Shabbat Shalom GRJC

Weekly Emails to the Congregation

Parshat Noach 2008

Shabbat Shalom to the GRJC family,

We light our Shabbat candles this week at 5:35 pm.  Friday evening services will begin at 8 pm, and Saturday morning services will begin at 9 am.  Kenneth Vallespir will become a Bar Mitzvah this Shabbat.  Kenneth and his family invite the entire congregation to participate in services this Shabbat.

We will celebrate November birthdays and anniversaries on Friday night.  Please join us and we’ll recognize your birthday or anniversary with a blessing and song.

We will read this Shabbat from parshat Noach.  The reading this year begins with Noah, his family, and all the animals preparing to leave the ark.  After the major cataclysm of the flood, we can only imagine that Noah and his family were worried that God might again choose to wipe the world clean another time when people misbehave.  We learn later that God promises there will never be another flood.

We generally understand the story to be a moral/educational tale about the origins of humanity and human nature, but let us enter into the story as it is.  Let us imagine what it might have been like for Noah and his family to leave the ark.

Noah and his family must have felt lonely as they stood on the mountains of Ararat and looked out on a world that was empty of all people, both people they knew and people they did not have the opportunity to know before the flood.

From a psychological point of view, it seems plausible that Noah and his family might feel a sense of guilt that they survived and others did not survive.  They may have been both thankful that the worst was over and unnerved by the enormity of the destruction.

Thinking along these lines draws us into considering the psychological and religious impact of the persecutions and conflicts Jews have faced over the centuries, from the Roman conquest through the Holocaust and the wars to establish the State of Israel.

If you were to put yourself in Noah’s place, how would you feel after the flood waters receded?  How would you think about what happened and what might you be thinking about as you contemplate the future?  How have the persecutions and conflicts of the past impacted our individual Jewish identities and the nature of the Jewish people as a whole?

The Rabbis of the Talmud and beyond tried always to end on a positive note, and so I will end these reflections with the words of God in Genesis chapter 8:
“So long as the earth endures,
Seedtime and harvest,
Cold and heat,
Summer and winter,
Day and night,
Shall not cease.”

Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Tow

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

STANDARD TIME!  Turn clocks back one hour Saturday night.

Sunday, November 2, Hay class Mitzvah Day project at Daughters of Miriam in Clifton.  Meet at GRJC @ 11:45 am.

Sunday, November 2, 7-8:30 Women’s Rosh Chodesh Group.  All women are invited to join in Sunday evening for a spiritual and educational evening.

SINGLE PARENT FAMILY SUPPORT GROUP – Begins 7:30 pm, Tuesday, November 4th.  The group will meet for 7 sessions.  Babysitting provided on site, free of charge.  Facilitated by Rabbi Tow and Sheila Steinback, a social worker from Jewish Family Service of Bergen County. [Cost:  $54 for 7 sessions/$10 per session.]

GRJC PRAYERS NOW ONLINE    FOR BAR/BAT MITZVAH STUDENTS AND THE CONGREGATION -
The prayers (tefillot) are now recorded as MP3s on the GRJC website, www.grjc.org.  On the main page, click on “Hear Rabbi Tow’s Tefillot Recordings.”

For more GRJC events and information, please go to www.grjc.org.

COMMUNITY RESOURCES:

PARENTING AND FAMILY RESOURCES in Bergen County:  Attached to this email is a chart of parenting and family educational workshops (most free of charge) occurring in Bergen County in November.

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE INTERVENTION:

Alternatives to Domestic Violence (ADV) is a division of the Bergen County Department of Human Services, which is exclusively devoted to domestic violence intervention. ADV offers a full range of specialized services including crisis intervention, counseling, legal advocacy and assistance, court appearance preparation, court accompaniment, individual, group, and family counseling, information and referral to other needed services, community education, and professional training.

Our regular office hours are 9:00 AM to 9:00 PM Monday through Thursday and 9:00 AM to 4:30 PM on Friday.

Our offices are located at One Bergen County Plaza, Second Floor, Hackensack, NJ, and our 24-hour crisis hotline is (201) 336-7575

 

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