VOLUNTEER OPPORTUNITY OF THE WEEK:
Grant Writer
Did you know Temple Emanu-El receives funds from Sinai Memorial Chapel to support Religious School programs? We have an opportunity to pursue more grants in support of our synagogue, and need your help.
Description: Help match grant opportunities with Temple program needs, identify how those needs fit with exciting or new programs, and write grant proposals to request funds. Work with staff and committee members in this process.
Please contact Ruth Pangilinan at pangilinan@gmail.com
YEAR END CONTRIBUTIONS TO YOUR SYNAGOGUE
If it would benefit your 2009 tax situation, please do consider an extra donation to Temple Emanu-El, or perhaps accelerating your membership pledge that you would pay in 2010. Distributions from IRA's also welcome. If you have any questions, please contact Drew Barkley in the Temple office.
YOUTH ENRICHMENT SCHOLARSHIPS
(formerly known as camperships):
Forms available in the School office, and will be available soon online. Register NOW for the camp sessions you want as some may fill quickly. Application deadline for scholarships: January 24, 2010, the same day that there will be presentations from the local camps.
Keep the tradition:
CHINESE DINNER ON DECEMBER 25
before services.
5:00 PM, Friday, December 25.
$10 per person. Organized by Brotherhood.
RSVP requested by December 22 so we can plan enough food.
Send email to brotherhood@templesanjose.org and let us know how many will be attending. You can pay at the door.
Check out the Chanukah Resources Page from the Union for Reform Judaism: http://urj.org/holidays/chanukah/
Services and Temple Events
Holiday Hours
In the Community
Torah Portion
Friday, December 11
First Night of Chanukah
7:30 PM ROCK SHABBAT CHANUKAH SERVICE in Temple House
Bring your chanukiyah and 2 candles if you wish.
Saturday, December 12
9:00 AM Shabbat Morning Minyan led by Rabbi Magat and Cantor Simerly
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
9:00 AM Brotherhood Meeting (BFR)
10:15 AM Jewish Studies/Adult Ed
11:30 AM Adult Ed: “The Real Untold Story of Chanukah” (BFR)
Wednesday, December 16
6:15 PM Game Night for TJS/Moving On
6:00 PM Kadima/Noar (Junior Youth Groups) Game Night & Chanukah (grades 4-7)
Friday, December 18
3:30 PM Emanu-El lights candles @ Santana Row
6:00 PM Tot Shabbat (with Kindergarten class) and potluck
7:30 Erev Shabbat Service
Saturday, December 19
9:00 AM Shabbat Morning Minyan
10:30 AM Anna Levine will be called to Torah as a Bat Mitzvah
Friday, December 25
5:00 PM Chinese Dinner by Brotherhood (RSVP required)
Saturday, December 226
9:00 AM Shabbat Morning Minyan
10:30 AM Sydney Levine will be called to Torah as a Bat Mitzvah
HOLIDAY SCHEDULES
The Temple Administrative office will close at noon
Thursday, December 24 and 31.
If you need to reach the office with end of the year matters,
please plan accordingly.
The synagogue will be closed on December 25 and January 1.
Services on both Fridays will be @ 6:30 pm.
RELIGIOUS SCHOOL
No Wednesday classes December 23 & 30
No Sunday classes December 20, 27, January 3.
PRESCHOOL WINTER BREAK
December 21 – January 1. Resumes January 4, 2010.
Other Events of Interest:
PRESCHOOL FOOD/FROZEN TURKEY DRIVE
The goal is 100 turkeys to help 2nd Harvest meet their goal of 10,000.
This year in particular, the need is very great. Please bring your contributions by 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.
IN THE COMMUNITY
Limited spaces left for
THE BEST OF EASTERN CANADA
May 29 – June 8, 2010
11 Days, 16 meals.
Travel with Fagie Rosen and friends.
Deadline is January 15th.
Double: $2995; Single $3745, Triple $2945.
Featuring Montreal, Quebec City, Ottawa, Niagara Falls and Toronto
RSVP or questions: Fagie @ 408 357 7533
JEWISH FAMILY SERVICES
Networking Meeting
Held monthly at Temple Emanu-El
Second Tuesday of the month
10:30 AM – noon in the BFR
Come share job search strategies, learn interviewing and resume techniques, make connections with new, share contacts. RSVP requested to the Temple office, 292-0939. Drop-ins welcome. Next dates: January 12 and February 9.
Torah portion from www.urj.org
Vayeishev, Genesis 37:1-40:23
First Shabbat Chanukah, December 12, 2009 / 25 Kislev, 5770
D'VAR TORAH
Hidden in Plain Sight
Evan Moffic
Several of our commentaries have focused on the power of words. In the Torah, words are a means of creation and revelation; of producing the world, as in Genesis 1-3; and of revealing truths about humanity. Occasionally, a word that recurs in a narrative can hint at an underlying lesson that does not seem obvious in the story itself. We have a beautiful example in this week's Torah reading.
It is found in the incident between Joseph and the wife of his master Potiphar. A courtier to Pharaoh, Potiphar made Joseph his chief steward. Potiphar's wife—whom the text does not name—was attracted to Joseph and tried to seduce him. When he refused, she succeeded in grabbing an article of his clothing that she presented to her husband as proof that Joseph sought to seduce her. Joseph was thrown in prison (39:11–20).
In Hebrew, the article of clothing is called a beged. The word beged appears six times during the ten verses describing this incident. It is clearly a word that cries out for attention. A clue to its importance can be found in another Hebrew word that shares the root bet-gimel-dalet. It is the word begidah, which means "treachery" or "deception." What is the connection between clothing and treachery? Appearances can deceive. What the eye beholds may hide rather than reveal truth.
In this instance that is certainly the case. Potiphar's wife convinced her husband that Joseph did try to seduce her and her proof is the beged, the article of clothing she took from him. This incident brings to mind an earlier one in which another article of clothing—Joseph's coat—was dipped in blood by his brothers and used to prove to their father that he had been eaten by a wild animal (37:31–33). In both cases, clothing is a means for begidah.
I think we can take this idea beyond simple clothing to argue that the way a situation or even a text appears is often misleading. Truth is often concealed behind layers of deception. The concealment of truth is a core principle of Jewish mystical tradition. The nistar, “hidden” dimension of Torah, is what kabbalists seek to uncover.
The connection between appearances and deception can also give us a way to understand and uncover ourselves. A particular type of clothing is often used to fit in and identify with a certain profession or culture. When I wear a suit and tallit during worship, I occasionally joke that it's my uniform. What we wear sends a message of who we are.
Yet as Eugene Borowitz pointed out in one of his early books, The Mask Jews Wear: The Self-Deceptions of American Jewry, we can deceive others—even ourselves—by the way we appear (New York: Simon and Schuster Publishing, 1973). Style can easily replace substance. By fitting in, we can convince ourselves of our success. The Book of Esther, where appearances and deception play such a critical role, teaches the futility of this exercise.
Esther (from the Hebrew root samach-tav-reish, meaning hide) became queen in Persia and beyond (from India to Ethiopia) but did not identify herself as a Jew. When her cousin and foster father Mordecai discovered Haman's plot to annihilate the Jews of Shushan, he told Esther that it was time to reveal her identity. She hesitated, as any of us might in times of crisis. Difficult times present us with the hardest decisions. Yet, Esther decided to go ahead and reveal her identity. She may well have been persuaded by Mordecai's argument that ultimately, truth and justice will prevail, and that Esther could help bring this about by revealing her identity. As he says, ". . . if you remain silent in this crisis, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another quarter, while you and your father’s house will perish. And who knows, perhaps you have attained to royal position for just such a crisis” (Esther 4:14). On Purim, we wear costumes and disguise ourselves as a form o
f merriment. The costumes illustrate the way our appearances can be easily altered, and our true selves, hidden.
Not only can appearances be used to intentionally hide truth. Occasionally, what we seek is hidden in plain sight all around us. Our eyes focus on what is bright and colorful. We see the frosting but miss the cake. Part of why we read Torah, I think, is to give us a deeper perspective on the world: Torah helps us see the eternal amidst the everyday.
The difficulty of this task is illustrated in a commencement address penned by the late writer David Foster Wallace and published posthumously in a book called This Is Water. It opens with a parable about two young fish swimming in the water. They happen to meet an older fish swimming the opposite way. The older fish nods at them and says, "Morning boys, how's the water." The young fish swim off. A few minutes later, one of them turns to the other and says, "What the hell is water?"
The point of the story, Wallace goes on to say, is that the most important realities are often the most difficult to see. What’s most familiar is often what's least noticed. Growing as a human being, Wallace writes, is an ongoing tutorial in learning what is most important—in figuring out what to notice and where to place our attention. It is not easy. In the age of BlackBerry devices and fifty-inch television screens, thousands of things compete for our attention—possessions, entertainment, frivolity. Yet, when we pray, when we study, when we listen to the wisdom of those who preceded us, we learn how to better focus it. Indeed, Wallace may have unknowingly defined the purpose of Torah when he said that true learning seeks what is so true and what is hidden in plain sight all around us. (See David Foster Wallace, This Is Water [New York: Little, Brown and Co., 2009], pp. 3, 4, 8).
Rabbi Evan Moffic is senior rabbi of Congregation Solel in Highland Park, Illinois.
DAVAR ACHER
Deception Yet Again
Amy Schwartzman
In his commentary, Rabbi Moffic uncovers the multilayer message found in the story of Joseph and Potiphar’s wife. What appears to be a simple story about a woman’s desire for a man turns out to be a lesson in deception, sex, and power.
Of course, this is not the first time we are presented with these themes. Our ancestors seem to be regularly engaged in events that include the use of trickery, the crossing of intimate boundaries, and the desire for authority and control.
Just moments before Joseph’s encounter with these themes, we read about his brother Judah engaging in a similar affair. After the death of his first two sons, both of whom had been married to Tamar, Judah is reluctant to allow his third son to marry Tamar. Tamar senses that Judah will never follow through with the betrothal (a Levirate obligation), despite the fact that she is entitled to a family by Judah’s lineage.
Tamar engages in a play of deceit, sex, and power when she changes from her “widow’s clothes,” bigdei alm’nutah (bigdei, from the Hebrew root, bet-gimel-dalet) to those of a harlot. She covers herself in a veil and hides her true identity from Judah. She acquires Judah’s seal, cord, and staff as collateral for payment for her prostitution. When Tamar becomes pregnant and Judah accuses her of promiscuity, she produces his collateral forcing him to admit: “She is more in the right than I” (Genesis 38:26).
These stories of treachery seem to fill our Tanach—from Eden to Canaan to Shushan and beyond. In this case, however, Judah steps up and takes responsibility for his part in the power play. Perhaps this is why both he and Tamar are rewarded with not one, but two sons, including Perez, the ancestor of King David. The story invites us consider how we might reach similarly noble ends without resorting to immoral and deceptive means.
Rabbi Amy Schwartzman is the senior rabbi of Temple Rodef Shalom in Falls Church, Virginia.
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