There is only ONE MORE DAY TO ORDER CHANUKAH TREAT BOXES:
Challahs for Dallahs extended their earning potential at the Sisterhood Chanukah Boutique, selling CHANUKAH TREAT BOXES, which included homemade fudge and biscotti. The teens hope to raise over $500 for Toys for Tots during this holiday season! If you missed their booth, Lisa Sobel, the class adviser, is accepting orders through Friday, December 4, via e-mail lisas@templesanjose.org. The boxes come in two sizes: small and large. The small contains a half-pound of fudge, 6 biscotti and assorted drinks and costs $7. The large includes a full pound of fudge, 12 biscotti and assorted drinks and sells for $14. Pick them up at the Challahs for Dallahs table outside the Temple House on Sunday at 12:45 PM, December 6 and 13th. You can pay when you pick them up. Makes a lovely gift, or an indulgence for yourself!
ADULT ED: THE DECEMBER DILEMMA
This Sunday, December 6, 11:30 AM in the Benefactors Room
Join Rabbi Magat in a discussion of the challenges so often faced by parents
(particularly in interfaith families) in connection with the winter holidays.
YOUNG COUPLES NIGHT OUT
Wednesday, December 9 -- 7:00-9:00 PM
819 Myrtle Street, The Temple Cottage
Services and Temple Events
More information below on
Sisterhood Meeting Tues Dec 8 6 PM
Young Couples Gathering: Weds December 9
Preschool Holiday Food/Turkey Drive
Chanukah Activities
In the Community
Life Cycle Notification
Torah Portion
Friday, December 4
6:15 PM Congregational Potluck Dinner
Please bring a generous amount of food for your family as well as to share with others according to the following:
Last name begins with A-H: Bring an Entrée (NO pork or shellfish,
and please do not mix dairy with meat or chicken.)
Last name begins with I-Z: Bring a Side Dish or Salad
7:15 PM Erev Shabbat Family Service (Gimel Hebrew and Grade 2)
Saturday, December 5
9:00 AM Shabbat Morning Minyan led by Aaron Rubin
10:30 AM Alex Paulsen will be called to Torah as a Bar Mitzvah
Sunday, December 6
9:00 AM Hebrew classes
Confirmation Class Parent Session (with students)
10:15 AM Jewish Studies
10:15 AM Mishpacha Sheli
10:15/10:30 AM Adult Education classes
11:30 AM “The December Dilemma” adult ed class with Rabbi (BFR)
12:30 PM Renanim Rehearsal
Tuesday, December 8
6:00 – 9:00 PM in the BFR
Sisterhood Potluck Dinner/Meeting/Chanukah Gift Exchange.
RSVP to Harriet Reisner if you plan to attend. All are welcome.
Bring a dish to share for dinner and a wrapped gift (value $10) for the exchange.
Wednesday, December 9
12:00 PM Lunch & Learn
4 PM Hebrew
5 PM Bnai Mitzvah Prep Class
6:15 PM TJS/Moving On
NEW: YOUNG COUPLES NIGHT OUT
Wednesday, December 9 -- 7:00-9:00 PM
819 Myrtle St, San Jose (The Temple Emanu-El Cottage)
Join SVYAD for our monthly Couples group, a chance for couples to enjoy a night out! We’ll have food, fantastic company and a new discussion topic or activity each month. December’s event is being chaired by Lisa Sobel and Benji Berlow.
Stay tuned at www.svyad.org or our Facebook group for more details & December’s topic
(408) 357-7503 or svyad@jvalley.org to RSVP
If any Temple members reading this know any young Jewish couples, please share this information.
With appreciation to Temple Emanu-El for hosting!
Check out the Chanukah Resources Page from the Union for Reform Judaism:
http://urj.org/holidays/chanukah/
Friday, December 11
First Night of Chanukah
7:30 PM ROCK SHABBAT CHANUKAH SERVICE in Temple House
Bring your chanukiah and 2 candles.
Saturday, December 12
9:00 AM Shabbat Morning Minyan
10:00 AM – noon: Bnai Mitzvah Class Parent Session
5:00 PM Renanim (Jr. Choir) to Chai House (congregants invited)
Sunday, December 13
9:00 AM Hebrew/Confirmation
10:15 AM Jewish Studies/Adult Ed
10:30 AM Brotherhood Meeting
11:30 AM Adult Ed: “The Real Untold Story of Chanukah” (BFR)
Friday, December 18
3:30 PM Emanu-El lights candles @ Santana Row - congregants welcome to join us there
6:00 PM Tot Shabbat (with Kindergarten class) and potluck
7:30 Erev Shabbat Service
Other Events of Interest:
PRESCHOOL FOOD/FROZEN TURKEY DRIVE
We received 105 turkeys before Thanksgiving. But we are not done yet. Donations will still be accepted until December 15. Contact the preschool office, barbara@templesanjose.org, if you have any questions or a large number of turkeys to donate. Check out the sale ads for the local stores and you’ll find turkeys and all the fixings and side dishes as people prepare for the holidays.
ANNA LEVINE’S MITZVAH PROJECT
Anna is collecting toiletries to be given to the Women and Children’s Shelter as part of their welcome baskets. Please check to see if you have any samples/hotel size products you could donate. Bring them to the School office on Sunday mornings, December 6 & 13, or to the Admin office during the week.
Challah for Dallahs
Attention Temple Emanu-El Teens!
Learn to bake palm-sized loaves of challah in traditional and not-so-traditional flavors, then help sell them for the cause of your choice after Sunday Religious School!
Attention Challah Lovers!
Stop by the Challah for a Dallah table on Sundays between 12:30-12:45 PM to purchase your palm-sized loaf!
DO YOU HAVE A FUNCTIONING BREAD MACHINE THAT YOU ARE NO LONGER USING? Consider donating it to the synagogue to help the Challahs for Dallahs program! Thanks! Contact Lisa, lisas@templesanjose.org. and Thank You!
Are you a graduate of Temple Emanu-El’s Religious School? We’re looking for confirmands from the classes of 1962, 1963, and 1964 with folks from 1965 and 1961thrown in for good measure. We need your help putting together a great reunion this spring.
For a blast from the past and to get more information planning contacting and just reconnecting with your youth, contact:
Carol Cutler (class of 62) 266-9224
Janis Purwin (class of 63) 281-2451
Stan Cotton (class of 64) 265-1948
IN THE COMMUNITY
This Saturday, December 5: Cantors Concert benefitting Reform Camp Scholarships
CANTOR MEEKA WILL BE SINGING along with many other cantors from the whole Bay Area. Begins with Havdallah at 7:00 PM. @ Shir Hadash. $18 suggested donation.
TWO TIERED MAH JONGG TOURNAMENT AT THE JCC CAMPUS
Sunday, December 6, 9:30 AM – 2:30 PM
Dot, Crack, Bam, Flower, Dragon…click, click go the Mah Jongg tiles.
Join mavens and novices for a two-tiered National Mah Jongg league style tournament hosted by the Women’s Philanthropy of the Jewish Federation of the Silicon Valley. Entry to the tournament is $54 which will include refreshments, lunch and prizes for the winners of both tiers. For more information or to register please visit our website at www.jvalley.org
Llife Cycle Notification:
We note with sorrow the passing of Cyril Weiss, mother of Arlene Greenberg. May her memory be a blessing.
Torah portion from www.urj.org
Vayishlach, Genesis 32:4-36:43
Shabbat, December 5, 2009 / 18 Kislev, 5770
D'VAR TORAH
Brandeis and Jacob: Struggle and Change
Evan Moffic
In the 1940s, when a group of philanthropists sought to find a name for the American Jewish university they were opening outside of Boston, several ideas were debated. Some wanted to name the school after Albert Einstein. Others sought to honor a figure who had a recently passed away and was widely considered the most accomplished American Jew of the first half of the twentieth century. That figure was Louis Brandeis.
Brandeis was not a conventional American Jew. He was raised in Louisville, Kentucky, in an assimilated family that had roots in the mystical Frankist movement of nineteenth-century Prague. Scholars speculate on the influence of his Frankist heritage on his later adoption of Zionism. Yet Brandeis had very little exposure to Judaism for the first half of his life. He married a cousin in a ceremony presided over by another relative, Felix Adler, the leader of the Ethical Culture movement. (For a comprehensive look at Brandeis's life, see the recently published book by Melvin Urofsky, Louis Brandeis: A Life [New York: Pantheon, 2009.)
Sometime in his fifties, Brandeis felt a pull toward Zionism. Beginning in 1910, and culminating in his election as the head of the Provisional Executive Committee for General Zionist Affairs in 1914, Brandeis gave new stature and direction to the American Zionist movement. He was eminently successful in increasing its numbers and support, and he provided a philosophy—Zionism as a synthesis of American and Jewish ideals—that guided the movement through much of the twentieth century.
Something happened within Brandeis in the early part of the twentieth century that led him to become a fervent Zionist. Scholars speculate about internal struggles he might have had or instances of anti-Semitism he experienced. Yet he underwent some kind of transformation from an uninterested assimilated Jew to a symbol of American Judaism. From a spiritual point of view, I would say that it was both a maturing and a homecoming. Shaped by his progressive political and social values, his understanding of Judaism emerged from apathy to engagement; he saw in Zionism a return not only to a physical Jewish homeland, but also to the moral virtues that he argued had distinguished Jews throughout their history. Rebutting the infamous charge that American Zionists were guilty of dual loyalties, Brandeis argued and proved that Zionists can be faithful Americans and Jews.
His struggle toward maturing and homecoming parallels the experience of Jacob that we see in this week's Torah reading. Jacob is on his way back to his homeland. He is traveling with Rachel and Leah, their children, assorted servants, and belongings. He hears that his brother Esau is on his way to meet him, with the ominous warning that Esau is accompanied by 400 men (32:7). Jacob then splits his camp up and crosses the Jabbok River to spend the evening alone (32:8–9; 23–24). During that evening, he wrestles with a mysterious man or “angel” (32:25).
The identity of the angel is unclear. Among the many possible answers is that Jacob was wrestling with himself. Encapsulated in that evening, I believe, was the internal struggle and maturing Jacob had been undergoing since he fled his homeland twenty years earlier. We recall that on the initial part of that journey, Jacob dreamed and God spoke to him. During that dream, Jacob saw a staircase between heaven and earth, with angels going up and down it (Genesis 28:12). After awakening from his dream, Jacob creates a monument to God makes a quid pro quo to Him: If God assures his safety, he will accept the Eternal as his God and set aside a tithe for Him (28:18–22). This naive promise, and the deception he pulled on his father in the prior chapter (27:15–29) are what we know of the early signs of his character.
Over the next twenty years, Jacob himself is deceived (29:25). Then, he works and begins to forge his own life outside of his homeland. As he returns home, he is faced with a test to see if he has grown. That he has passed the test is indicated clearly in the final words he says to the unknown adversary, "I will not let you go until you bless me" (32:27). Jacob sees that faith is not a quid pro quo: it is finding a blessing in the midst of struggle. Blessings dwell even in times of crisis and we gain strength when we find them. With the angel’s blessing, Jacob is able to restore his relationship with Esau and return safely to his homeland.
Crises and times of difficulty like the one Jacob was facing force us to ask ourselves difficult questions. We have to wrestle with ourselves and determine what is truly important and worth pursuing. Jacob emerged from that struggle with a renewed sense of faith that in every crisis there is opportunity for growth and rebirth. We can emerge from difficulty blessed and strengthened.
With his new name, Israel, Jacob becomes an emblem of the Jewish people. Like him, Louis Brandeis, I think, is an emblem of our American Jewish people. He underwent an internal struggle and growth, and emerged with a new vision of American Jewry as teachers and exemplars of Jewish ethical ideals. His vision shaped those who succeeded him, and remains a legacy and challenge for us all.
Rabbi Evan Moffic is senior rabbi of Congregation Solel in Highland Park, Illinois.
DAVAR ACHER
Who Was that Masked Man?
Ari J. Goldstein
If you think that old episodes of The Lone Ranger were dramatic, they were nothing compared with the evening leading up to Jacob’s meeting with Esau after twenty years of hiding in exile. The confrontation with Esau was inevitable; the outcome, however, was still in question. Until now, Jacob had been seen by his brother as weak and devious. He had taken advantage of a famished brother to acquire the birthright and deceived a disabled father to receive the family blessing. In neither of these two episodes were his actions courageous, strong, or admirable.
And while Jacob changed in profound ways as he entered adulthood—from the weakling of his youth to the resilient and tough man who would amass wealth and family—one thing eluded him. In order to take his place in our patriarchal lineage, he would need to change the mind of the one man who still saw him as scrawny and pathetic—Esau.
And so, in the middle of the night, Jacob crossed the Jabbok River and confronted a mysterious being. Who was it? Was it a man or a divine being? While the text says that he was a man, the blessing and name change suggest that the adversary was a divine being. Rabbi Moffic suggests that perhaps Jacob is wrestling with himself, with his feelings of guilt and remorse.
I suggest that the man wrestling with Jacob is none other than Esau himself. First we read (Gen. 32:31) that Jacob named the site of the fight, Peni’el because he saw “God face-to-face.” Then, the next day when he saw Esau, he reminded him that “to see your face is like seeing the face of God” (Gen. 33:10). This is a not-so-subtle reminder of the events from the night before. So in the end, it was simply two brothers that got into a fight—one that meant much more to Jacob than it did to Esau. However, the surprise is that Jacob won. He no longer needed to bear the stigma of being a weakling.
Rabbi Ari J. Goldstein is the rabbi at Temple Beth Shalom in Arnold, Maryland.
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