Messages from the Rabbi


From Sea to Shining Sea

During the weekend of Thanksgiving, we joined family in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. It was a warm and joyous reunion. As we sat looking through rows of ocean pines at the beautiful Atlantic beach and ocean, I was taken back to an earlier time when the sound of the breaking waves provided among my most restful, calming periods. I would go to the Delmarva Peninsula on Thanksgiving weekend when I served a congregation in Baltimore. After a busy Fall, even the short time away was renewing.

The following weekend, I was called to California to co-officiate at the memorial service of a dear colleague and classmate, a Rabbi from Palm Desert who had passed away after a 12 year struggle with cancer. As we sat by the oceanside in Venice Beach looking at the Pacific, this time through palm trees, listening to the breaking waves, I felt a deep rhythmic healing as if nature herself were expressing a shared grief. It was as if the heart of the universe was still beating.

And I was reminded what an exquisite country and world we live in and how important it is to be conscious of this reality. Whether in times of celebration or of sadness, from one end to the other, nature can serve as a comfort.

The great 20th century, rabbi and philosopher, Abraham Joshua Heschel referred to the sense of “radical amazement” which made a person truly human. Without it, he suggested, it was as if death had come to our spirits. This defined my rabbinic friend. To the very end, he refused to focus on dying but rather on living. Another classmate reminded us of the interpretation from Exodus where God calls Moses to “ascend the mountain,” and then adds, “and be there!” Considering the apparent redundancy, the rabbis concluded that merely “ascending” was not enough. “Being there,” suggesting that one’s very presence was required. Paying attention was also required. Being aware, “being there,” enhanced every moment of living.

We are entering the dark, cold period of winter. But being aware – being amazed – at the world in which we find ourselves can help to enliven us and heal us.

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New Year’s Reflections

The holy days are over and Fall has set in. To be honest, it is my favorite season. Unlike Spring with its pastel colors, Autumn is very earthy. I love the greens, reds, browns yellows – and for me, autumn represents the irony of life. Just as the leaves are about to “die,” they turn their most vibrant. I have always believed that this was to give us humans hope for the future – hope that no matter how cold and bitter the winter we persevere – and confidence that they will return in the Spring.

5771 – last year- seemed a very difficult one. There was so much uncertainty in the world and at home. The political stresses, the development of angry politics and politicians grew out of the fertile soil of the lack of confidence. And so people reach for the certainty of the extremes, whether in Egypt or Libya, Jerusalem or Washington DC. And on the personal level, the number of losses, of deaths in our congregation seemed extraordinary. It was very painful to read the list at Yizkor on Yom Kippur afternoon. These are our loved ones and the loved ones of our loved ones. So together we joined in hope and promise for healing and peace.

Just as each year that is what Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are about, I go into the Berkshires to see the changing season and be reminded of the beauty, even in “dying” leaves – and I am reminded of renewal.

Rabbi Naomi Levi, who witnessed, at the age of 15, the murder of her father concludes her book, To Begin Again,

“In the years since my father’s death, I have learned to trust, to hope, and to laugh again. After my first marriage, I somehow learned to open my eyes, my heart and my arms again. Throughout our lives we will, we should, feel the pain of our losses, the scars will be present even after much time has passed. But we will also feel the strength of our spirit to dream despite the many nightmares of existence. The stamina to push forward into the future carrying our past with us all the while. This is the power of God within us…This is how we begin again.”

May we all find the spirit of hope and renewal in the New Year.

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Nature’s Wrath

This past summer, we experienced the power of Nature. Tornadoes, earthquakes, hurricanes and floods. It seems that the phrase “nature’s wrath” is appropriate. And yet, we Jews do not accept the idea that nature can be “angry” or “kind.” Nature does not enjoy cognitive powers. During the High Holy Day season, one prayer especially, the Unetane Tokef, suggests that nature is the rod of divine instruction…”Who shall live and who shall die; who by fire and who by water…” For the modern mind, these ideas seem archaic, antiquated. In fact, the more we consider the ancients’ view of nature, the more we distance ourselves from their understanding.

And yet there is a kernel of wisdom for us. It lies in the creation story itself. There we find that nature is given to humans both as a gift and a responsibility. The latter, the responsibility, is of the steward, responsible to keep the earth clean, to nurture it through the use of renewable energy sources, to cultivate it and to allow for its rejuvenation. The gift part is to hold sacred the sense of awe of nature’s beauty and consistency. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel once commented that to lose the sense of “radical amazement” is real death. It is, I believe, for these reasons that we, modern Jews living in urban settings far from the agricultural lives of our ancestors keep alive the seasonal festivals that once ruled more than just the ritual life of Jews, but actually reflected their experiences with their lives so dependent on the vagaries of nature.

Today, by observing the planting seasons, the harvests, the lunar agiles, we remind ourselves of both nature’s power and majesty. We are reminded of our obligation to preserve it for those who came after us.

While we do not disregard the challenges nature throws at us, we also celebrate the vast benefits to which we are privileged.

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The Heart of Our Congregation

Our tag line is “Not Just a Place. We’re a Community.” At its most basic, a community is a group of individuals who come together for a common purpose or shared interest, hopefully to make a difference. Here at CMI, on a regular basis, we pray together, study together, act together, and we celebrate together. Equally, or perhaps more importantly, a real community comes together at sad times.

On June 14, our congregation showed just how much of a community we are. On that day, a family and our community was rocked by the death of yet another of our own children. PFC Eric Soufrine was killed in Afghanistan by a roadside bomb. He was just 20 years old. A bar mitzvah, almost to the day, 7 years earlier, he had become “a man” in the Jewish tradition on our bima. How our hearts poured out to his family now. As we, as a synagogue family, had done more than a year ago for the family of Capt. Ben Sklaver, we sent out a request to help fulfill the mitzvah of shmirah. In Jewish tradition, the idea of sharing respect for the deceased while “keeping watch” dates back millenia. We would accompany him on his final journey.

Within hours of sending out notification and a request for help, nearly 50 members of this community had responded. A couple had been his Sunday School teachers. Two were physicians who had treated the family over the years. Several had grown up with the parents, and in one case, the grandparents. But most did not know the family – personally. But all could feel the anguish of losing a son, a brother, a friend. All wished to, in some way, show their gratitude for a young man and to his family who had chosen to defend our country, and gave the ultimate sacrifice. It was not a political matter. It was personal.

It is at the heart of what our congregation is truly about. Indeed, we may rigorously debate our political views, but at the heart and soul of Mishkan Israel is our faith and humanity. I could not be more proud of this congregation’s response, especially knowing how much it meant to those whose pain touched ours.

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Abraham’s Table…Interfaith Friendship

One of the few bright spots among Israel’s relations with Muslim countries has been Turkey. While formal peace treaties exist with Egypt and Jordan, more often than not, these have been, what is generally referred to as, a “cold peace.”

With Turkey, a secular, democratic Muslim nation, Israel has many economic agreements as well as military ones. They have even held joint military maneuvers.

In 2002, things began to change. The government, mostly aligned with the secular military forces, changed. A more pro-Muslim party came to power. While the laws and constitution still prevent too broad a change, we have seen a movement away from the West, Europe and the US and more toward the East. Turkish officials have made diplomatic gestures toward Syria and Iran – both troublesome especially to Israel.

All of this came to a head this Spring when a flotilla of ships left Turkey to challenge Israel’s blockade of Gaza. Israel had tried to dissuade the government from allowing the ships to leave from a Turkish port, under Turkish flag, to insure that the humanitarian aid did not include weapons and that, if challenged, the ships would follow protocol to an Israeli port- Asdod- and the material inspected and the shipped over land to Gaza. The government of Turkey turned its back – the sponsoring NGO group apparently having ties with many officials of the new leadership.

As we now know, only too well, one of the ships’ passengers resisted the Israeli attempt to storm the ship and when Israeli paratroopers landed from helicopters, physical resistance broke out and 9 were killed – all Turkish citizens, one of whom was a Turkish-American.

Since then, Turkey has officially recalled their ambassador for discussion and the Prime Minister has accused Israel of “murder.” All official military contacts have been canceled and a demand for an international investigation has been issued along with an apology from Israel and reparations to the families of the dead. Israel has refused an external investigation, appointing its own board (along with some foreign observes) and has steadfastly refused to apologize.

The uproar among other nations, was, at first, deafening. (Subsequently, videos shown seem to suggest a much more complicated scenario – as the tragedy on all sides unfolded.)

Here, at Mishkan Israel, we have, over the past two years, been in dialogue with our counterparts from the Turkish-American community. In fact, Connecticut has the largest population of Turkish-Americans in the US and West Haven is their center. We have held 3 interfaith dialogues. We believe that the community of our respective faiths bids us together – that we can, bridge the gaps that separate people through our mutual feelings as descendants of Abraham. Our synagogue is built upon the foundation of discussing the mutual ties that bind us to all of God’s children. Whenever we recite the SHEMA, we are reminded not only of God’s unity but of the unity of us all. As Abraham Joshua Heschel taught:
“God holds our faithful lives together and reveals to us that what is empirically diverse in color, in interest, in creeds – races, classes, nations – is one in God’s eyes and one in essence.”

After the latest incident, we decided that we would not allow the tragedy in the Mediterranean to spread here. We must keep channels of communication open and build on the goodwill of the past. On Sunday, July 18, nearly 100 members of our community joined together for a friendship picnic. We are in discussion about more such programs and eventually an interfaith visit to Turkey.

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Welcoming the Stranger

This year’s Robert E. Goldburg Peace & Justice Service celebrated the mitzvah of one people helping another – of welcoming the stranger. Our guest speaker was documentary film producer/editor Christine Romero, whose recent work, “God’s House,” is about Albanian Muslims who rescued Jews during World War II. Following Shabbat Services, we showed the film and then Ms. Romero spoke about the documentary.
We Jews have, over the centuries, known both the welcoming hand and the closed door. “Rescuing the prisoner,” “welcoming the stranger,” “redeeming the captive,” — these are all significant concepts that are part and parcel of our tradition – mitzvot that beckon us from across the years to our own time.
These principles have been at the core of our own synagogue’s work almost from inception. It was in the 1880′s that Congregation Mishkan Israel first organized a committee to welcome Jewish immigrants fleeing Czarist oppression. Anti-Jewish legislation and violence forced Jews to flee Russia and, as in most American communities, they began arriving in New Haven. Between 1878 and 1912, our Jewish community swelled from 1,000 to 20,000. While the members of CMI had mostly immigrated a half century earlier and from Germany, they nevertheless recognized and accepted their obligation toward their fellow co-religionists.

In 1882, the New Haven Union reported: “The lady members of (Rabbi) Dr. Kleeberg’s family and Mrs. Max Adler, with the Jewish Benevolent Society, will look after their [the Russian immigrants’] immediate wants…two tenements have already been secured…in which the two families will be domiciled and cared for until able to earn a living…”

The face of American Judaism and of CMI would change over the next half century. By the 1920′s, nearly 3 million Russian Jews would arrive in America, be educated and become not only a part of the fabric of Jewish life, but would influence its ultimate design.

In 1990, over a century later, Jews from the Soviet Union would once again look to their co-religionists here in America. Our congregation responded. Working with a committee of the Jewish Federation of Greater New Haven, CMI sponsored seven families, “look(ing) after their immediate wants…” Several of these families remain in New Haven and are still with our congregation. One week after our Peace & Justice Service, we once again focused on “welcoming the stranger.” At Shabbat Evening Services, we celebrated the “Coming to America” of two of these Russian families. They have been an integral part of our community and a grandchild born here is now in our pre-school program.

Our experience led IRIS, an immigrant aid group, to look to us for support for a Bosnian Muslim family. In 1995, we participated in helping to sponsor such a family. Now, fifteen years later, we are again being asked to help sponsor a family, this time from Iraq. Under the leadership of Dr. David Hesse, we are looking for resources and individuals willing to be a part of this effort.

If you want to be a part of our refugee resettlement effort, welcoming the stranger, please call me at the Temple office. To my mind, it is a mitzvah that justifies who we are.

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Making A Difference

We had quite a winter. In addition to hosting the community-wide Martin Luther King, Jr. Service and the usual family events, births and deaths, b’nai mitzvah and weddings, this year, we hosted the new interfaith community project, Abraham’s Tent. The project, housing guests from Columbus House’s overflow shelter, involved over 100 volunteers, either through Life Is Delicious preparing the meals, congregants staying up with the guests, or staff taking on the additional responsibilities of ensuring security (as well as preparing hot breakfasts). Our plate was full.

But what we have received in return was a great feeling of having “made a difference.” As our tradition teaches, the reward of doing a mitzvah is in the doing. It was clear each morning, not only that our guests had experienced an open house and open hearts, which most of them had not known for a while, but the volunteers felt a sense of gratitude for having the opportunity to feel they had accomplished something worthwhile.

Most of our lives are spent in the effort to support ourselves and our families. We get caught up in the mundane, which drives us to succeed and to accomplish. And yet, moments of transcendence are needed to ensure our humanity. There is a story, perhaps apocryphal, that Leonard Bernstein was once asked what made his music so great. His answer was, “the pauses between the notes.” Taking a day off from your routine to cook a meal (Life Is Delicious), to welcome a homeless stranger into your spiritual home, even to stay up all night and ensure his comfort and security, these are the pauses between the notes of living.

All together, this winter, there were some 1,200 volunteers, spending 10,000 hours in the single effort of housing a dozen homeless men. Reports from the shelter were that these men were enormously grateful for all the effort. They felt that they have been enriched and have a new sense of worth not felt in a very long time.

But for us, for many of the volunteers, it was transformative. Not only do we have a new sense of what poverty and homelessness look like, but we can empathize with those who are experiencing it. After a day or a week with our guests, we can no longer look into their faces and see a stranger looking back, but a “familiar” human being. In that sense, our own beings have been expanded and we feel blessed for the opportunity that has come our way.

Our work however is not ended. Abraham’s Tent is no solution to the larger challenge we face in our community and in our nation. If we are inspired by this effort, let it also be to move beyond palliative solutions. At the moment, our government is mired in political theatrics. In no small way, the uninsured, the unemployed and underemployed, and the homeless are the victims of their shameful wrangling. As one young journalist wrote 27 years ago in an article on hunger in America “…we haven’t been addressing the basic problems – quality of public schools, housing, job training, job opportunities….If the whole economy does not get better, then no amount of social welfare spending is going to fix the problem.” (Elin Schoen, New York Times, January 1983).

In 27 years, nothing has changed. Perhaps we have. Let us advocate for what we know is right, for our 12 guests and for the thousands more.

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Finding Strength in Each Other

There is the old rabbinic joke about the rabbi who rises in his pulpit every Sabbath and chastises his congregation for not coming to services. When it is pointed out that he is “preaching to the choir,” he asks, “Well, who else will listen?”

Consider this to be my sermon without the criticism. It was so wonderful to be with you all these past holy days. (Some of you may have been away with “other” family members – you are forgiven. Know you were missed.) Just looking out on the congregation, seeing you, being able to touch and shake hands or share a Yom Tov kiss, a wish for the New Year, an expression of love and concern, a mazel tov on an upcoming simcha, was a pleasure. Experiencing the march of time and knowing we share it with one another feels so good. Some of you (about half) have been with us for over 25 years. Some of you are new and we hope that you will be part of this community for many years to come.
How we need each other – in times of joy and sorrow and in those in-between moments. Our lot has fallen in the most pleasant of places where we can enter the doors of this place and enter with a sense of mutual security and love.

One of my favorite stories is that of the rabbi who notices that after many years of regular Sabbath attendance, a congregant has stopped attending. The rabbi decides to call on the member. As he knocks on the door, the rabbi wonders what he can say to bring the man back “into the fold.” Surprise, the man opens the door and welcomes the rabbi. “It’s a cold night,” the rabbi observes. “I was just passing by and saw the smoke from your chimney. May I come in to warm up a bit?” “Of course,” came the reply. As the rabbi approached the roaring fireplace, he picked up the poker and began to stoke the coals, pushing one ember off to the side. The man watches the rabbi and stared into the fireplace. With a brief moment, the singled out ember burned out. As the rabbi turned to his host, the man said, “Thank you rabbi for your fiery sermon. I will be in synagogue this next Shabbat.”

Don’t be a stranger. Be a part of our community. Come more than once or twice a year. And together we will strengthen one another.

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Beacons of Hope

This past year will go down as one of the more challenging years in the life of the modern Jewish community. From the economy and its impact on the institutions of our community, the humiliation of renowned Jews arrested for criminal activities whether kosher food producers, Syrian rabbis, or investment counselors, we are deeply effected by these events. Internationally, Israel faces serious challenges including belligerent neighbors, one of whom, seems intent on arming itself with nuclear weapons and the world seems unsure how to deal with the growing threat. And in Europe, there is renewed intolerance toward Jews as incidence of Anti-semitism is on the rise.

And so, except for the swift passage of time, we gladly say goodbye to this year and look forward to a new year.

What may give us hope in these troubled times? First, there are signs that the economy is bottoming out, though we are hardly “out of the woods” yet. We hope that you will bear with us and continue to financially support CMI to the best of your ability. If circumstances have changed, please let us know. Each and every one of you is a precious member of our congregational family.

Second, let me suggest that the very existence of our congregation is a beacon of hope. Daily, there are acts of support and encouragement. Recent experiences have underscored how important and valuable it is when congregants come to a shivah house to help make up a minyan. Bereaved families are overwhelmed by the generosity of time and care that members have shown at such times. We also have families who come in to the office to stuff envelopes for mailings, or help computerize our library records. Some teach in our religious school and others help lead services during the summer. In other words, as a community, we support one another.

As a congregation, we also reach out to the larger community, whether growing vegetables for the local soup kitchens or cooking for 125 men at the Columbus House shelter or families at the Ronald McDonald House. It is because of such support that CMI has existed for 169 years and why we fully expect that we will continue for years to come.

I suppose that it is in thinking about CMI that I most have hope for our future. Throughout our past, we have faced hardships and wars and seemingly insurmountable challenges, but together, we have produced a legacy that has endured.

I look forward to seeing you all at services this year for in this “circle of hope” we may find strength and blessing. May it be a good new year for each of our families, our community and our world.

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A Day in the Life of….CMI

On a Sunday in January, what might have seemed like an ordinary day was anything but….The previous Sunday, Religious School had been cancelled and there was a big snow storm. But our Social Action Committee had scheduled a tag sale to raise money for the homeless in New Haven. For weeks, Judy, Elin and a group of over a dozen volunteers had been collecting jewelry, clothes, books, toys and furniture. Despite the snow, the tag sale brought in nearly $1,000. So much merchandise remained, however, along with offers of more, that the decision was made to open the following Sunday. And so the day began.

Sunday School was full of activities. Parents of third grade students gathered for a Hebrew naming project. The Brotherhood of Men & Women served up their hot coffee and bagels with their usual warmth. The adult Introduction to Judaism class went on a field trip through “Jewish New Haven” visiting sites of Jewish interest. The tag sale earned an additional $1,150 for a total of $2,150. (These monies will all go to the Neighbor2Neighbor Lifeline – a partnership of the Jewish Federation and United Way – all for the purpose of providing for immediate relief in the areas of housing, food and emergency needs. This will be added to the nearly $620 of $7,200 raised during December’s Mitzvah Mall for this particular charity.)

The madrichim met for lunch to hear student ambassadors from Israel share their views of recent events in Israel-Gaza.

In addition, the kitchen was bustling with activity as Harvey, Peter and their crew of two dozen adults and children prepared a meal for Columbus House shelter. One hundred twenty five people are served by the shelter and, that night, because of our group, who call themselves “Life Is Delicious,” the shelter residents feasted on homemade meatloaf, mashed sweet potatoes, ratatouille, cooked pineapples, sugar cookies and chocolate centered cookies made by some beautiful little angels and their parents.
Ten hours had passed since the day began. It was a long and busy day for the building and for the members of CMI. As I looked around, I could not have been more proud. THIS is a synagogue in action. This is what our congregational community is all about. And so if you donated to the tag sale or volunteered to help, if you helped cook and deliver, if you learned something new, if you helped transmit the values of the past through the names of your child, if you helped to serve a hot cup of coffee and a welcome to CMI, thank you. You helped to renew our commitment to the ideals for which Mishkan Israel was created. May God give us strength to continue our work into the future.

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