There are only two days left to make an extra donation to Temple Emanu-El or accelerate your 2009-10 membership commitment. You can make donations easily online http://www.doubleknot.com/Registration/CampaignDetail.asp, or mail your payment to the Temple office. Remember that the office will close at noon tomorrow, Thursday, December 31, if you need to contact us for year-end matters. All items postmarked December 31 will be credited to your account for the 2009 calendar year. Thank you.
It's almost a New Calendar Year! Do we have the right e-mail address on file for your family? Let us help you with a new year's resolution to go green! We can send your statements and Connections bulletin via e-mail! Send your name and e-mail address to Lisas@templesanjose.org!
Adult Ed Spring 2010 Registration is OPEN!
Pick up a flyer from the Shalom Table or go online to: http://templesanjose.org/index.php/education/adult-education.html
Did you take any photos of Chanukah events at Temple Emanu-El? Send them to Lisa at lisas@templesanjose.org to have them added to Connections!
Services and Temple Events
HOLIDAY SCHEDULES
The Temple Administrative office will close at noon
Thursday, December 31.
If you need to reach the office with end of the year matters,
please plan accordingly.
The synagogue will be closed on January 1.
Kabbalat Shabbat Service will be @ 6:30 pm.
RELIGIOUS SCHOOL
No Wednesday classes December 30
No Sunday classes January 3.
PRESCHOOL resumes Monday, January 4, 2010.
Friday, January 1
6:30 PM Kabbalat Shabbat Service
Led by Cantor Meeka Simerly
Saturday, January 2
9:00 AM Shabbat Morning Minyan
Led by Cantor Meeka Simerly
Sunday, January 3
No Sunday Classes
Wednesday, January 6
4:00 PM Hebrew
NO B’nai Mitzvah Prep class this week
6:15 PM TJS
Friday, January 8:
6:15 PM, Congregational Potluck Dinner
Last name begins with A-H: Bring a Side Dish or Salad
Last name begins with I-Z: Bring an Entrée (NO pork or shellfish and please do not mix dairy with meat or chicken.)
7:15 PM Erev Shabbat Family Service (TJS and 3rd Grade participating)
Saturday, January 9
9:00 AM Shabbat Morning Minyan
Sunday, January 10
9:00 AM Brotherhood Meeting in the Cottage
9:00 AM Hebrew
10:15 AM Mishpacha Sheli/Jewish Studies
11:30 AM Rabbi Simcha Green “An Orthodox Rabbi Defends Reform Practice” presented by Brotherhood. No charge.
Wednesday, January 13
Noon: Lunch and Learn
Friday, January 15
6:00 PM Tot Shabbat/Potluck Dinner
7:30 PM Erev Shabbat Service
MARK YOUR CALENDAR
Thursday, January 21 at 7:30 PM
Herb Kwart will speak about
The Jewish Recipients of the Congressional Medal of Honor.
No charge. Presented by Sisterhood. Light reception to follow.
eScrip is Unique! No Cost to You!
We participate in a powerful fundraising opportunity...eScrip, a hassle-free way for Temple to raise funds through everyday purchases made at eScrip merchants.
**Log on to www.escrip.com and click on "sign up."
**Designate Temple Emanu-El to receive contributions.
**Our group ID# is 136985180.
**Register your credit/debit, Safeway/Macy's cards.
That's it! Visit eScrip merchants to shop and earn. It's automatic.
Any questions, call Lorie Kaplan, eScrip coordinator, 408.267.4563
Other Events of Interest:
Are you part of a young Couple? Come spend a night with other young Jewish couples! Enjoy monthly gatherings with food, games, great conversation and other fun activities! For more information contact Lisa Sobel at Lisas@templesanjose.org or find us on Facebook!
Couples Night Out is brought to you by Temple Emanu-El and the Jewish Federation of Silicon Valley Young Adult’s Division & is open to all couples, ages 21-45. All SVYAD events occur in an open & welcoming environment.
IN THE COMMUNITY
Technisource is looking for a Hebrew Linguist – Ideally with strong technical backgrounds for a job opening at ebay and paypal. To apply e-mail resumes to GinaMasongsong@Technisource.com
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.
Admissions Open House at Kehillah Jewish High School Sunday January 10 at 2 p.m.
Come discover Kehillah Jewish High School at its Admissions Open House on Sunday January 10 at 3900 Fabian Way, Palo Alto 94303! Hear from our students, faculty and administrators; take a student-led tour of our facility; visit our science labs, art and music studios, theater and beit midrash; discover how the Oshman Family JCC enhances the life of Kehillah students and teams; learn about our outstanding academic program, Jewish studies curriculum, after school sports programs, class trips and extra-curricular clubs and activities. RSVP to Marily Lerner at 650 213 9600 x154 or mlerner@kehillah.org. Open to all middle school families!
SAVE THE DATE: Sunday January 24 1:00 – 8:00 PM
JEWBILEE celebrating Jewish Life at the APJCC
A day of classes, programs and performances. Open Kosher Buffet, film screenings, programming for all ages; complimentary daycare. $7 for adults $4 senior/students. Check it out: www.svjcc.org/jewbilee
Torah portion from www.urj.org
Va-y’chi, Genesis 47:28–50:26
Shabbat, January 2, 2010 / 16 Tevet, 5770
The Torah: A Modern Commentary, pp. 302–316; Revised Edition, pp. 304–322
The Torah: A Women’s Commentary, pp. 281–304
Haftarah, I Kings 2:1–12
D'VAR TORAH
A Story of Hope
Evan Moffic
Without giving anything away, I can say publicly that Dan Brown's long-awaited sequel to The Da Vinci Code, which is called The Lost Symbol (New York, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2009), ends with a nechamta, a “note of comfort.” Despite the trials and betrayals it depicts, the book gives the reader a sense of hope and possibility upon completion. A similar feeling awaits us at the end of the Book of Genesis.
In Genesis, we witness a powerful drama. Among its key points of tension is sibling rivalry. Beginning with Cain and Abel, brothers in Genesis do not have outstanding relationships. Cain murders Abel. Ishmael is banished soon after Isaac is born. Jacob flees Esau, who seeks to murder him for tricking their father into giving Jacob his heartfelt blessing. Jacob's sons sell their brother Joseph to a caravan of Ishmaelites. A note of contention is heard throughout the book.
Underlying this contention, in most cases, is a feeling that one sibling is preferred over another. In the case of Cain and Abel, God prefers Abel's offering. It seems that Isaac—and not Ishmael—is the son destined to further Abraham's line. While Esau is preferred by his father, Jacob is favored by his mother, who helps him beguile his father. Joseph is clearly and visibly the preferred son of his father Jacob. How does this constant tension end? It ends on a soaring note of reconciliation. It ends with a renewal of ties between Joseph and his brothers.
When Joseph tells his brothers that his coming to Egypt was part of God's plan to preserve the family of Jacob, he reframes their relationship (Genesis 45:5–8). When Joseph brings the entire family to Egypt and helps them settle in the fertile region of Goshen, he strikes a new note of family harmony (47:11–12). And after their father Jacob dies, Joseph seals this reconciliation by repeating his promise not to harm his brothers and his belief in a divine plan underlying what they had done to him (50:19–21).
What are the lessons we can draw from this magnificent and hopeful ending? The first is the power of forgiveness. "To err is human," Alexander Pope said, "to forgive is divine." No other sibling relationship in Genesis is so overtly and clearly mended through words of forgiveness as is that between Joseph and his brothers. It represents a growth in character in both Joseph and his brothers, and it is essential to the ongoing narrative of the Torah. Without peace between the children of Jacob, how can they become a nation as they do in Exodus? Without peace among brothers, how can we imagine peace among the nations of the world as we do in the prophetic books (see, for example, Isaiah 2:4, 11:6)? Forgiveness is an act that opens the door to the future.
In the reconciliation between Joseph and his brothers we also see, I think, an insight into the nature of being “chosen.” One can read the earlier stories of sibling rivalry and conclude that God has favorites: Isaac over Ishmael, Jacob over Esau, Joseph over his brothers. Perhaps, then, God prefers the nation of Israel over other peoples in the world, and that is the meaning of Israel's status as am s’gulah, a “treasured people”? If this is so, then we might agree with those historians and theologians who argue that the notion of Jews as the “Chosen People" conveys an elitism that is the basis for antisemitism.
The text, I believe, teaches us otherwise. In the Book of Genesis, God promises that Ishmael will be the father of a great nation (Genesis 21:18). Isaac blesses Esau (27:38–40) in addition to Jacob (27:27–29; 28:1–4). A midrash has Cain teaching his father Adam about the power of t’shuvah (Genesis Rabbah 22:13). And, Joseph's brother Judah is promised royal descendants (49:10). Divine choice of one person or nation does not mean that another is rejected or bereft of a relationship to God. Being chosen implies difference, not superiority.
A second lesson we can draw from our ending is that a dominant theme of Genesis is hope, not optimism. As Rabbi Michael Marmur writes, “The two are often confused, but they are profoundly different.” Optimism is the belief that things will get better. Hope is the faith that with our efforts, we can help make things better. Optimism is passive; hope is active. Unlike optimism or pessimism, which are qualities we are often born with, hope is something we can embrace. As Marmur says, "while optimism is a matter of personality or disposition, hope is a matter of faith" (Reform Judaism, Summer 2009, http://reformjudaismmag.org/Articles/index.cfm?id=1470).
The Book of Genesis, the first of our five core books of faith, guides us in embracing it. It guides us not through dogma or law, but through stories. Genesis exemplifies our Jewish passion for understanding our lives through the stories and relationships that shape it. While the creation of the world requires only thirty-four verses of the book, the stories of our ancestors and their relationships with one another take up all the rest. As students of Torah in the twenty-first century, our task is to make those stories our own. As Arnold Eisen puts it, "We start where and as we are, take on the tradition as we find it and, one by one, commit differently to the same covenant, and so inscribe ourselves in the never-ending story of the Jewish people and its Torah" (Taking Hold of Torah: Jewish Commitment and Community in America, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997, p. xiii).
Rabbi Evan Moffic is senior rabbi of Congregation Solel in Highland Park, Illinois.
DAVAR ACHER
S’lichah!
Justin Kerber
I couldn’t agree more with Rabbi Evan Moffic’s conclusion that forgiveness opens the door to the future. In fact, forgiveness is one of the most redemptive gifts a person can ever give. I’m not sure Joseph showed such forgiveness toward his brothers, at least not at first, but never mind. Forgiveness has the power to sweep away the mightiest walls of resentment and pain that we build for ourselves and one another. It is always an option to grant forgiveness freely; I’m not saying that one should, but that one can. There are some acts—sexual abuse, murder, or the intentional infliction of severe emotional harm come to mind—that are not immediately forgivable. But forgiveness is always an option.
Since Rabbi Moffic’s d’var mentions story telling as another of his themes, I’ll illustrate what I mean with a true story: Rami Elchanan is a graphic artist and a seventh generation Jerusalemite. His daughter, Smadar (“grape vine”), was born on Erev Kol Nidrei, 1983. Fourteen years later, just before another Kol Nidrei, she was blown to shreds by a Palestinian suicide bomber who struck the Ben Y’hudah pedestrian mall. What was Rami’s response?
I met Rami when he appeared with his colleague, Azmi Bishara, representing the Parents Circle – Families Forum, an organization of Israelis and Palestinians alike who have lost family members in the violence of the conflict. As Rami says, “If we, who have paid the highest price possible, can carry on a dialogue, then anyone can! "
The Yom Kippur liturgy quotes God saying, Salachti ki d’varecha, “I have pardoned according to your plea.” It matters that God says, Salachti, “I have forgiven,” but not machalti, “I have forgotten.” Forgiving does not have to mean all is forgotten, only that one has chosen to move forward, abandoning all hope of a better past.
Rabbi Justin Kerber is senior rabbi at Temple Emanuel in St. Louis, Missouri.
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