ROSH CHODESH
WOMEN'S
GROUP WELCOMES
THE MONTH OF
IYAR
Sunday
April 26
7:00 - 8:30 pm
GRJC Social Hall
Contact
Ornit at
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MONDAY, APRIL 27
7:30 - 9:00pm
GRJC Social Hall
Interfaith Bible Study
with
Rabbi Neil Tow and Pastor Roger
Spencer
The Power of Prophesy
Please bring a Bible with you to
class. You do not have to attend every
class. Come as often as you like...it
promises to be a
"prophetable" discussion!
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GRJC BOOK SALE
COLLECTING FOR THIS
WEEK ONLY!
The GRJC is collecting new or gently used
books to sell alongside the Nursery School
Garage Sale May 3.
Clean out your bookshelves this week and
bring your donations to the GRJC landing
dock alongside the kitchen. Notify Carlos
that you've arrived, and he will help you
unload your bags and boxes. ALL BOOKS MUST
BE AT THE GRJC BY FRIDAY, MAY 1.
We are particularly interested in
children's books, coffee table books, and
novels and recent non-fiction for
adults. Also books on tape and music CDs.
PLEASE, no text books, encyclopedias,
Readers Digest condensed books or anything
torn, watermarked or written in.
No magazines unless they are high end
publications, such as periodicals on
antiques, art, architecture, etc.
All proceeds will benefit the GRJC Nursery
School. If you can help with the book sale,
or if you have questions or are unable to
bring your books to the GRJC, please call
Jane Spindel at 201-797-4723 or email her at
trehugr@aol.com.
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5th Annual GRJC
Nursery School Garage Sale:
Sunday, May 3rd from 9-3, in the GRJC
parking lot: Lots of books, household
items, toys, baby gear and much more,
all at great prices. All proceeds
benefit the GRJC Nursery School.
The Nursery is accepting
donations for the sale now through next
Friday, May 1st. All donated items are
being stored in the POD at the back of
the temple parking lot. Just pull up and
we will help unload. If you would like
to donate items to the sale, please
contact Nancy Bermack at 718-791-7254 or
Mandy Roth at 917-623-0550 to schedule a
POD drop off time. Thank you!!
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 Pampers
has a program called 1 pack = 1 vaccine.
Pampers will donate the cost of one tetanus
vaccine to the US Fund for Unicef for every
pack of specially marked Pampers diapers and
wipes purchased by May
1, 2009. For those congregants
who have children or grandchildren in
diapers this seems to be a "no-brainer". For
those of us who do not have anyone in diapers
this can serve as a double mitzvah: We can buy
the SPECIALLY MARKED Pamper diapers and wipes
and drop them off at the GRJC where they
will be donated to those in need of them.
There is only a short window of time to do
this, so please participate now!
Note: The cost of a package of
Pampers wipes is significantly cheaper than
a pack of diapers, but still results in a
tetanus vaccine for a child in need. So
please pick up a package the next time
you're out shopping!
For further info please
go to
www.pampers.com/en_US/unicef/tab/partner.
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COLLEGE SCHOLARSHIPS AVAILABLE-APPLY
NOW!
Open to Jewish undergraduates who wish to
attend a 4 year school full time in the USA or
Israel. Open to all North Jersey residents &
special consideration given to students with
special needs. Students must possess
demonstrated financial need and be in good
academic standing.
DEADLINE MAY 15, 2009! Download applications
at www.jccotp.org (under children's and
teens). Mail original and 4 copies to Kaplen
JCC on the Palisades, 411 East Clinton Avenue,
Tenafly, New Jersey, 07670. Attention: Ronit
Gorelik
More Info.: Debra Turitz, LCSW at
201-569-7900, ext. 305.
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Shabbat, April 24-25, 2009
1 Iyar 5769
Torah portion: Tazria-Metzora
We light our Shabbat
candles at 7:28 pm.
Friday night services
will begin at 8 pm.
Saturday morning services will begin at
9 am
Shabbat ends at 8:32
pm on Saturday.
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NEW RUSSIAN LANGUAGE PRAYER BOOKS AND
TORAH BOOKS
We now have prayer books
with Russian translation and
transliteration. We also have Torah
books with Russian translation. They
are available for use at all services
and can be found on the table in the
lobby.
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COUNTING THE OMER
From the
2nd night of Seder through the day before
Shavuot,
we count
each of the 49 days. Each night, we count
the next day in the sequence. The Omer
was a grain offering brought on the second
day of the Passover holiday in ancient
times. The Rabbis turned the Omer into a
7 week counting-up to the celebration of
receiving the Torah at Sinai. Follow this
link for a printable Omer-counting
calendar.
http://www.uscj.org/Koach/documents/omer.pdf
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Shabbat Shalom to the GRJC family
What this week's Torah reading proves is
that our Judaism is not limited to the
times when we put on our best clothes and
join together for prayer. It is not
limited to pleasant (or oy vey unpleasant)
family dinners and classrooms. Our
Judaism speaks to life experience and to
the ways that our spiritual selves and
physical selves live together in a dynamic
relationship.
In this week's Torah portion, and in the
Torah as a whole, our physical well-being
is most closely associated with our faith
community. The Torah refers individuals
who suffer the inflammations, leprosy,
scalls and more, to a priest in the
Temple. The "diagnosis" was not healthy
versus unhealthy but rather pure versus
impure, religious categories rather than
medical categories. The Rabbis of the
Talmud, who themselves did write about
things medical, suggested that a cause of
the skin disease was lashon ha'ra, evil
speech spoken by one against others.
While we do not choose to apply such an
explanation for disease today, the fact
that there is a mind-body connection with
regard to our health is something that we
know to be real. Words have an impact on
our physical and emotional health, and
like sticks and stones they can be
harmful.
While evil speech may not be the cause of
physical ailments, there is some truth to
the idea that it could be the cause of
emotional pain. The Jerusalem Talmud
makes a strong statement that reflects
this idea, "The gossiper stands in Syria
and kills in Rome."(Peah 1:1) The gossip
spreads like an infection and reaches far
beyond the immediate context in which it
is spoken. We know how quickly our words,
whether positive or negative, spread even
though we may have asked that they not be
repeated or even though we did not intend
for a larger audience to hear. The Talmud
here suggests a harsh physical consequence
to the evil speech, but the death of which
it speaks could be the end of a good name
or reputation. It could spell the end of
a goal, dream, or project.
The story goes that a Hasidic master was
sharing with his students that God created
everything to teach us a lesson. The
students asked what they could learn from
the train. He replied, "That because of
being one minute late, you can lose
everything." They asked two more
questions that relate directly to our
discussion here. What can we learn from
the telephone? "That what we say here is
heard there." What can we learn from the
telegraph? "That for every word you pay."
Even when we try our best to think before
we speak, we can still misspeak or our
words can be misunderstood. If we begin
with this reality in mind, then we will
raise our awareness of the power of speech
and try to use it to create healing,
welcoming, and good feelings between other
people and ourselves.
Can you think of a time that your words
were misunderstood? How did you rectify
the misunderstanding? How does
communication through body language
sometimes impact the words we speak?
With blessings for a Shabbat full of
inspiring and welcoming words,
Rabbi Tow
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Upcoming Week's Calendar
NO RELIGIOUS SCHOOL
Rabbi Tow away; NO ADULT B'NOT
MITZVAH CLASS
7:00 - 8:30pm Women's Rosh Chodesh Group
Monday, April 27
NO HAY CLASS
7:30-9:45 Melton II Adult
Ed Class (Youth Lounge)
7:30-9:00 Interfaith Bible
Study (Social Hall)
YOM HAZIKARON
9:30-10:45am
Mommy & Me
(Social Hall)
11:15am - noon
50+ Club Senior
Aerobics (Social
Hall)
NO
HEBREW SCHOOL
Wednesday,
April 29
YOM
HA'ATZMAUT
Thursday, April 30
10:00 - 10:45am
50+ Club Senior Aerobics
(Social Hall)
NO HEBREW SCHOOL
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UPCOMING EVENTS in MAY
Look for separate email "blasts"
beginning next week on the
following:
May 2 Rock n Roll Dance
May 3 Nursery School Garage Sale
and Book Sale
May 3 GRJC Annual Meeting
May 9 Men's Club Shabbat
May 9 Comedy Nite at the GRJC
May 15 Musical Prelude to Shabbat
May 28-30 Shavuot
May 29 Shabbat (dinners) Across
the GRJC Community
May 31 GRJC Marches in the Israel
Day Parade in NYC
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