February 23, 2010

GRAND PURIM CELEBRATION
Schpiel (Funny Musical Comedy), English Megillah Reading, Dinner, Adult Party & Kid's Carnival
Saturday, February 27, Please RSVP for dinner by Thursday

INTERFAITH PANEL: Father Leo, Rev. Jody McDevitt & Rabbi Ed: "One Way or Many"
How do we understand sacred texts that say ours is the only way? How do we understand our texts that say we are "chosen," or that "the only way to the Father is through the Son"? Come and learn.
Noon on Thursday, February 25, at the Temple (bring your lunch)

Wine Tasting and Lesson at Rasmus Home
Saturday, March 6, at 7:30 p.m.
RSVP to Barb Rosenthal at 406-490-7218 by February 26

Dear friends,
It is good to be back in Bozeman, just in time for Purim, with all its fun and frivolity, and which arrives on Saturday evening. See the calendar alongside this e-mail for the complete schedule. Please consider wearing a costume as Jews have done for centuries on Purim. Some of you have already shared with me your great costume ideas. If you are not the costume-making sort, consider renting one at Party On, across from the mall. Jenine will be happy to help you find just the right one!

There will be no service this Friday night, but there will be Torah study at 9:30 on Saturday morning where we will learn more about Purim.

On Thursday at noon at the Temple, Father Leo of Holy Rosary Catholic Church, the Rev. Jody McDevitt, of First Presbyterian Church and I, will offer an interfaith panel discussion, with questions and answers on the difficult topic of how to understand the sacred texts from our respective traditions which suggest that ours is the only way. Bring your lunch (no pork or shellfish, please). This will hopefully be the first of a monthly series of such interfaith panels.

I have enjoyed reading about some of the many humorous and silly Purim ideas and schpiels that are floating around the Jewish world this year. So far, some of my favorites are in the weekly magazine, the Jewish Forward (titled the Jewish Backward in honor of Purim), which has G!d twittering prophecies and the release of the new Apple "I-Thou" phone. For more of this Purim silliness, see http://forward.com/backward-purim/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=Emailmarketingsoftware&utm_content=440055647&utm_campaign=February262010+_+ukhuhh&utm_term=BackwardAPurimSpoof.

I predict that few of the Purim frivolities in the rest of the Jewish world will rival Beth Shalom's home grown Purim schpiel, our satirical, witty, musical comedy, directed by and starring two of the Jewish members of Broad Comedy, Sallie Sills and Stephani Lourie, and also starring our own Maddy Rassaby, Mike Zell, Alan Rassaby, Danny Hicks, Jennifer Stadum, Anika Hanisch, Linda Nallick, Catherine Buser, Brian Swarthout, and a special appearance by Rabbi Kreplach. Come see this hilarious parody on being Jewish in Bozeman in 2010, tied to the Purim story of Esther and Haman. It's so wonderful and enriching to be part of a home grown community where our members create our celebrations from within.

A great deal of thought went into the selection of the food we will share on Purim. Of course, there will be plenty of home baked Hamentaschen (thanks to our volunteer bakers!!). But, we also wanted food that promoted the anti-hate message of Purim, and allowed us to make a meaningful statement against hate in Bozeman. Thus, the Purim schpiel will be preceded by dinner catered by Iho's Korean Grill (So we know how many to expect, please RSVP to rabbiassistant@bethshalombozeman.org by Thursday) (there will be appropriate food for kids, too). Iho was the victim of hate crimes this year, and since the Purim message is to stamp out the hate of Haman, we thought it appropriate that we engage Iho to cater this event for us, thereby putting our values up front. Please consider a contribution of $15 per adult and $8 per child to cover the cost of the dinner.

The schpiel will be followed by an adult party (kid's party in separate room), where we may fulfill the commandment of Purim (provided you have a designated driver!): "get so drunk that you cannot tell the difference between Haman and Mordechai!!"

Of course, Purim also includes kids, and there will be a kid's carnival at 4:00.

The carnival will end at 5:30, when we will celebrate a brief havdalah (end of shabbat) and immediately launch into our dramatic English megillah reading -- great fun for all ages. Our traditonal megillah reading will be interactive and in English, with the congregation cheering on Mordechai and Esther and booing Haman. Please come support the many men and women of all ages within our congregation who will be chanting using the traditional trope (melody), some of whom are doing this for the first time: Josh Burnim, Franke Wilmer, Stephen Guggenheim, Donna Swarthout, Louis Rassaby, Mike Zell, Jim Nallick, Jennifer Bordy, Elianna Burnim, Surale Phillips, Larry Shotland, Betsy de Leiris, Laurel Desnick and Richard Bessen. I am so excited that so many of you are participating and that so many more will cheer (and boo!) you on!!

Our Purim celebration will continue when we are visited by mime, Ofer Goren, presenting Megilla in Mime on Thursday, March 4th at the Temple at 7:00 pm.

Shifting from Purim, don't forget to calendar the wine tasting and social evening at the home of Bob and DeeDee Rasmus on Saturday, March 6th at 7:00 pm. Please RSVP to Barbara Rosenthal at (406) 587-2941.

Purim also has a serious side. Traditionally, the Jewish community commemorates the Sabbath before Purim with a special reading that begins with the word zachor — “remember.” The passage reads, “Remember what Amalek did to you on your journey after you left Egypt — how undeterred by fear of God, he surprised you on the march, when you were famished and weary and cut down all the stragglers in your rear” (Deuteronomy 25:17-18).

The Hebrew word in this verse that we translate as “stragglers” — ha-necheshalim — appears only once in the Bible. The medieval commentator Ibn Ezra suggests that it has a meaning related to “to be weak.” He understood ha-necheshalim to mean “those who did not have power to walk.” Rashi understands it to mean “those who lack strength.” Who were “the stragglers in your rear”? They were the slow, the weak, the enfeebled — the invalids. Perhaps in ancient times, these people were the disenfranchised, and so the Israelites abandoned them, leaving them to struggle at the rear of the Exodus. Today, the invalidation of people with disabilities remains a modern bias.

It is especially fitting that Shabbat Zachor falls during the month of February, which the Jewish community has designated as Jewish Disability Awareness Month. In progressive Judaism, we especially recognize and welcome all those who have been disenfranchised by some forms of Judaism, not only the disabled, but also gays and lesbians, and women who have been denied leadership positions and the right to bat mitzvah, to read from the Torah, or to pray as equals. No longer can those who have been disenfranchised be allowed to be "stragglers in our rear."

Shabbat shalom (a bit early),
Rabbi Ed

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February 2, 2010

Dear friends,

Shabbat shalom VERY early this week, so as to leave time to RSVP for this shabbat's catered dinner. Kabbalat shabbat service will begin promptly at 6:00 p.m. and the catered dinner will follow at 7:00 p.m. Please RSVP to rabbiassistant@bethshalombozeman.org by Wednesday at 11:30am, so we know how much food to order. (Please let us know if you are a vegetarian).

Saturday morning, we will hold our abbreviated "first shabbat" learning service at 9:00 a.m., followed by Torah study at 9:30. We may be joined by some of our friends from Congregation Beth Aaron in Billings, so please join us and make them feel welcome.

Please start thinking about our grand Purim celebration on Saturday night, February 27. Apart from the kid's carnival which begins at 4:00 p.m., beginning at 5:30, we have many other activities planned, including a dramatic (English) megillah reading, dinner catered by Iho's Korean Grill, an adult party with alcohol and food, (hopefully costumes), groggers, hamentaschen, and perhaps best of all, our first Purim schpiel, co-authored, starring, and directed by two of the Jewish members of Broad Comedy, Sallie Sills, and Stephani Lourie, and also starring 10 members of our congregation. It is a hilarious musical parody that will have you rolling. If you are not familiar with Purim schpiels, here is a description of their nature from Rabbi Google:

"Sarcastic, humorous, and iconoclastic entertainment has become a universal component of Purim celebration. Although written evidence of the Purim shpiel (Yiddish for "Purim play") exists in Europe only from the 14th century, Purim entertainment is likely of ancient origin as well. Since Jewish performers and musicians did not exist as a professional class until the 18th century, Purim shpiels and wedding entertainments are our only source of Jewish popular pursuits for centuries. The biting content of Purim performances and the socializing, mockery, dressing up, and carousing surrounding them often provide an important forum for boundary-crossing on issues of gender, sexuality, authority, and relations with the non-Jewish world. Through satires of the original story in the Book of Esther, Purim performances and religious practices provide an essential and fixed measure of creative release exploring some of the Jewish community's most sensitive topics."

Please plan to be with us for this very fun and first of its kind in Bozeman celebration.

Our Torah portion this week is Yitro, which begins with Moses' father-in law, Yitro (Jethro), arriving at the Jewish camp in the desert, together with Moses' wife (Yitro's daughter) and Moses' sons. Upon witnessing Moses serving as the people's sole leader from morning to night, Yitro declares that this system will never work. He therefore proposes a leadership structure with subordinate leaders serving the people in a variety of ways. Once this sytem is in place, we receive Torah on Mt. Sinai.

What does this piece of Torah teach us about the leadership structure of our own Jewish communities? Too often, our leaders burn out as soon as their term is finished, or even before. If we are to be a holy community, there must be a tier of leaders who support the leaders at the top by sharing the burden of leadership, and by showing the leaders that others care enough to want to be involved. And in a small community where there is a small pool to draw from, this is all the more true.

We are blessed at Beth Shalom to have a cadre of leaders who spend enormous time and energy in building and guiding our congregation. Some have been doing it for years; others are newer to it. But Yitro teaches that they cannot do it alone.

Blessings,
Rabbi Ed

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January 27, 2010

Dear friends,
My best wishes for a Shabbat shalom come a bit early this week so that you might plan for Friday night.

On Friday evening, January 29, at 5:30, in lieu of the regular Shabbat service, we will celebrate Tu B'shvat, the birthday of trees, with a Tu B'shvat seder in which we honor trees and nature. The special foods we eat at the seder will be provided by the Temple, but dinner will be a dairy pot luck, so please bring a dish (no meat) sufficient to feed your family and at least one other family.

Tu B'shvat (Hebrew for the 15th of the month of Shevat) begins in the talmud and has become an important piece of Jewish tradition. It occurs exactly half way between the winter and spring solstices, and is the day when the sap in the trees in Israel reverses course and begins to rise. Apart from the agricultural significance of this, our tradition teaches that the flow of divine energy into this world is like the flow of a tree -- its limbs and branches are wondrous pathways. Through these limbs and branches, G!d-energy flows like sap calling all life into being, again and again, renewing all life at every moment. This flow of divine energy is called the Tree of Life. So, on Tu B'shvat, the new year of trees, the Tree of Life renews the flow of life energy to the universe. The Tu B'shvat seder connects US to this awesome moment by connecting us with the fruits and nuts of the trees with full awareness, and allowing us to uplift our world and our lives. Please join us if you can.

On Saturday morning, at 9:30, we will study Torah as usual. Torah study is one of the central pieces of Jewish life, and one of the main paths of spiritual growth. There's always a lively discussion. No prior knowledge or experience is necessary. This week, we will look at texts about the importance of trees in the Jewish tradition.

Thanks to Michelle Gantt and Amy Keefer for arranging for the fabulous visit from the URJ camp representative. I think it's fair to say that all of our kids who saw the video and heard her speak really want to go to camp this summer. We also learned that for first time campers, there are substantial scholorships available. I want to announce that there will be additional need-based scholarships available from the Rabbi's Discretionary Fund for any Beth Shalom kid that wants to go to a URJ camp and whose family needs some assistance to make it happen.

Also, on Thursday, January 28, I will be joining the Bozeman Muslim community in a day of fasting from dawn until sundown, in solidarity with the hungry in our community. Fasting serves as a reminder of those who go hungry due to poverty and encourages us to participate in charitable actions. Following sundown on the day of the fast, the Muslim Student Association will be hosting a meal for all participants in the fast at 5:30 p.m. in SUB Ballroom A and a brief presentation about the relevance of fasting in Islam and the issue of hunger in our own community. Several local businesses are donating to the Gallatin Valley Food Bank in honor of each person who signs up to fast. The information and sign up can be found here: www.montana.edu/msa. Next Friday night, February 5, we will celebrate shabbat with a kabbalat shabbat service and with a catered dinner. You may RSVP so that we know how many are coming, to rabbiassistant@bethshalombozeman.org.

Shabbat shalom,
Rabbi Ed

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January 21, 2010

Dear friends,
Shabbat shalom. What a wonderful kabbalat service we held last week, with more than a dozen of our kids playing leadership roles, and with many whose kids have grown present to witness and support Beth Shalom's first ever kid lead service. I hope this will become a once a year annual event.

There is no service this Friday night, as I will be hosting shabbat dinner for our February caring group. There will, however, be Torah study on Saturday morning, at 9:30 as usual.

Next week, there will be three important events at temple:

On Monday, January 25, at 5:30, during Shalom Kids/Tots, a representative from the URJ summer camps will be coming to address families with kids between 2nd and 12th grades. Study after study has shown that Jewish summer camp is the most critical indicator of whether a kid later identifies as Jewish. Even if your kids are a bit young for camp, come learn about it to prepare for what's ahead. In the weeks ahead, we will have another speaker who will talk about available camp scholorships. Thanks to Amy and Michelle for organizing this.

On Thursday, January 28, I will be joining the Bozeman Muslim community in a day of fasting from dawn until sundown, in solidarity with those in our community without enough to eat. All of you are invited to join me in this first ever effort to build a stronger relationship between Jews and Muslims in Bozeman, which I am hopeful will eventually flourish beyond this one event. Fasting serves as a reminder of those who go hungry due to poverty and encourages us to participate in charitable actions. Following sundown on the day of the fast, the Muslim Student Association will be hosting a meal for all participants at 5:30 p.m. in SUB Ballroom A and a brief presentation about the relevance of fasting in Islam and the issue of hunger in our own community. Several local businesses are donating to the Gallatin Valley Food Bank in honor of each person who signs up to fast. The information and sign up can be found here: www.montana.edu/msa.

Next Friday evening, January 29, at 5:30, we will celebrate Tu B'shvat, the birthday of trees, with a Tu B'shvat seder in which we honor trees and nature. This holiday originates in the talmud and has become an important piece of Jewish tradition.

This week's Torah potion is Bo, containing the last three plagues, where we see Pharaoh's inflexibility and the hardening of his heart. What about our own flexibility? How often have we seen a baby in a car seat put his foot in his mouth? [Figuratively, I do this quite a bit!]! However, once we are five years old, this becomes very difficult. As adults, it becomes almost impossible except for those few among us who have stretched for hours almost every day of their lives!

As we get older we lose flexibility. Bending over to pick up a piece of paper becomes more difficult. This loss of flexibility seems to be natural in the physical world in which we exist. Sadly, in the world of our emotions, knowledge and spirituality, many of us also become more inflexible as time goes on. Emotionally, we become fixed in our relationships and stop trying to make them grow. We tend to become less compassionate to the poor and needy.

In describing the plague of the hail in ancient Egypt, the Torah tells us that the barley was badly damaged by the hail because it was mature and stiff. The wheat, however, was not damaged because it was young and flexible. The next sentence is that the Pharaoh stiffened his heart to the Israelites.

Even though we become physically stiff and inflexible, we need not do so on the other levels of our lives. We should remain flexible in the areas of our emotions, our learning, and our spirituality. We need to work on our relationships with those who we love the most and not take them for granted. We need to open our hearts to those in need. We need to be conscious that we need to bequeath to our children and their children a world which is livable and sustainable. We will need to be open to new ideas and new learning. Finally, we will need to be ready to enter into new encounters with God and with Jewish tradition. That is exactly what the Torah calls upon us to do. Let us not become “Pharaohs;” people who are enslaved to the past or who cannot see the suffering of others. Let us not stiffen our hearts, minds and souls! Let us be like the wheat and not like the barley in order that when the storms of our lives hit us, we will be able to survive and say each morning, "Modeh Ani" – "Thank you God for allowing me to wake up and to experience this new day with all of its possibilities for growth and meaning!"

Shabbat shalom,
Rabbi Ed

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