Jewish Family Congregation's Newsletter - Summer 2012 edition - Av / Elul 5772
24
From the Rabbi’s Desk page 1 President’s Message page 3 Aug. Bday/Anniv/Yahrzeits page 4 Service Schedules page 5 Beg. Hebrew for Adults page 6 JFC Sisterhood page 7 Summer Fun Pictures page 8 Early Childhood Center page 9 Kids Ask the Rabbi page 10 The Ritual Committee page 11 The Religious School page 14 JiFTY page 15 Religious School schedule page 17 M.A.R.S. Program page 18 Ask the Rabbi page 21 Kids Knesset page 22 Donations Form page 23 Shofar Av/Elul 5772 Jewish Family Congregation Summer 2012 www.jewishfamilycongregation.org From the Rabbi’s Desk Please Support Our Advertisers As you can tell from the photos that were put up on our website, and distributed by email broadcast earlier this month, and that are featured in this issue of the Shofar, once again I visited our kids at Camp Eisner in Great Bar- rington, Mass. They were all smiling broadly, all seemed very happy, and also much too involved with their friends and activities to spend much time visiting with me! Eisner is, of course, one of the URJ camps, and a very spe- cial place it is. The kids actually spend their entire time there living Jewishly. They acquire a Hebrew vocabulary, learning the names of the activities and the places on the campus (limud is learning, and khadar okhel is mess hall). Each week builds toward the celebration of Shabbat, which is observed with joy and gusto. Every meal is pre- ceded by the appropriate blessing, and concluded with the Birkat HaMazon (“grace after meals”). The day I was there, the camp, like all of us at home, had been experiencing a dry, hot summer. So three of my colleagues got up and did a “Jewish rain dance”, and later that afternoon it poured (ok, rain was forecast, but still….). The kids went along with the shtik, because it was camp, after all, and what other kind of rain dance could possibly be offered there? In the last 20 years, research has shown that the most ef- fective predictor of ongoing Jewish commitment, beyond college and into adult life, is participation in a Jewish sleep -away camp. More than going to Religious School, becom- ing Bar/Bat Mitzvah, or being confirmed, clearly immer- sion in living Jewishly for about a month has a powerful impact on the degree to which young people identify themselves as Jews and remain connected to the Jewish community. A significant percentage of those who attend URJ summer camps go on to become Jewish profession- als…rabbis, cantors, Jewish educators or communal work- ers. And friendships made at camp apparently endure even as kids go off to college and beyond. So Reform congregations have good reasons for support- ing the URJ camps. We at JFC do a good job of that. We invite folks from Eis- ner to come and make a presentation to our congregation, to encourage families with young children to plan to send their kids to this great camp (and to Crane Lake Camp, also located in the Berkshires, and also a great summer experi- ence). We invite our Eisner campers to attend that pres- entation (they come wearing Eisner gear) to talk about their own experiences, to identify the things they love about Eisner and why they are counting down the days till they can return. Last winter, we had a visit from Greg Kellner, who was a senior staffer at Eisner and is now at Crane Lake, for a Shabbat evening service; Greg played guitar and con- ducted the service a la Eisner. Most of our campers came out to have a little taste of their summer Shabbat, and the joy in the room was palpable. We encourage families to attend the special weekend (Continued on page 2)
Transcript
From the Rabbi’s Desk page 1 President’s Message page 3 Aug. Bday/Anniv/Yahrzeits page 4 Service Schedules page 5 Beg. Hebrew for Adults page 6 JFC Sisterhood page 7 Summer Fun Pictures page 8 Early Childhood Center page 9 Kids Ask the Rabbi page 10
The Ritual Committee page 11 The Religious School page 14 JiFTY page 15 Religious School schedule page 17 M.A.R.S. Program page 18 Ask the Rabbi page 21 Kids Knesset page 22 Donations Form page 23
Shofar Av/Elul 5772 Jewish Family Congregation Summer 2012
www.jewishfamilycongregation.org
From the Rabbi’s Desk
Please Support Our Advertisers
As you can tell from the photos that were put up on our website, and distributed by email broadcast earlier this month, and that are featured in this issue of the Shofar, once again I visited our kids at Camp Eisner in Great Bar-rington, Mass. They were all smiling broadly, all seemed very happy, and also much too involved with their friends and activities to spend much time visiting with me!
Eisner is, of course, one of the URJ camps, and a very spe-cial place it is. The kids actually spend their entire time there living Jewishly. They acquire a Hebrew vocabulary, learning the names of the activities and the places on the campus (limud is learning, and khadar okhel is mess hall). Each week builds toward the celebration of Shabbat, which is observed with joy and gusto. Every meal is pre-ceded by the appropriate blessing, and concluded with the Birkat HaMazon (“grace after meals”).
The day I was there, the camp, like all of us at home, had been experiencing a dry, hot summer. So three of my colleagues got up and did a “Jewish rain dance”, and later that afternoon it poured (ok, rain was forecast, but still….). The kids went along with the shtik, because it was camp, after all, and what other kind of rain dance could possibly be offered there?
In the last 20 years, research has shown that the most ef-fective predictor of ongoing Jewish commitment, beyond college and into adult life, is participation in a Jewish sleep-away camp. More than going to Religious School, becom-ing Bar/Bat Mitzvah, or being confirmed, clearly immer-
sion in living Jewishly for about a month has a powerful impact on the degree to which young people identify themselves as Jews and remain connected to the Jewish community. A significant percentage of those who attend URJ summer camps go on to become Jewish profession-als…rabbis, cantors, Jewish educators or communal work-ers. And friendships made at camp apparently endure even as kids go off to college and beyond.
So Reform congregations have good reasons for support-ing the URJ camps.
We at JFC do a good job of that. We invite folks from Eis-ner to come and make a presentation to our congregation, to encourage families with young children to plan to send their kids to this great camp (and to Crane Lake Camp, also located in the Berkshires, and also a great summer experi-ence). We invite our Eisner campers to attend that pres-entation (they come wearing Eisner gear) to talk about their own experiences, to identify the things they love about Eisner and why they are counting down the days till they can return.
Last winter, we had a visit from Greg Kellner, who was a senior staffer at Eisner and is now at Crane Lake, for a Shabbat evening service; Greg played guitar and con-ducted the service a la Eisner. Most of our campers came out to have a little taste of their summer Shabbat, and the joy in the room was palpable.
We encourage families to attend the special weekend
(Continued on page 2)
Page 2 Jewish Family Congregation Shofar Summer 2012
events that Eisner hosts over the fall and winter, to get a sample of what Eisner of-fers over the summer; this has led a num-ber of families to send their kids to the camp as they grew old enough.
We offer a bit of financial assistance to help families pay for camp, and under some cir-cumstances, the camp actually can provide “camperships” to help out, too.
Over the years, we have also had a signifi-cant number of kids who have gone on to work at the camp (Ivy Cohen, Dan Bloch, Renna Gottlieb and Matthew Emmer are there working, this summer).
And some of our kids have gone on the Eis-ner summer trip to Israel, between 10th and
11th grades. They use the $250 gift certifi-cate that we give to all our Bnai Mitzvah kids, and have a terrific time getting to know the Jewish homeland.
In August, there will be a special event at camp to recognize those congregations in the northeast which send at least 10 kids to Eisner/Crane Lake over the summer; JFC will once again be so honoured. It is worth noting that most of the congregations that merit this attention are much, much larger than JFC. And they do not send, propor-tionately speaking, as many kids as we do!
When I go to visit, I am always struck by the ruakh, spirit, of Eisner, and I always wish that they’d offer a summer camp for adults only. We, like our kids, could use a good healthy dose of living joyously Jewishly.
(Continued from page1)
From the Rabbi’s Desk (cont’d)
Jewish Family
Congregation 111 Smith Ridge Road
P.O. Box 249 South Salem, NY 10590 Phone: (914) 763-3028 Fax: (914) 763-3069 e-mail: [email protected]
Av/Elul 5772 Jewish Family Congregation Shofar Page 3
President’s Message by Polly Schnell
Dear Congregants,
As this is my first President's Message, I thought I should briefly introduce myself for those of you who do not know me or are not familiar with my background. I live in Pound Ridge with my husband Gordon, and my three children Wynter (12), Rayn (10) and Quoya (8). We have been members of JFC for almost ten years with our kids attending the ECC since they were toddlers. I have been on the Board for two years now, serving as Vice-President for the past year or so. I have been a nursing home administrator since the early 1990s, taking several years off to raise the kids. Currently, I run the Long Ridge of Stamford nursing home with roughly 120 elderly residents in my care. I have always been deeply devoted to this segment of our population. The Torah passage "al tashlichanoo leat zikna kichlot kocheinu al taazveynu," meaning, may we not be cast into old age and abandoned when our strength fails us, has always been a kind of call-ing for me -- ever since I was a young girl.
For the past several weeks, the entire union staff of my facility -- all 160 of them -- have been on strike. There is a bitter, perhaps irreconcilable, divide between the corporation that owns my nursing home and the union that controls my staff. I and my management team are caught in the middle of it, try-ing to steer my nursing home through this tumultuous time and make sure the residents remain as unaf-fected as possible by the storm raining down just outside their windows. It has not been easy. But ironi-cally, this work crisis has enabled me to see JFC with a fresher pair of eyes and perhaps prepare me to be JFC's President better than anything else could have. Like my nursing home, JFC has seen its share of strife and disagreement these past two years. And no doubt, we clearly have challenges ahead as we try to guide the congregation through these difficult times. But what makes this challenge different from the one that I face at work is that there is a common thread that ties the JFC family together. Although we may have different perspectives on how we should raise revenue, how we should increase membership, how the congregation has been run in the past, and how it should be run in the future, we are connected by our passion for JFC and by our commitment to see it thrive. On this we all agree, no matter the differences that separate us.
In this vein, I am pleased to announce that at last week's special meeting, the Congregation voted to ex-pand the Board from 11 to 15 members. The purpose of the expansion is to accommodate the many voices of our membership and to reach the broadest consensus across the JFC family going forward. I see an even deeper meaning to the Board's enlargement. That is, a new found energy and drive among the membership to see the temple through this difficult time. More people than ever before want to step for-ward and play a meaningful role in JFC's future -- to perpetuate the spirit, the warmth, the family that is JFC. I am extremely proud to serve as President of this congregation during this transition period. Working side by side with my fellow board members, and with many of you, I am confident JFC will find its way and flourish, once again.
We will be in touch with you in the coming weeks to provide you with more detail on the many projects the Board is working on, including the Board's expansion and the temple's search for a Rabbi. In the mean-time, the JFC Board and I wish you and your families an enjoyable summer.
Warmly,
Polly Polly Schnell President, JFC Board of Trustees
Page 4 Jewish Family Congregation Shofar Summer 2012
Have you considered celebrating significant birthdays and anniversaries with a leaf on our Simcha Tree of Life?
Call the JFC Office for details.
Adam & Robyn Cohen Allan & Ellen Goldstein David & Erica Levens
David & Sally Firestein Frank & Susan Andrade Harold & Ruth Ossher
Harry & Sandra Rosenhouse Jeffrey Berg & Debra Paget Lawrence & Leslie Gottlieb Linda & Douglas Paulding
Peter & Dawn Kessler Richard & Lydia Hellinger
Steven & Judy Vandervelden Steven Sturm & Amy Rackear Theodore Bloch & Lisa Block
Abbey Grzymala Adam Andrade Alan Sanders Alexander Junquera Allan Gottlieb Anthony Senese Aspen Shafer Benny Davis Charlotte Bellinson Cole Brand Daniel Westlake David Firestein David Fischer Debra Cohen Dillon Firestein
Dillon Haims Dylan Leitner Elisabeth Rich Emily Malamet Emma Richman Hillary Lavin Ilene Benjamin J. J. Stevelman Jane Emmer Jason Breslin John Stern Justin Lipper Kenneth Gordon Lillian Gilbert Marc Waldman, MD
Matthew Duckett Michael Gitlitz Nicole Haims Peter Kaplan Rebecca Mishkin Richard Bersch Rick Cohlan Sally Firestein Samantha Berg
Sarah Raimondi Skylar Shafer Spencer Kane Spencer Kaplan Steve Shainmark Zachary Amerling Zarabeth Waldman Zoe Vandervelden
BIRTHDAYS
ANNIVERSARIES
Ferdinand Aufsesser Samuel Berger Jerry Blum Sadie Dutka Theresa Ehrman Sam Feinleib Abraham Feldman Richard Glass Julius Goodman Lila Gordon Leo Klotz Dina Leitner Edward Mendell Dax Nemerov
Kenneth Rosenthal Henry Salmon Joseph Salpeter Hugo Sternberger Melvin Tessler Janet Treitman
YAHRZEITS
AUGUST
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SERVICE SCHEDULES
AUGUST
Friday, August 3/ Av 16 7:30 pm Parshat V’etkhanan
Friday, August 10/ Av 23 6:30 pm Shabbat Pot Luck Dinner***
8:00 pm Parshat Ekev
Friday, August 17/ Av 30 7:30 pm Parshat Re’eh Aufruf for Loren Margolis and Lane Gold
Friday, August 24/ Elul 7 7:30 pm Parshat Shoftim Friday, August 31/Elul 14 7:30 pm Parshat Ki Tetzey Saturday, September 1 10:00 am Bat Mitzvah of Rachel Kalter
HIGH HOLY DAYS SCHEDULE
Sunday, Sept 16/Tishre 1 8:00 pm Rosh HaShanah evening service Monday, Sept 17 10:00 am Morning service* 10:30 am Children’s service (JFTY leads, in building) 1:30 pm Tashlikh (at 188 Smith Ridge Road)*** 2:30 pm Family Service (for young children) Monday, Tishre 2 8:00 pm Second Evening service (in building) Tuesday, Sept 18 10:00 am Morning service* Tuesday, Sept25/Tishre 10 8:00 pm Kol Nidre, Yom Kippur evening Wednesday, Sept 26 10:00 am Yom Kippur morning service* 10:30 am Children’s service (JFTY leads, in building) 1:30 pm Family service (for young children) 3:00 pm Healing Service
4:00 pm Afternoon service (includes Yizkor)* *Child care is provided in the building during these services. ***Some of us walk, with police escort, down the road 1 mile to the home of Barbara and John Stern at 188 Smith Ridge Road, for the VERY brief service to cast away our sins (we throw bread crumbs into their pond…please bring your own bread crumbs!) and then we walk back to JFC for the Family Service. Others park across the street at the Methodist Church.
CHOIR
If you would like to join the choir, or for more information, please contact Kathy Storfer at [email protected]
We welcome all adults -- 13 or older!
Page 6 Jewish Family Congregation Shofar Summer 2012
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And so the vision begins............. The JFC sisterhood was formed to bring the unique, diverse, and amazing women of JFC together. Our goals are to create social activities, educational experiences, fundraising, and personal growth. We are all unified in our commitment to JFC and strive for strength and growth in our congregation.
First - An introduction to the Sisterhood Board..... Co-Presidents Nicole Rose and Cindy Carson, with the help of Dina Zusel, Ellen Goldstein, Linda Lederman, and Iris Glass.
We are “officially a sisterhood.” That is, a member of the Women of Reform Judaism (WRJ) whose mission is to ensure the future of Reform Judaism. WRJ works to educate and train temple sisterhoods about membership, fundraising, leadership skills, advocacy for social justice and innovative and spiritual programming.
Our first girls’ night out Meet and Greet Dinner at Sarah’s Wine Bar on June 14th was fabu-lous!! There were 31 of JFC's awesome ladies in attendance. The vibe was one of strong women, who spent quality time bonding together, sharing their passions about JFC and spe-cial secret facts about themselves.
We have our first book club meeting August 2, 8:00pm at Alison Brodoff's house (One Dog-wood Lane, Pound Ridge). Our first book is "The Lost Wife" by Alyson Richman. “In pre-war Prague, the dreams of two young lovers are shattered when they are separated by the Nazi invasion. Then, decades later, thousands of miles away in New York, there's an inescapable glance of recognition between two strangers. Providence is giving Lenka and Josef one more chance. From the glamorous ease of life in Prague before the Occupation, to the horrors of Nazi Europe, The Lost Wife explores the power of first love, the resilience of the human spirit- and the strength of memory.”
Please join us for what promises to be a fun and interesting evening.
SAVE THE DATE for these future events:
Our First Annual Kick Off Dinner will be held on September 9th at JFC - further details to fol-low, but it promises to be a great evening.
Local resident Rich Cohen, and author of "The Fish That Ate the Whale", will speak to the Sisterhood Book Club on Thursday, October 11.
The JFC Sisterhood
Page 8 Jewish Family Congregation Shofar Summer 2012
Todah Rabbah From The Early Childhood Center to… Frank Andrade – for fixing our fence.
Pat Schafer – for erecting the “art tent.”
Elise Serby – for our tomato plants.
Summer Fun Volunteers: Aly Andrade, Chloe Carson, Stephen Henshaw, Bennett Wattles.
Summer Fun Staff: Elana Kaplan, Indy and Billie Li, Kathy and Thomas Weingarten.
SUMMER FUN
Av/Elul 5772 Jewish Family Congregation Shofar Page 9
Summer time and the living is easy. JFC Summer Fun is in full swing, and we are having a blast.
Our outdoor space is well used and enjoyed during the summer months. The Early Childhood
Center’s summer program is 90 percent outdoors. Why?
Studies have provided convincing evidence that the way people feel in pleasing natural environ-
ments improves recall of information, creative problem solving, and creativity. Early experi-
ences with the natural world have been positively linked with the development of imagination
and the sense of wonder. Wonder is important as it a motivator for lifelong learning.
The natural world is essential to the emotional health of children. Just as children need posi-
tive adult contact and a sense of connection to the wider human community, they also need
positive contact with nature and the chance for solitude and the sense of wonder that nature
offers. When children play in nature they are more likely to have positive feelings about each
other and their surroundings.
Environmental education needs to start at any early age with hands-on experience with nature.
There is considerable evidence that concern for the environment is based on affection for na-
ture that only develops with autonomous, unmediated contact with it. In their early years,
children's developmental tendency towards empathy with the natural world needs to be sup-
ported with free access to an area of limited size over an extended period of time. It is only
by intimately knowing the wonder of nature's complexity in a particular place that leads to a
full appreciation of the immense beauty of the planet as a whole.
At the JFC ECC, we appreciate and celebrate many facets of nature in our diverse natural
setting. We hike in the woods. We play in water. We tend our beautiful organic garden.
We explore insects, animals and the world around us. We are fortunate to have ten acres of
land to enjoy at JFC.
Come and visit anytime…we would love to see you!
The Early Childhood Center Jane Weil Emmer, Director
Page 10 Jewish Family Congregation Shofar Summer 2012
Kids Ask the Rabbi Question: I have heard the term Bar Mitzvah and
Bat Mitzvah, but I recently heard the words Bnai Mitzvah. What’s that?
Answer: When you speak of one boy, or you
speak about one boy’s celebration of becoming an
adult in the Jewish community, you correctly refer
to him as a Bar Mitzvah, and you can correctly
speak about his Bar Mitzvah service. Bar Mitzvah
is the Aramaic term meaning “son of the command-
ments”; the Hebrew term would be Ben Mitzvah.
When you want to speak about two or more boys
becoming adults in our community, you need to use
the correct Hebrew term. You need the Hebrew
word (in this case, the plural form is taken from
the Hebrew, not the Aramaic) which means “sons
of”, and that is bnai. So, when speaking of two or
more boys becoming Jewish adults, the correct
term is Bnai Mitzvah.
The same term is taken to be gender-inclusive, so
it can also be used to refer to a group of boys and
girls. When we speak about our 7th graders as the
Bnai Mitzvah class, we mean to include all the boys
and girls in the class.
I have heard people say things like “Is there a Bnai
Mitzvah this week?” They think that Bnai Mitzvah
is gender-neutral, but in fact, it is a plural word, so
unless there is a service for two boys (or a boy and
a girl), as in the case of twins, we should not use
Bnai Mitzvah as a singular noun. This past spring,
we did indeed have a Bnai Mitzvah, when Zachary
and Gregory Kaplan were called to the Torah (for
two girls, we say Bnot Mitzvah). But when we are
referring to a single youngster’s event, we have to
say “Is there a Bar or Bat Mitzvah this week?” be-
cause otherwise we are using the plural noun incor-
rectly.
Got all that? Good!
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Av/Elul 5772 Jewish Family Congregation Shofar Page 11
“Summertime and the livin’ is easy.” To a large de-gree, George Gershwin’s lyrics from Porgy and Bess ring true for us here at JFC. Both the Early Childhood Center and the Religious School are on hiatus. Many of the students are away at Eisner or other camps, while other families are vacationing in their favorite spots. The sounds of the Summer Fun children in the playground fill the air around our property. By the time this article is published, we will have had our Friday night barbecue.
And while all this calm and serenity is enveloping our building, the members of the Ritual Committee, the Rabbi, the Cantor and our extraordinarily talented choir are busy preparing for the High Holy Days.
I could utilize the space in this column to remind you to renew your membership timely so the office staff can get the tickets to you, or to respond quickly to emails for those of you receiving honors. I could
even remind you of the start time of services and to bring a flashlight for use in the parking lot after dark. But rather than those details, I thought I would con-centrate on one segment of our High Holy Days lineup.
Last Yom Kippur, Rabbi Carla introduced a Healing Service during the break time between the Family Service and the Afternoon Service. I don’t believe any of us who attended this service knew exactly what was in store for us, but I will tell you none of us was disappointed.
What is healing, who benefits from it and what is the structure of this service? There are many types of healing, such as physical healing of a wound, but the best definition I have found on the internet was – to restore a person to spiritual wholeness. This service, through a totally spiritual experience of moving sing-ing by some of the members of the choir, minimal talking, and time to reflect, aids in this restoration. Who needs healing and what that entails is a per-sonal issue, and we do not ask anyone to identify their motive for attending. Perhaps some of us were there because of physical or emotional illness to our-selves or others. Congregants may have attended because of unfortunate family circumstances. Still others may have been trying to come to terms with feelings towards Israel or the world as a whole. I will say the service was so moving, there was hardly a dry eye among the attendees.
Whatever the circumstances, we hope that you join us as we sit in an intimate circle of friends on Yom Kippur afternoon at 3 P.M. and reap the benefits of this truly special service.
As September approaches, remember the words of Bob Dylan as he wrote, “Summer days, summer nights are gone. I know a place where there’s still something goin’ on.”
That place is JFC.
The Ritual Committee Michael Salpeter, Chairman
Page 12 Jewish Family Congregation Shofar Summer 2012
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The Religious School Leslie Gottlieb, Director
Most schools have a set goal for their enrollees and usually a culminating experience that marks the end of participa-tion in a particular program. Of course, we are all used to elementary, middle and high school graduation ceremo-nies. There are whole sections of greeting cards for all of these auspicious occasions. College and graduate school graduation ceremonies are clearly very important and time-honored events and present a special demarcation in our lives worthy of great praise and respect. But recently… some big thinkers in the Jewish world have been sharing a new idea that for too long we, as educators and clergy, have been looking at the Bar/Bat Mitzvah service as a graduation ceremony—and that this is an inherent prob-lem for retention of our youth in religious school pro-grams.
“We are looking for a systematic change,” reported Rabbi Bradley Solmsen who is the director of Youth Engagement at the URJ (Union for Reform Judaism). “We want to make the rite more meaningful and community-oriented.” This sentiment reflects a change in the thinking of some with respect to what we teach our children in religious school programs and the evident goals we set which include the Bar/Bat Mitzvah curriculum and service—a culminating experience that, for some students or many, may indicate that it is time to end participation.
From The Jewish Week (June 28, 2012 edition by Gary Rosenblatt) we read, “The [U.R.J.] program, called The Bnai Mitzvah Revolution, dovetails with the priorities of Rabbi Rick Jacobs, the newly installed president of the URJ, and his efforts to reverse the trend of young people end-ing their Jewish education after their big day on the bima. While Reform remains the largest denomination in Amer-ica, the movement is aging and shrinking. Engaging and retaining youth has become a top priority.”
Rosenblatt reports about a thirteen year old boy from Cali-fornia who recently became Bar Mitzvah (which happens whether or not there is a ceremony to signify this seminal time of life). Simon Kuh did not read Haftorah or Torah. This boy did a study of how people live and travel around Los Angeles which made him think of the world at large and what he could do to make a difference. “Simon went on to explain that he spent the last six months ‘doing things I never thought to do before—walking from L.A. to the Valley through the Hollywood mountains, feeding din-ner to children with cancer at the Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles, walking in support of Darfur and eating at Langer’s Deli in McArthur Park and writing a review of its food and posting it online. There were thirteen badges in all that I had to accomplish. They were mostly to teach me more about the world I live in.’ “
Rabbi Laura Geller at Simon’s synagogue, Temple Emanuel--with some 800 families, goes on to say that “It was a re-
framing of the Bar Mitzvah ceremony.” Rosenblatt talks about Geller’s feelings and quotes her adding that “for far too many liberal Jews, bar or bat mitzvah ‘is the goal of Jewish education,’ marking the end of the process rather than the onset of a path to a life of Jewish inquiry and learning.”
Geller continues and says that, “It’s pediatric Judaism, and when young people get to college and are exposed to thoughtful systems… [the Judaism they know] just doesn’t hold up.”
So those folks involved in the Youth Campaign for the URJ (some fifteen schools of Reform congregations are being invited to join the study) have some real life examples from which to work, like Simon’s, in order to help guide them on their journey to re-engage our youth. Only at JFC—and other synagogues, I am sure—our youth is al-ready engaged and motivated—even in the earlier years with knowledge of the choices that lie ahead for them here-- to keep the connection to the synagogue alive. As far as the curriculum and overall programming are con-cerned, we can defend ours in many ways because it of-fers a meaningful well-rounded experience that helps to shape our Bar/Bat Mitzvah candidates for the real world as well as prepares them to be full participants in a Jew-ish setting, distinctively.
As most of you with older children know, at JFC students in grade seven are prepared to read and respect Torah and haftarah with a meaningful understanding of what their particular chapters/verses say—in almost a literary analy-sis context. The portion is discussed in great detail with personalized rabbinical supervision for weeks until the stu-dent has a commanding understanding of what he/she will be responsible to teach the congregation on the morning of his/her Bar/Bat Mitzvah during the D’var Torah. Stu-dents are asked to read two books, at a minimum, to help make appropriate connections to the world and to the Jewish world, more specifically. Two community (class-wide) mitzvah projects help to create an understanding of the importance of group social action to promote an un-derstanding of what it means to feed the hungry (High Holy Day Food Drive) and what it means to offer the com-munity a way in which to celebrate the holiday of Purim (Purim Carnival). Additionally, two personal mitzvah pro-jects help to further the understanding that becoming Bar/Bat Mitzvah means that you must be personally account-able—as we learn from Talmud in Pirke Avot—as a mem-ber of the adult Jewish community. All of these exercises in addition to classes held throughout the Religious School experience but especially in grade seven led by the Rabbi and our wonderful Bnai Mitzvah teachers is critical in de-veloping a Jewish scope or lens for this particular rite of
(Continued on page 15)
Av/Elul 5772 Jewish Family Congregation Shofar Page 15
The Religious School (cont’d)
passage at thirteen. Twenty-four private tutoring sessions taught by our two grade 7 Grinspoon-Steinhardt award winners for excellence in teaching (internationally recog-nized awards) also help to provide a Jewish framework for our students. As these kids continue with our Student Mentor Program, Youth Group, Confirmation and Ten-Pack classes offered after grade seven… we see real en-gagement from our youth—programs that students self-involve in at a time when parents often give up the de-mand for participation in synagogue programs. For this, we are grateful and proud. If you build it, as the saying goes, they will come.
So I wish my contemporaries the best of luck and share their enthusiasm for engaging kids who would not be in-terested in Judaism unless it more closely resembled the
Scouting model. We are Jews and we need to tie the ex-periences of our youth to a Jewish construction of experi-ences and teachings with Torah as the centerpiece. Oth-erwise, we are just a feel-good-about-myself community or non-affiliated program. In fact, we have always made major modifications for students who feel that they are “outside the box” somehow when it comes to their Juda-ism—even for students who question the very existence of Gd. Israel (Jacob’s new name from Torah) means to struggle or wrestle with Gd and so these young Jews need to feel understood and their positions respected. To learn about and understand what it is to be a Jew--- is to make decisions about being a Jew in the world-- which is central to Reform Judaism and fundamental to our roles as teach-ers and madrachim (guides)at the Religious School at JFC.
(Continued from page 14)
Todah Rabbah From The Religious School to… The office staff for their help to the Religious School (RS) in starting the new school year Karen Blum for her work with me over the summer creating a new K/Grade 1 curriculum for the fall Rabbi Freedman for her continuing guidance Jane Emmer (ECC) for her help as a cooperative partner (and friend) at JFC Nicole Rose for all of her work organizing the new Sisterhood at JFC which will help to create deep bonds among
RS parents over the years
DON’T MISS
OUR ANNUAL
BEACH PARTY!!
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 6 6:00 - 7:30 P.M.
R.S.V.P. by Sept. 2 MUST HAVE PERMISSION SLIP go to www.jewishfamilycongregation.org
then religious school, then youth group
JiFTY By Jessica Sheptin, Communications VP
Page 16 Jewish Family Congregation Shofar Summer 2012
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ASK THE RABBI
Question: IQuestion: I read something…online, I think…about Reform Judaism redesigning Bar Mitzvah. What was that about, and how will it impact us at JFC?
Answer: Indeed, there has been some attention lately to a situation that took place in Los Angeles, where Rabbi Laura Geller heads a large Reform congregation. It ap-pears that Rabbi Geller met with a young man in her con-gregation, who professed to find the idea of reading Torah and Haftarah very meaningless, and at the same time, was very excited about doing mitzvah projects. So Rabbi Geller supported his radically unusual Bar Mitzvah, at which he did none of the standard elements of a Bar Mitzvah, and instead reported on the various mitzvah projects he did. He found it very compelling, and much has been made of following this lead to make Bar/Bat Mitzvah more appeal-ing and meaningful to more kids. Perhaps the notion is that this will keep them connected to Judaism after the “big day”.
I personally do not think that this is a very appropriate path for our movement to take. There is great value in continuing the tradition of the Bar/Bat Mitzvah reading Torah and Haftarah, especially since it is quite an accom-plishment, one that all of our students at JFC master, within the realm of their individual capabilities.
But I do understand the desire to make the Bar/Bat Mitz-vah experience more relevant and meaningful, and I think we at JFC have found a good combination of requirements to make this possible.
Yes, we require reading Torah and Haftarah. But the amount each student undertakes is determined by his or her abilities. Though most students do both in Hebrew, over the years there have been some who read their Haftarah in English. While some might look askance at that, I remind people that even the Talmud acknowledges that we can pray in any language, since God understand all languages!
But beyond the traditional readings from scripture, we also require all our Bnai Mitzvah students to do some reading, and to do four mitzvah projects. We ask the kids to read two books somehow related to being Jewish (fiction and non-fiction can fulfill the requirement) so they can discover that they can learn about being Jewish out-side of Religious School. Only one of the books can be about the Holocaust, because we want the kids to realize that there is a lot more to being Jewish than that horrific episode in our history.
The students do two mitzvah projects with JFC (usually
these are the High Holy Days food drive and the Purim Carnival) and two on their own. When they write about these in their speeches, I ask them to specify which mitz-vah they have fulfilled by each of their projects (the food drive fulfills our obligation to feed the hungry; the Purim Carnival fulfills the mitzvah…commandment…to celebrate our festivals). The individual projects have included the Midnight Run; various fund-raisers to combat specific dis-eases and to help those affected by natural disasters; col-lecting pyjamas for a children’s hospital; collecting food for the food pantry, and supporting many other worthy causes.
The combination of ritual requirements, reading, and mitz-vah projects, we think, is a healthy balance of traditions and contemporary concerns. While the youngster may never read Torah or Haftarah again, we do hope that they will embrace an active reading life, and will also continue to serve their community through the fulfilling of religious obligations (mitzvot) throughout their lives. And it should be said that a number of our kids do read Torah and Haftarah again, especially at the High Holy Days.
Many of the boys in particular mention in their speeches that their own Bar Mitzvah continues the tradition that their male forbears all participated in. That alone is something to be honoured.
How will this impact us at JFC? The Bnai Mitzvah experi-ence at JFC is both part of our Religious School curriculum and part of the standards that our Ritual Committee sets.
Our school is justifiably proud of the rigorous expectations of the Bnai Mitzvah program, because we see it as training to live an educated Jewish life, not simply training to per-form well on “the big day”. And our Ritual Committee is satisfied that our youngsters are getting a solid foundation to enable them to participate meaningfully in our services and in general to participate in services at other syna-gogues.
.But the most telling evaluation of our program comes from the students themselves, who, after attending Bnai Mitzvah services at other temples (especially some con-gregations nearby), report that their friends who belong to other temples are not required to learn much or do much, even at their own service. Our kids clearly respect our program, and though some may gripe about all the classes, etc, they seem to understand that they are getting a good religious education out of the experience.
So it seems unlikely that our Bnai Mitzvah program will be radically altered any time soon.
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Jewish Family Congregation 111 Smith Ridge Rd/Rte. 123
