his electron microscope, however, were packed in a pattern that could not be repeated.
Shechtman's findings were considered extremely controversial at the time and he was ridiculed by the scientific community for two years. During the course of defending his scientific work, the professor was asked to leave his research group. In an interview he later said: "If you're a scientist and believe in your results: fight for them. Fight for the truth." "The configuration found in quasicrystals was considered impossible, and Daniel Shechtman had to fight a fierce battle against established science," Nobel Committee for Chemistry announced. His discovery "fundamentally altered the way chemists look at solid matter."
Since then hundreds of materials have been found to exist with the structure Shechtman discovered, and scientists have come to a better understanding of what quasicrystals look like at the atomic level by studying medieval Islamic mosaics in Alhambra Palace in Spain and the Darb-i Imam Shrine in Iran. The mosaics have regular patterns and follow mathematical rules, but they never repeat themselves.
Quasicrystals are thought to have potential applications in protective alloys and coatings, and one Swedish company has found them in a type of steel, where the crystals reinforce the material like armor. Scientists are today experimenting with using the crystals in different products, from diesel engines to frying pans.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Shechtman on Tuesday to say: "I would like to congratulate you, on behalf of the citizens of Israel, for your award, which expresses the intellect of our people. Every Israeli is happy today and every Jew in the world is proud."
Shechtman, who is also an associate of the US Department of Energy's Ames Laboratory, and a professor at Iowa State University, wins 10 million Swedish crowns ($1.45 million) for his work. His was the third of this year's Nobel Prizes.
Earlier today Shechtman, who won the Wolf Prize in Physics in 1999, and the Israel Prize for physics in 1998, told the Associated Press that "it feels wonderful."
In 2009, Prof. Ada Yonath of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for her ground-breaking work in understanding how cells build proteins. She was just the fourth woman to win the prize in chemistry. Yonath, who is the head researcher in the field of structural biology and biochemistry at the Weizmann Institute, is widely considered the pioneer of ribosome crystallography. Her research, carried out over a 25-year period, has revealed the modes of action of over 20 different antibiotics that target bacterial ribosomes. Her research lays the groundwork for scientists to start developing new bacteria-resistant antibiotics that better target the ribosomes of pathogens to avoid the problem of resistance.
Other Israeli Nobel prize winners include Israeli mathematician Yisrael Robert Aumann, who received the Nobel Prize for economics in 2005 for his work on conflict and cooperation through game theory analysis. Other notable Israelis who have won Nobel Prizes include Prof. Daniel Kahneman, who won in Economics in 2002 and Profs. Avram Hershko and Prof. Aaron Ciechanover of the Technion, winners of the Prize in chemistry. Three Israeli politicians have also won the Nobel Prize for peace - Menachem Begin in 1978, and Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin in 1994.
GILAD SHALIT...... OVER 1914 DAYS IN CAPTIVITY....
NO CONTACT ALLOWED BY HAMAS...... |
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Weekly Torah Portion Commentary.....
This week's commentary written by Rabbi Marc Wolf, vice chancellor and chief development officer, JTS.
About a year ago, I had a conversation with a friend in which he described the way he had experienced his life to that point. He said it felt as if he were a passenger on a train, and that being on a train meant there was a set destination and stops along the way, and absolutely no deviation from the proscribed course. It wasn't that he was unhappy with the direction; it wasn't that he regretted any stop he had made along the way. What bothered him was a particular moment of realization: he wasn't sure what was driving the engines or even if he wanted to continue on that particular track.
Whenever we hear someone addressing their fundamental challenges in life, we cannot help but personalize it on some level. For me, I imagined the moment when Wile E. Coyote discovers he is about 15 feet off the edge of a cliff and still running as if he were on solid ground. The thing about this image is that it not only made me nostalgic for my childhood, it struck a chord deep inside. And it made me feel anxious and, on some level, uncomfortable.
In her Yom Kippur sermon last year, my colleague, teacher, and friend Rabbi Abby Treu introduced me to the work of Kathryn Schultz, the author of Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error. Schultz writes about this feeling, and makes a distinction between being wrong and the moment when you recognize that you are wrong. Being wrong is easy, she says: most of the time when we are wrong, we don't actually realize it. We tend to live in the present-we actually prefer to live in the present. We spend much of our time calendaring the present, planning for it, and feeling just fine and right about what we are doing. We live in the present not only individually, but collectively.
What Schultz describes is the Wile E. Coyote moment-when we discover that we have made an error and begin to plummet to the canyon floor-that changes our attitudes and makes us realize that we are not running on solid ground anymore.
The Yamim Nora'im are filled with these moments, and the Torah readings and liturgy inspire us to step outside of ourselves and recognize when we are not on solid ground.
During the Avodah service on Yom Kippur, the high priest-atoning first for his personal sins, for the ones of his family, and finally for the entire people-uses a sacrificial goat to bear the burden of the sins of the people. The high priest confesses those sins over the head of the goat and then sends it off into the wilderness where, channeling Wile E. Coyote, it walks over the edge of a cliff. This temple ritual that led to the expiation from sin is one that brought great joy at the end of the day to the people of Israel. They completed the rite to every last detail and were forgiven by God. For reassurance, a crimson thread turned white so that the people knew that God had accepted their sacrifice. However, by sending the goat to the wilderness, the people never watched it go over the edge. They never saw that it-and they-are not on solid ground, and they did not actually confront the harsh reality of being wrong. What we read in the Torah portion is the celebration that follows, sending the goat away-not the teshuvah that should accompany the experience of recognizing their mistakes.
The liturgy of the Yamim Nora'imis more deliberate and less gentle with us. With its grand metaphors and humbling language, we cannot help but respond with angst. Nowhere is this more palpable than in the Unetaneh Tokef. We begin by speaking of the power of the days-their awe and power intentionally alarm us. We first stand as the accused on trial, confronted with anything we-willingly or unwillingly, knowingly or unknowingly-have done. As sheep being examined by our shepherd, we are left even without a voice to defend our behavior. We are reviewed, numbered, and counted, judged according to our worth. If that were not enough to get us to look down and examine our footing, the laundry list of fates that strike fear in our hearts, minds, and souls certainly are. Through a cycle of metaphors, the key liturgical piece of the Yamim Nora'im explicitly tells us we are not on solid ground.
So what do we do when we are confronted with the reality that the ground has vanished beneath us? The Slonimer Rebbe Shalom Noah Berezovsky addresses this directly in his opening commentary on the Yamim Nora'im. First, the Slonimer raises the question of how Rosh Hashanah became Yom ha-Din, the Day of Judgment. He asks why we take a holiday that is, on its textual level, a happy occasion and fill it with such dread. The Slonimer responds that God's sovereignty and imagery of the creation of the world intentionally elicit feelings of anxiety and dread. Notably, the refrain in our 'Amidah throughout the Yamim Nora'im directly references the fear and awe we should feel on these days.
Adonai our God, instill Your awe in all You have made, and fear of You in all You have created, so that all You have fashioned revere You, all You have created bow in recognition, and all be bound together, carrying out Your will wholeheartedly. (Mahzor Lev Shalem 321)
The liturgical emphasis on anxiety is intentional, the Slonimer states. And the purpose of the language and metaphors is what we read in the last line: that we should carry out God's Will wholeheartedly. This focus on God's Will is designed to make us look down to see if we are still standing on solid ground.
The Yamim Nora'im intentionally push us over the edge. At this time of renewal and introspection, we are forced to see that the ground below us is gone. At this moment-vulnerable, uncomfortable, and anxious-we are inspired to renew our sense of purpose. May we embrace the anxiety that the Yamim Nora'im elicits in us, and, renewing our sense of purpose, return quickly to solid ground. |
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