UPDATE FOR JUNE 4, 2008
ELECTION RESULTS:
At the June 3rd Annual
Meeting, the following new members of the Board of Trustees were elected: Rich Albert, Steve Ladowitz, Ruth
Pangilinan, Eleanor Rusnak, Michelle Schneiderman
The following were elected to the 2009
Nominating Committee:
Mort Berlant, Burt Epstein, Joan Fox, Jeff Marsh, Jerry Prizant
The 2008-2009 budget was approved, as
were the proposed changes to the by-laws.
In this Update:
-
Upcoming Services including Erev Shavuot/Confirmation and Shavuot Morning
Study/Blintzes
-
June 7th: Neighborhood Havdallah event sponsored by the Membership
Committee
-
Temple Emanu-El seeks a Temple Administrator
-
In the community
-
Silicon Valley Duck
Race (supporting Jewish Family Services and Temple Emanu-El)
-
Torah Portion
Friday,
June 6 – 7:30 PM Erev Shabbat Service: Federation/Volunteer Shabbat
Steve
Greenberg, outgoing Federation President, will speak.
The
congregation will honor all those who give of their time.
Special
music with piano, cello and violin.
Saturday, June 7: 9:00 AM
Shabbat Morning Minyan
Sunday, June 8: 7:00 PM Erev Shavuot and Confirmation Service
Mazel
Tov to the Confirmation Class of 5768
Jacob Baker, son of Abby Perr Baker and Tom Baker
David Cappello, son of Amy
and Manny Cappello
Samantha Casale, daughter of
Ellen Boisier
Kristina Fernandez, daughter of
Carol Hoffman
Alicia Fox, daughter of
Laura Vivit and John Fox
Aaron Gerston, son of Marci
and Joel Gerston
Brent Ghan, son of Lori
and Jeff Ghan
Cassie Kopelson, daughter of
Julie Gleaves and Robert Kopelson
Benjamin Lilly, son of Nancy
Weintraub and Byron Lilly
Sydney Mirth, daughter of
Linda Blauner and George Mirth
Gabriela Osias, daughter of
Doris Vela and Joel Osias
Hannah Roberts, daughter of
Susan and Michael Roberts
Adam Rubin, son of Lori Telson and Kurt Rubin
Gabriel Segal, son of
Michelle Indianer and Perry Segal
Monday, June 9: Shavuot: Temple Offices/Preschool closed
8:00 AM Blintz breakfast and
study session (RSVP required: send a quick email to let us know
how many will be attending)
9:00 AM Shavuot Shacharit Service and Yizkor
Friday, June 13: 6:30 PM
Kabbalat Shabbat Service: first
summer service on the patio
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THIS Saturday, June 7: 7:00 PM
–Neighborhood Havdallah …
There is still time to RSVP. The synagogue will be open as a host
location. Please call the Administrative
office 292-0939 or send an email if you will join the group here at
Temple Emanu-El. Plan to bring a dessert
or appetizer to share. Handouts with the
blessings and information about Havdallah will be available. Come on down and make new friends!
Temple Emanu-El is seeking a Temple Administrator.
We provide a
collaborative, warm and nurturing environment to work in.
We are looking for an experienced administrator who
is responsible for supervising paid staff, directing volunteers, managing the
budget and overseeing the day-to-day operations and facilities of our spiritual
home. The Administrator acts as the liaison to members, clergy, the Board of
Trustees, the preschool, religious school, committees and auxiliaries.
Experience in running a non-profit enterprise is a plus.
The
position is available immediately. If you know of someone who might be interested
in and appropriate for the role, please contact Ruth Krandel, ruthkrandel@yahoo.com or 264-5376 or Pam Schuur, pamela.schuur@comcast.net or 483-6810.
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IN THE COMMUNITY…
Silicon Valley Duck Race: June 22nd
Adopt a
duck -- Support Temple Emanu-El and Jewish Family Services by purchasing 1, 5,
10, even 25 ducks or more!
On Sunday,
June 22nd at 1:00pm egg-zactkly, 10,000 darling rubber duckies will
dive under the bridge and into Vasona
Lake, racing downstream
into a prize picking net. The Lucky Duck
winners will go home with more than $15,000 in prizes, with the possibility of
winning a $1 Million nest egg.
The
Silicon Valley Duck Race is a fun opportunity for the whole community. In addition to the race, there will be a
festival, food and games, beginning at 11:00am.
Bring the entire family! Jewish
organizations in the South
Bay are cooperating in
this quacky fun day, sponsored by Jewish Family Services of Silicon Valley,
which provides social, vocational, counseling, crisis intervention, refugee resettlement services and programs for seniors.
The best way to adopt your ducks is
online at www.siliconvalleyduckrace.org. Go to the right of
the home page and click on “Temple Emanu-El” as your team, and your synagogue
will receive $2 for every $5 donated.
Then come on down for all the fun on June 22nd! Duck adoption papers are available on the
Shalom Table and in the Temple
office.
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Refuah Shleymah – we pray for the
following individuals – that they will be returned to good health in short
order so they can resume a full life with their loved ones.
- Arthur Cagan
- Judith Siegel
- Eva Stanley
- Joelle Wolf
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Torah
Portion of the Week from www.urj.org
Naso, Numbers 4:21−7:89
Shabbat, June 7, 2008 / 4 Sivan, 5768
The Torah: A Modern Commentary , pp. 1,043−1,075 ; Revised
Edition, pp. 921−945 ;
The Torah: A Women’s Commentary , pp. 815–842
Haftarah, Judges 13:2−25
The Torah: A Modern Commentary , pp. 1,256−1,258; Revised Edition,
pp. 947−949
To listen to this commentary, please click here.
D'VAR TORAH |
Parashat Naso: The Sotah (Suspected
Adulteress), the Nazir (Nazirite) and the Kohein (Priest)—How Odd
They Should Be Neighbors!
Lewis M. Barth
Parashat Naso receives its name from the first
word of its second verse (Numbers 4:22). The Hebrew verb naso , 
typically
means “to lift up," but the idiom “lift the heads" has the special
meaning of counting heads, or taking a census. Our Torah portion continues the
census of the “the whole Israelite company [of fighters] by the clans of its
ancestral houses, listing the names, every male, head by head" with which
the Book of Numbers opens (Numbers 1:2). Parashat Naso follows with a
census of the Gershonite and Merarite clans—both of whom were “subject to
service in the performance of tasks for the Tent of Meeting"
(Numbers 4:23, 4:30). It ends with the listing of the tribal chieftains and the
gifts they brought on the occasion of Moses consecrating the Tabernacle
(Numbers 7). Between the census and the lists, coming one after the other and
without apparent connection, are 1) the laws by which the sotah , the
suspected adulteress, is judged (Numbers 5:11–31); 2) the rules for the nazir
, one who takes a vow to be a nazirite (Numbers 6:1–21); and 3) the blessings uttered
by the priests known as the Priestly Benediction (Numbers 6:22–27). Each of
these three sections individually—either because of their difficulties or
inherent interest—has received considerable attention over the centuries.
There is, however, one question,
used by the ancient Rabbis and by modern scholars as they attempt to
understand the unfolding biblical narrative, a question that has particular
significance here: why are these passages placed next to each other? Are there
lessons we can learn from the proximity of these sections of the Book of
Numbers that will deepen our appreciation of biblical religion? Perhaps we will
find that there is meaning in the fact that the sotah (suspected
adulteress), the nazir (nazirite), and the kohein (priest) are
neighbors.
From my perspective,
everything in this biblical material points to the secret and manifest
strivings of the human heart. The case of the sotah (a word not found in
this form in the Hebrew Bible but used throughout Rabbinic literature) is a tragic
representation of family dysfunction. Modern feminist biblical scholarship has
appropriately called our attention to the degrading situation in which the
suspected adulteress is placed; it has also pointed out how these laws were
rarely applied and even abrogated by the Rabbis of the Talmudic period. (See,
for example, the excellent comments in The Torah: A Women’s Commentary ,
ed. Tamara Cohn Eskenazi [New York: URJ Press, 2008], pp. 815–842). What is
clear from the biblical text is how unique this situation is because its
outcome is so different from laws in other biblical passages. In Leviticus
20:10 we read, “If a man commits adultery with a married woman, committing
adultery with another man’s wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall be put
to death" (see also Deuteronomy 22:22). Either implicitly or explicitly,
the verses from Leviticus and Deuteronomy make clear that the couple caught in
the act is to be punished by execution. However, in the case of the sotah
, no one has been caught, and there are no witnesses.
“If any wife has gone
astray and broken faith with her husband in that a man has had carnal relations
with her unbeknown to her husband, and she keeps secret the fact that she has
defiled herself without being forced, and there is no witness against her [italics
added]—but a fit of jealousy comes over him and he is wrought up about the wife
who has defiled herself; or if a fit of jealousy comes over one and he is
wrought up about his wife although she has not defiled herself—the husband
shall bring his wife to the priest" (Numbers 5:12–15).
What, indeed, caused the
“fit of jealousy"? We might add a number of questions: Is the wife
innocent or guilty? In a case in which we can never know the truth, is the
man’s unconscious leading him to act out as problematic as the wife’s possible,
but not provable, deceit? Assessing the husband’s actions: did he “hear"
some level of nonverbal communication transmitted by his wife, or was he, by
nature and nurture, a person incapable of trusting others, particularly those
with whom he was most intimately connected? Evaluating the wife’s perspective:
if in fact she is guilty, was this a loveless marriage, a situation of spousal
abuse, a woman with her own history of acting out? These are modern questions
that clearly do not fit the mores , culture, or laws of the ancient
world. But the answer to them is the same as the situation of the ancient case:
we can never know, because any answer resides in the secrets of the heart.
With the nazirite we have
information that is perhaps more open to understanding. Either a man or
woman chooses to become a nazirite. This is accomplished by uttering “a
nazirite’s vow, to set themselves apart for the Eternal" (Numbers 6:2).
The restrictions imposed on the nazirite are abstaining from wine (including
grapes or other grape products) or alcoholic beverage, refraining from cutting
one’s hair, and remaining apart from contact with the dead, even parents or
brothers and sisters. As W. Gunther Plaut points out, “The Torah treats
naziriteship as an already existing institution: it does not deal with reasons
for taking vows but, rather, with the way in which persons who have become
nazirites are to conduct themselves" ( The Torah: A Modern Commentary [New
York: URJ Press, 2005], p. 938). Yet reasons can be inferred or assumed: a
person is motivated to excessive piety and abstinence as a sign of gratitude
for blessing or perhaps excessive guilt for an irreparable personal act or
perhaps to appeal to God to attend to deep-felt prayers. The laws in Numbers
focus on the individual who enters this condition for a fixed period of time,
not the lifelong naziriteship we find elsewhere in the Bible. We know of people
in our own society who want a deeper experience of religiosity and who are
motivated to take on a fuller regimen of mitzvot—no matter which denomination
of Judaism is theirs. Many might agree that “Jewish tradition has also included
a wariness of asceticism" (Plaut, ibid.). We know, however, that in every
generation ascetic practice was attractive to a larger or smaller minority of
Jews, Judaism made room for it, and individuals or communities have engaged in
it for the same reasons that impelled the ancient nazirite.
Both the sotah and
the nazirite are singled out to be models in society, one for disgrace and the
other perhaps for appreciation of excessive religiosity. Yet their humanity is
affirmed by the message of the Priestly Benediction, a brief blessing that in
its terseness holds the multiplicity of all that human beings hope for in life.
A comment on “May the Eternal bless you" (Numbers 6:24) in Sifrei
B’midbar , a tannaitic midrash on the Book of Numbers, says simply “with
the blessing explicitly stated in the Torah," Blessed shall you be in the
city and blessed shall you be in the country (Deuteronomy 28:3). By extension,
we can interpret this to include Deuteronomy 28:4–6: “Blessed shall be the
issue of your womb, the produce of your soil, and the offspring of your cattle.
. . . Blessed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl. Blessed shall you be
in your comings and blessed shall you be in your goings." (See also
Deuteronomy 28:7–14).
It is not so odd that the sotah
(suspected adulteress), the nazir (nazirite), and the kohein
(priest) are neighbors in the biblical texts. For me, the most powerful meaning
of their proximity is that they are our neighbors: those with secrets no
one will ever know, those with a deep need for excessive religious expression,
those who simply want what most of us want—life’s blessings.
Rabbi Lewis M. Barth is professor emeritus of midrash and
related literature, Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion, Los Angeles, California.
DAVAR ACHER |
Resolving Marital
Discord
Carol Meyers
The juxtaposition of
disparate issues becomes meaningful in the comments of Rabbi Barth, who also
notes that present-day questions about adulterous relationships are foreign to
the biblical world. Yet the sotah case presents a perennial problem. Naso
solves it in a way no longer available to or appropriate for us, but at
least it indicates that resolutions are possible.
In biblical days, a man who
suspected his spouse of infidelity was especially concerned that his wife might
be pregnant with another man’s child. This situation would pose a grave threat
to the inheritance patterns of our Israelite ancestors (and perhaps explains
why there is no equivalent case of a husband suspected of infidelity). Thus the
matter had to be adjudicated, in this instance by a priestly official. Without
the witnesses required for conviction, the case was, in effect, a “he said–she
said" situation that today would be resolved by juries. In the ancient
world, God decided. The elaborate, magical procedure was a “trial by
ordeal," often used by premodern cultures to resolve judicial impasses. On
close examination, the sotah ’s ordeal is relatively innocuous, like a
lie detector test. It is understood that if she has been unfaithful, God makes
her infertile (or perhaps, if she has become pregnant, God causes her to
abort). Otherwise nothing happens; she can conceive (or her pregnancy
continues).
There is no death penalty for guilt; the harshness of other biblical laws is
mitigated in this case. Whether the wife is guilty or innocent, her husband’s
concerns are relieved and the marriage is sustained. Our ancestors had
mechanisms for dealing with the realities of marital discord, and using those
mechanisms brought resolution. Our reasons for addressing such problems are far
different today, but we can learn from Naso that seeking radical
interventions may be essential and that trust can be restored.
Dr. Carol Meyers is the Mary Grace Wilson Professor of
Religion at Duke University and served as Consulting
Editor in Bible for the Torah: A Woman’s Commentary.
)