THE PULPIT ARCHIVES

FROM THE DESK OF
RABBI SCHWAB

The Year of  2000
Past Sermons

PUBLIC CELEBRATIONS OF HANUKKAH?

It has been an article of faith within the Jewish community over the past two or three generations that, in the name of the principle of the separation of Church and State in our country, we Jews oppose the public celebration of religious holidays. In our attempt to remind our countrymen that religion has no place in American public life, we have fought the placement of Christmas decorations in public places like parks and government buildings for decades, often winning our point. Of course that has meant that we forgo the placement of Hanukkah menorahs in those public places, for it would be pretty hypocritical to oppose Christian symbols while seeking affirmation of a Jewish symbol. But the result has not always been helpful for us and, in particular, for our children. For our courts have understood that Christmas trees are not a religious symbol but a secular one, and that has meant that a major symbol of the Christmas season continues to decorate public areas, while the symbol of our December holiday is missing.

As a result of this consequence of our stand, some Jewish groups have changed their minds about the traditional Jewish approach. Better, they assert, that Hanukkah menorahs appear in public for our children to take pride in, even if they stand next to traditional Christmas symbols. The Lubavitcher Hasidim have taken the lead in placing hanukkiyot in public places, including a "National Menorah" in Washington and a number of menorahs in various places around our area. Such groups do not, as a result, seek to ban Christian symbols as has been customary in the past. On the contrary, the Lubavitchers and others think that the more religion and spirituality in our society as a whole, the better for all of us. Far from seeking to ban Christian symbols, they welcome them as a reminder of the G-d-centered nature of Christmas. Let us all welcome each other's feeling for G-d, they say, especially when it enables our children to point to our symbols so they can declare, "We belong here, too." After all, non-public places - stores, in particular - are going to put up trees and crèches; let us try to get them to recognize our presence as well.

I must admit that I, personally, resonate more the arguments of the second group, the ones who want to see hanukkiyot in as many places as possible. I am not nearly as bothered by trees and crèches as I once was; as my minister friends continually point out, the religious message of their holiday needs constant reiteration in the face of the material nature of the modern American Christmas, and I tend to agree with them. But I would be interested to know how you feel about these two approaches. Are we as a people better off trying to eliminate public displays of the season, or are we better off aggressively placing menorahs wherever we can? Let me know your opinion.

PRAY? ON THE HIGH HOLIDAYS?

Every once in a while, I come across an essay that that expresses exactly what I intended to write but far better than I ever could. What follows is from Micha Odenheimer, an editor of The Jerusalem Report, one of the finest Jewish magazines written in English in the world. Odenheimer wrote this for last year's High Holiday period. I pray that his words make a difference for you this Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.

You probably know the story about the young man who runs to the synagogue on Yom Kippur with an urgent message for his Uncle Bernie. He's blocked at the door by a stern usher, who demands to see his ticket. "But I'm just going in there to give a message to my Uncle Bernie," he protests. "All right," the usher relents. "You can go in. But don't let me catch you praying."

The joke still has a bite 40 years after a Borscht Belt comedian put it into circulation. It's funny not only because you have to pay to pray, but because we instinctively understand that the chances the young man would be moved to prayer nowadays, given his background, are next to nothing. . . .

You have to be lucky growing up Jewish, to have learned enough about prayer to make the experience of sitting through the High Holy Days - or a weekday morning minyan - more than an endurance test. As a public service, I'd like to pass on a few traditional suggestions about prayer that might make a difference.

Prayer is a practice: That means that the more you do it, the better you get. You can't really expect to show up for the High Holy Days marathon without preparation, and expect to go the full race.

You can do it on your own: The forefathers and King David did most of their praying all by themselves, and individual prayer didn't stop when the synagogue was invented a couple of thousand years back. According to Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav, all the great Jewish figures in history owe their spiritual achievements to hitboddedut - praying on one's own, in one's native tongue, in the most personal way. Hitboddedut is best done at night, in a forest somewhere near Safed or in the Carpathian Mountains. But you can close the door and do it in your office, or even your bed, with the covers over your head. You'll have to break some inhibitions - prayer is embarrassing for many modern Jews, which is part of what's funny about the usher's line: "Don't let me catch you praying." But a lot of the best things in life are embarrassing if someone catches you. Do it every day for a week, and I guarantee it will transform your High Holy Day experience.

Do it in the name of Israel and the whole world: Since the time of rabbi Yitzhak Luria - the towering kabbalist of 16th-century Safed - mystically oriented prayer books enjoin us to pray, "For the sake of the union of the Holy One and His Shekhinah (the transcendent and immanent aspects of G-d), in the name of all Israel."

A hasidic story tells of a hasid who walks into a synagogue at two in the afternoon, puts on tallit and tefillin, and starts to pray the morning service with characteristic zest. A mitnaged - opponent of Hasidism - can't control his outrage. "I've been here since dawn, praying and studying, and you have the audacity to start praying in the afternoon." The hasid answers: "If you were praying at dawn in the name of all Israel, I was there too. If you weren't, who needs your prayers anyway?"

Didn't I just say prayer should be personal? No contradiction. If you can really reach to the root of your own hopes and travails, you'll find a place where the personal and the universal touch.

Close your eyes: Prayer and meditation are two sides of the same coin. The very rich - and surprisingly well-hidden - literature on Jewish spiritual practices contains numerous suggestions for meditations that can be integrated into the prayer ritual. For example: See G-d's Name written in fiery letters in your mind's eye. Imagine yourself surrounded by light, or sitting in the Garden of Eden.

Do a somersault: Psalms 35:10 tells us to praise G-d "with all our bones." The Talmud says Rabbi Akiba would rush from one side of the room to the other while praying. Hasidim would often clap their hands, dance, do somersaults, to arouse their hearts to prayer. If the usher has a problem with this, tell him to talk to the rabbi.

ATTACKS FROM BOTH SIDES

When the Moabite woman Ruth proclaims her loyalty to her new way of life, she declares to her mother-in-law Naomi, “Your people will be my people and your G-d will be my G-d.” In doing so Ruth recognizes that being a Jew involves two aspects: a connection with the Jewish people and an adherence to the Jewish faith, and that one cannot be considered a Jew without identifying with both aspects of Jewishness. The person who observes all of the laws of Judaism but has not become part of the people Israel is not accepted as a Jew by the community at large, nor is the born Jew who practices some other faith. We recognize, as Ruth did, the dual nature of what it means to be a Jew.

Over the centuries we Jews have been attacked for both aspects of our national existence: sometimes because we are an identifiable people, and at other times because we follow to a different faith. Even in these much more enlightened times, there are those who see both our peoplehood and our religious culture as wrong and even threatening. As I reported to you last year, the Iranian government has been holding 13 Jews in jail since January, 1999, on charges of spying for Israel. Despite protests from most of the world - the United States, France, Germany, even China - Iranian authorities (the prosecutor in the case is also the judge), in a secret trial, have convicted ten of them of espionage. It turns out that the “proof” of their spying is simply that they have proclaimed themselves to be identified with the Zionist enterprise, that is, that as proud Jews they feel connected to the Jewish homeland. It is not that they have passed on any state secrets that has earned them convictions ranging from 4 to 13 years in prison, but rather that these rabbis, Hebrew School teachers and kosher butchers have had the audacity to see themselves as proud members of the Jewish people. Our protest letters to our congressman, U.S. Senators, State Department and president are all in order at this time. And even more - our sense of pride in who were are must continue to be deepened, in both ourselves and our children, so that such attacks on our people will only strengthen our commitment to our sense of peoplehood. We cannot prevent the anti-Semites from attacking and even from making our lives miserable at times; we can remind ourselves that solidarity with our people is a given in our lives.

Then there is the newly begun open season on our religious convictions. While the vast majority of mainstream Christian churches in the Western World - the Catholics, Anglicans, Presbyterians, Methodists, Lutherans, and on and on - have publicly declared Judaism to be a legitimate religion with a continuing covenant with G-d, the Southern Baptists - the largest Protestant church in America - has not been able to do so. To the contrary, the Southern Baptists in the last few years have specifically denied the legitimacy of any faith which does not proclaim Jesus as the Christ, and have declared their intention to work towards the conversion of Jews wherever they can find them. To that end, the Southern Baptist educational arm, known as the International Missionary Board, has produced a 12-page booklet entitled “Days of Awe: Prayer for the Jews” because “[o]n Rosh Hashanah, when observant Jews around the world begin 10 days of seeking G-d, Southern Baptists will be praying they find his Son.” Each day of the 10 Days of Repentance between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur is dedicated to a different Jewish community and a different prayer. Examples: “As Jewish people contemplate their sinfulness, pray that they will see there is nothing they can do to merit G-d’s forgiveness.” “As members fall away from Jewish organizations, pray they will find affirmation of their Jewish heritage in Christ.” Pretty scary stuff.

So where is all this coming from? First of all, Southern Baptists believe in the power of prayer, the idea that if an individual or a community prays hard enough, G-d will cause the request to come to pass. Why not pray for the Jews to see the light at long last? But even more, they are counting on the fact that, as one of their publications puts it, “75% of the world’s 15 million Jews no longer practice Rabbinic Judaism, and most are secularists or atheists”, so the idea is “to convert them from being Jews who do not have a relationship with the G-d of their fathers to Jews who do.” In other words, since most Jews don’t relate to G-d in any way, they are ripe for accepting the true faith of Christianity.

It is not enough for our community to be “deeply offended” (UAHC; ADL) or to deplore the booklet as “hostile” (B’nai B’rith). Conversionary tactics like those employed by the Southern Baptists are fought mostly by making our Judaism, our religious culture, so widely known and so compelling that no Jew would ever be tempted to leave. In a world of free speech, the Southern Baptists have every right to proclaim the truth as they see it. Our job is to make their claims unappealing because our children and our adults alike know our faith, enjoy its beauty, feel its compelling truths, and would never think to give it up. Our answer to this High Holiday booklet is to learn, enjoy and pass on our Judaism. We cannot always protect ourselves from the anti-Semites out to get our people; we can, if we want to, protect ourselves from those who are out to get our Judaism.

During this month of Elul, as we sound the shofar daily and begin to contemplate our lives, may we all renew our connection both with our people and with our culture and faith. May we find our Jewishness central to our beings, and may we become more and more knowledgeable of our Judaism.

FIRE IN THE SYNAGOGUE

Last year at this time the Jewish community in America was concerned and a bit frightened by the fire-bombing of three synagogues - two Reform and one Conservative -- in Sacramento. We were somewhat reassured by the fact that condemnation of those acts was universal, and that municipalities around the country stepped up protection of Jewish institutions all over the continent. Eventually the perpetrators were found; as expected they were members of an anti-Semitic vigilante group, out to get Jews irrespective of ideology. They will not see the outside of a prison for many years to come.

At the end of June there was a fire-bombing of a synagogue in Jerusalem. On a Saturday night the Conservative synagogue in the Jerusalem neighborhood known as Ramot - the synagogue once served by Rabbi Jerry Potack, may his memory be for a blessing - suffered extensive damage when gasoline-soaked rags were lit and thrown through a window into the back of the seating area of the shul. Fortunately the fire department got there before the blaze reached the ark and its contents of Torah scrolls, but the smell of smoke continues to pervade the structure. The perpetrator? He has not been caught, but eyewitnesses near the scene claim to have seen a black-coated man running from the area just before the fire was noticed. Unfortunately, in this case of violence against a synagogue condemnation was not universal. The Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem, Rabbi Haim Miller, spoke of the provocation that such a synagogue presents to certain communities, seeming to contend that such acts could be expected when Jews act contrary to his view of Judaism. But, to his credit, Chief Rabbi Lau issued a statement deploring the violence, even coming this close to calling the object of the attack a synagogue. And public officials from Prime Minister Barak on down expressed their utter abhorrence at the attack of one Jew on another over differences in how we approach Judaism and G-d.

What are we to think of this attack? It is tempting to see it as representative of the difficulties the Masorti (Conservative) Movement has had in Israel legitimizing itself in the eyes of others. And, indeed, if appearances hold up, this incident is does demonstrate the threat perceived by some in the Orthodox community of an "illegitimate" form of Judaism fooling Jews into ignoring the "right" way to approach G-d. But the reaction by so many in Israel, from the Prime Minister to the Chief Rabbi, also demonstrates the impact that the Conservative Movement has made in showing Israelis that there is a modern approach to our tradition, an approach which will not take a back seat to any other interpretation of Judaism. It is the opposition to non-Orthodox Judaisms that is seen as being illegitimate. And slowly, through court cases and newspaper articles, the case for Conservative Judaism has struck roots in Israel. Even the Speaker of the Knesset, Avraham Burg, is a member of a Conservative synagogue.

But there is far more that needs to be done, beyond simply ensuring that the Masorti Movement survives in Israel. It has been my contention through the years that the huge gap in Israel between Orthodox Jews on the one hand and secular Jews on the other can be bridged only by the non-Orthodox Judaisms which have been developed in the Diaspora. Conservative and Reform Judaism need to become widespread so that secular Jews will have a way of accessing and observing our longstanding traditions, and so that Orthodox Jews who no longer can accept Orthodox ideology will have a traditional place to practice their faith.

And we in the Diaspora - in the United States and in Middletown -- have a part in creating that bridge. (And our actions, not incidentally, will also be a positive reaction to the fire in the Ramot synagogue.) The Conservative Movement helps to support the goals of our brethren in Israel through membership in MERCAZ, the Zionist wing of our stream of Judaism. Our participation in the work of MERCAZ helps to legitimize Conservative converts in Israel, support the just-created Conversion School in which Reform, Conservative and Orthodox rabbis participate, and bring civil rights to Conservative communities around Israel. Especially now, in light of the attempted torching of a Conservative synagogue in the Holy City itself, it is important for us to stand up and be counted as proud Conservative Jews supporting our community in Israel. If you have not yet a member of MERCAZ, I urge you to fill out the MERCAZ membership blank in this bulletin in order to show your solidarity for the Ramot Conservative synagogue.

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THE HOLOCAUST IN THE NEWS - ONCE AGAIN

This past spring, as we approached the 55'th anniversary of the end of the Holocaust, two separate and controversial international events refocused the attention of the world on the destruction of European Jewry during World War II. Some perspective may be in order.

Pope John Paul II, in an unprecedented speech, offered his apology for the sins of the Catholic Church over the years, especially its sins towards the Jewish people, yet did not invoke the Holocaust by name nor criticize the Pope of the Holocaust, Pope Pius XII, for his silence. Shortly thereafter, during his pilgrimage to Israel, the Pope participated in a most moving ceremony at Yad Va-Shem, but again said nothing about his predecessor.

So how should we relate to this Pope, with his unprecedented actions and yet his silence on such an important issue?

To me, two facts stand out when trying to understand this Pope. First, John Paul II is easily the best friend the Jews have ever had in the Papacy. He is the first Pope to walk into a synagogue since the first one. He has called Judaism the older brother of Christianity and has proclaimed that anti-Semitism is a sin. He overcame tremendous resistance amongst Catholic theologians and foreign diplomats in the Curia to recognize the State of Israel. His speech of apology specifically repented Catholic sins against the Jews. In this most recent trip, he specifically traveled to Israel and not just "the holy land". And in his visit to Yad Va-Shem he made the unprecedented gesture of moving towards the Holocaust survivors to greet them, rather than awaiting their movement towards him, as is the tradition. He really does understand us, and his actions reflect that.

So why no apology for Pius XII? Let us not forget that Pius XII was the pope of John Paul's youth, the man who symbolized the Church for a young man growing up in Poland who then chose the priesthood as his vocation. How hard would it be for him to criticize such an important figure in his life! On top of that is the standard reluctance to criticize a previous pope, plus the uncertainty of Pius XII's motives for his silence. It would be nothing short of miraculous for this Pope to be able to put himself in Jewish shoes when it comes to the subject of a man he obviously idolizes. I believe we should accept the pro-Jewish sentiment John Paul II has expressed during his entire career and not expect miracles on top of it.

At the same time that the Pope was traveling to the Jewish State, a British court was in the midst of a major Holocaust trial. Historian David Irving had sued Holocaust researcher and Emory University professor Deborah Lipstadt for slander in accusing him of being an apologist for Hitler and a denier of the Holocaust, and claimed that her slander had cost him tens of thousands of dollars in lecture fees, professorial appointments, and book sales. What made this trial so important was that Irving has displayed a voluminous grasp of the details of the events of World War II and has claimed that his research, brought to bear in dozens of books on the subject, "proves" that Jews were neither gassed nor killed in exceptional numbers, and that whatever was done to individual Jews during the war was unknown, and certainly not ordered, by Hitler. For months witnesses paraded to the stand and were subjected to constant brow-beating by Irving, who served as his own attorney. Since British law makes slander quite easy to prove, there was some real fear that Lipstadt would be found guilty on the very narrow grounds of having deprived him of some lecture bookings, and that that guilty verdict would be used to show that a court of law had denied the existence of the Holocaust. The result, however, could not have been better. The British judge declared Irving "an anti-Semitic and racist" Holocaust denier and a "pro-Nazi polemicist who had "persistently and deliberately misrepresented and manipulated historical evidence" to portray Hitler in "an unwarrantedly favourable light". The court, having found Lipstadt's charges "substantially true", then ordered Irving to pay Lipstadt's attorney fees of over $3 million, since "Irving was motivated by a desire to present events in a manner consistent with his own ideological beliefs even if that involved distortion and manipulation of historical evidence."

Score one for our side - and a big one at that. One of the foremost Holocaust deniers in the world, playing on his own "home court", so to speak, in a battle of his own choosing, has been labeled before the entire world as a liar, an apologist for Hitler, and a racist. Truth will out. But in the years to come, as the last survivors leave us behind, we need to continue our education of the peoples of the world, so that such deniers will always be exposed, and so that the world will continue to be aware of what humans can do to each other. It is still our task to make sure that such outpourings of hatred are exposed and stopped in their tracks, so that "Never again!" becomes the cry, not just of our people, but of the entire world. With the help of a Polish Pope and an English courtroom, the memory of our 6 million will continue to be a part of the consciousness of all humanity.

A MATTER OF PI-KU-AH NEFESH

In Colorado two high school students enter their high school armed to the teeth and murder more than a dozen students and a teacher before turning their weapons on themselves. In Michigan a six-year-old boy finds a pistol on a bed, takes it to school, and shoots a little girl to death. In New York City rejoicing is heard because the murder rate has been cut to less than two per day, where it had been more than three per day at the beginning of the decade. In New York State as a whole, a child is shot, on the average, every day. Every three years more Americans are shot to death than were killed in the entire Viet Nam War, against which so many of us protested because of its inexplicable loss of life. All of this happens while at the same time our neighbor to the North, Canada, which shares a frontier history with us, has a murder rate less than one-tenth that of the United States. No wonder the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta has declared that gun violence is an epidemic in our country and poses a real danger to the life and health of our children. It is what Jewish tradition calls pi-ku-ah nefesh, a threat to the life and health of those of G-d's creatures, human beings, who are made "in the image of G-d".

Why is this the case? Why are Americans so at risk for death at the end of a gun barrel? Certainly it is because, unlike most industrialized nations in this world, there are lots of guns in circulation around this country, especially handguns which are used in most of the killings. So why do we have so many guns around? Because we have a history in this country of independence and self-reliance, which leads to an assumption of self-protection, and a worry, based on the history of our beginnings, that our independence will be taken from us by some dictatorial government. As a result we have a right to own firearms enshrined in our most basic set of laws, the Constitution's Bill of Rights. (Of course, there is a reason given for allowing gun ownership - so that Americans can form militias, presumably to be able to protect our people from an overbearing government. I might suggest that without access to planes and tanks that mission would be impossible anyway, which then leads to the question of why gun ownership in the first place. There are "militias" in operation throughout our nation as a result, but I personally question whether those "militias" have been a positive development for our country.) But there is nothing in the Bill of Rights which prohibits us from regulating those firearms for the sake of the safety of our children and our population as a whole, nothing which would prohibit acting in such a way as to cut down on the death rate which guns have produced. So why is it that anyone - even those with diagnosed mental illnesses or convictions for violent crimes - can buy firearms at gun shows without a background check? Why can people buy dozens of pistols at a time in most states - how many guns does one need for self-defense? - pistols which end up being transported to New York City and sold on street corners? (90% of the crimes involving guns in New York City are committed with guns first bought out of state. Considering the size of the "merchandise" being sold, we would need a police state to prevent such illegal sales, which is a fate even worse than the one we have now.) And how do we keep the more than 250 million weapons floating around our country from ending up in the hands of 13 and 11 and 6 year olds who then can take the lives of their playmates?

It is not enough to threaten people for misusing guns. Every study of any kind shows that punishment does not work, which is why the murder rate in states with the death penalty is no different than the rate in states without. Further, by the time we get to punish, someone is already dead or seriously injured. We have to work to keep guns out of the hands of people who might use them for something other than target practice and hunting (a legal activity which, of course, Jewish law forbids - but that's a whole other story), or make sure that if they get them, they can't use them. We need a national law requiring three to five days to check the background of anyone wishing to purchase a gun. (The Brady Law has prevented almost a million purchases of guns by violent criminals and the mentally unstable, but those individuals can always buy at gun shows from unauthorized dealers who are not required to make such a check.) We need a national law requiring trigger locks to make it more difficult for children to use guns. We need a requirement for people to renew their gun licenses regularly. (We have to renew our driver's licenses every four years; why not the same for guns?) We need a requirement for registering guns - or at least handguns - so that prosecution for illegal sales and misuse is easier. We need a national limit on purchases of guns to one a month so there is no profit in gun-running. Our society needs to pursue further pistol technology so that only the gun purchaser can fire it. (This would cut out the tragedies that occur when children find and misuse guns, would make a criminal's struggle for a police officer's gun far less dangerous for the officer, and would end illegal gun sales. Scenarios describing the need of one officer to fire another's gun and the like are so much less common than the tragic situations encountered when guns end up in children's hands as to pale in significance.) The idea is to prevent murderers from happening by making misuse of firearms far less likely in the first place; threats of punishment do not work.

But for such sensible gun control legislation to happen, the worried citizenry of our country needs to be involved. Write your congressman and your U.S. Senators. Tell your elected officials in Albany to back Governor Pataki's gun control initiatives. The Greater Middletown Interfaith Council is sponsoring a bus trip to Washington, DC, on Mother's Day, May 14, to join in the Million Moms March for Gun Control. (The title of the march is supposed to be a take-off on other recent Washington marches, but it is not restricted to mothers only. Anyone who ever had a Mom is invited as well.) The bus leaves at 6 a.m. from Middletown, and doesn't return until 9:30 at night, but it well may be worth going just to join in this attempt to cut down on the mayhem in our society. For more information, talk to me. I truly believe this is a matter of pi-ku-ah nefesh, a true threat to life and health in Jewish law. We need to make our voices heard.

ENJOYING YOUR SEDER

A Pesah seder traditionally is meant to be a joyous, relaxing and educational event, a high point in the year's activities. In particular the seder is supposed to be a comfortable evening with family and friends, a time when family unity is most pronounced, when the entire family can join together for a most uplifting evening. Unfortunately, whether because of differences in expectations or discomfort with the seder ritual, too often the seder ends up being a meaningless activity, or, worse, an evening filled with tension and even anger. If either of these occurrences have marred your seder evenings, perhaps some of the following suggestions for your seder will be of use.

Probably the most important suggestion that can be made is to prepare for the seder, and not just in a culinary sense. For some the haggadah itself is an opaque text, and knowledge of the proper ritual procedures a mystery. In and of itself, that is enough to make the seder an unpleasant experience. But lack of knowledge is easily cured; there are seder guides in our library, and I stand ready to teach anyone who would like more knowledge just how to conduct the traditional Passover seder. Furthermore, the telling of the Passover story need not be done word for word from the haggadah, as special as the traditional haggadah has become for Jews and Judaism. Some families follow the Four Questions, not with the written text in the haggadah, but with lively discussions on the topics at hand: Jewish history, Jewish tradition, the survival of the Jewish people, the meaning of freedom, the importance of ritual, the meaning of the importance of the State of Israel in our lives, and on and on. In other households hosts and/or guests may share some sort of presentation having to do with Passover. One family I know of requires different guests to bring a different way of demonstrating the 10 plagues from year to year: in song, poetry, or even props (stuffed toy frogs, for example, or packing popcorn thrown towards the ceiling to signify hail). In still other homes, the traditional text is supplemented with explanations and commentaries found in various editions of the haggadah; such commentaries can be located in our library, or I would be delighted to copy such material from the volumes I have at home. And, as a final suggestions, the story of the exodus can be read directly from the Bible you have in your home (it is pretty exciting reading), either by one storyteller alone or by passing the Bible around amongst all present. (I might suggest, if you were to use this option, that you make sure you have a modern translation rather than the old King James-type, thees and thous version.) The relevant passages run from the first through the 14th chapter of the Book of Exodus; for those who feel doing all that reading is a little too much, try reading this condensed version: Exodus 1, 5, 6:1-13, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12:29-49, 14. These are all things that can be prepared ahead of time, without a lot of hassle, which may make the seder evening itself more enjoyable.

At the seder, there are a few other things that might help the evening along. First of all, involve the children. Encourage them to tell all they know about Passover, to ask questions, to sing songs they have learned (the students on our Hebrew School have been chanting sections from Hallel, learning the Four Questions, and singing the songs at the end of the seder for over a month, three times a week), to open the door for Elijah, to look for the Afikomen. Then you can enjoy the seder through their shining eyes. A second possibility: set an extra place setting at the table in order to remember those Jews who cannot join us at the seder, especially the victims of the Holocaust. This simple action may provoke even more questions that could lead to a most enlightening conversation on the topic of the evening. And, finally, relax and enjoy; don't worry that something is not quite right, or that previous generations will judge our performances. The important thing is to be able to pass on a positive feeling of our heritage and our history to the next generation, and that will be done best when everyone can sit around the table and smile.

I hope that everyone has a happy, enjoyable and educational Pesah, and if I can be of any help in any way in the preparation for your seder, please let me know.

PURIM FOREVER

Our rabbis have said that when the Messianic Era arrives, we will stop celebrating every holiday except for Purim. Two reasons come to mind for this rather remarkable statement. In the first place, the rabbis were commenting on the ever and always present feeling of gratitude that human beings have for their Creator. Purim is a reminder to us - forever, apparently - of the kindnesses G-d has shown us throughout history. Secondly, the way Purim is celebrated enables us to feel an emotion that the rabbis considered eternal, perhaps the basic emotion of satisfying living. It is an emotion more basic than the awe of Rosh Hashanah, the fear of Yom Kippur, the glory of Hanukkah, or the sense of freedom of Passover. That emotion is joy, unadulterated rejoicing, pure and untarnished merriment and merrymaking.

A simple recitation of the events that take place on Purim makes the point clear. We gather in the synagogue, not for solemnity and order, but to listen to a humorous and exciting story and to explode with emotional and rather loud reactions throughout the entire reading. We exchange gifts - especially gifts of food, and in particular baked goods - and who doesn't like getting presents? We have an afternoon feast (forget about putting in a day's work) at which time the wine is supposed to flow so freely that the Jewish party-goer cannot tell the difference between "Blessed by Mordecai" and "Cursed by Haman". Children dress in costume and enjoy carnivals; adults put on Purim-shpiels and other hilarious entertainments. It is a day without a single "downer"; for one day in the year we Jews take seriously the Greek slogan "eat, drink and be merry".

And so Purim will never be lost to us. When awe, fear, the sense of glory, and feelings of liberty have disappeared, joy will always remain as a basic human desire. I hope everyone will join in the fun this coming Purim at the Megillah readings Monday night March 20 and Tuesday morning March 21, and at the Purim carnival Sunday morning March 19. And may you give - and receive - enough Sh'akh Manot (Purim food gifts) to last to Passover.

OUR CONNECTION WITH ISRAEL

It happened again. This time it was during a series of conversion ceremonies at a municipal mikveh in a small Israeli town. Three Conservative rabbis had made arrangements with the town, as well as with the town's chief rabbi (who, as is the case everywhere in Israel, is Orthodox), to immerse a number of people in the mikveh so that their status as Jews could be confirmed. The two infants brought there were adopted from outside of Israel, and their Israeli parents wanted their children's status regularized. The three men and two women present were immigrants from Russia whose fathers were Jewish and whose mothers were not. All went smoothly with the men and the infants, but as the young women were disrobing behind closed doors in anticipation of their ritual bath, the door to the mikveh burst open and an Orthodox rabbi - not the chief rabbi of the town - invaded the quiet precincts of the room, demanding that further immersions stop because the participation of Conservative rabbis made the conversions illegitimate. The Conservative rabbis called the police - and were arrested and taken to jail on the word of the invading man. Despite the fact that they had the permission of the local chief rabbi and the town's mayor and council, the proceedings were disrupted and the Conservative rabbis were held and forced to hire lawyers to set things straight.

Such incidents happen all too frequently in the Jewish homeland, the land which is sacred to all Jews. Convinced that they are doing G-d's Will, and backed by their political and bureaucratic clout, Orthodox functionaries all around Israel have disrupted Conservative rituals and prevented the outlay of government funds for Conservative programs and synagogues while continuing to collect such tax-based moneys for Orthodox schools, synagogues and other institutions. Only last month the Israeli Supreme Court ruled that the Ministry of the Interior was wrong to deny funding to Conservative and Reform organizations simply because they are not Orthodox, and the justices ordered the Ministry to pay the non-Orthodox movements several millions of shekels which were owed from 1996 and 1997. But the skirmishes continue in the holy land, draining the resources and strength of too many who should be dealing with Jewish education and outreach rather than this frustrating inter-community rivalry.

We Conservative Jews in the United States have a role to play in the struggle of the Conservative community in Israel. The major collective voice of world Jewry comes from the World Zionist Organization, which is the organization established by Theodor Herzl in 1897 to coordinate world Jewry's push for the establishment of a Jewish State. Today the WZO is the recipient of contributions from all over the world - in the United States the organization that collects the funds is United Jewish Communities, which used to be known as United Jewish Appeal (UJA) - which are then allocated to needs in Israel and in places where Jews are oppressed. The WZO's working body is the Jewish Agency for Israel, which actually administers the funds allocated. In the councils of the WZO and Jewish Agency, the Conservative Movement is represented by an organization known as Mercaz, which is our movement's Zionist entity. Mercaz is one of the largest parties in the WZO, and is responsible for millions of shekels being directed towards Conservative programs in Israel. In addition Mercaz has helped to establish a policy within the Jewish Agency of tolerance of all streams of Judaism, a policy which did not exist ten years ago. And through the influence of the Jewish Agency, that policy of tolerance has begun to be felt in Israel itself; it is doubtful that the Supreme Court would have issued its ruling without the push given by the Jewish Agency. Headway is being made.

But Mercaz is only as influential as the number of members it has enrolled. Changes in the Israeli religious scene will occur more swiftly only if Israel and the Jewish Agency perceive a deepening interest on the part of American Conservative Jews. Which is why every member of every Conservative congregation in North America should be a part of Mercaz. With dues of only $36 per family and $25 per individual, there is little reason why each of us at Temple Sinai shouldn't be involved. Our voice can, and will, be heard on religious issues in Israel. There is no reason why such mikveh scenes should ever be repeated again. And one thing we can do about it is simply to sign up for Mercaz by filling out the membership application in this bulletin. Please join me in supporting our work for Judaism in Israel.

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THE SHABBAT OF THE MILLENNIUM

It's been in all the newspapers. The end of the century! The end of the millennium!!! The New Year's Eve to beat all New Year's Eves, when the calendar flips from the year 1999 to the year 2000!! The leisure and travel industry have been beating the drums for months - for a year! - trying to get us to decide where we want to be on that auspicious and momentous occasion when all four digits change and we begin living in a year which ends in three zeroes. Historic!!

I must tell you that whenever the cry of the millennium change reaches me, two thoughts spring to mind. The first is how incredibly arbitrary is the dating system that has delivered us this moment in time. As the secular calendar marks the year 2000, I can't help but ask myself, "2000 years from when? 2000 years from what?" Pope Gregory, whose calendar we use in the modern world, attempted to mark Year One as the year of the birth of his "lord", but he missed by between four and six years. Technically we are already living in the year 2005 A.D. (But just try telling that to the Christian millennialists who expect some major religious epiphany to occur at the stroke of midnight on December 31. Some are even planning to help the process, which has made security in Israel even more difficult.) And even if Pope Gregory had gotten it right, this coming January 1 is not, repeat not, the beginning of a new millennium or even a new century. There was no such thing as the year 0, so each century begins with a year that ends in "1", making the year 2000 the last year of the present millennium and not the beginning of the next. If there is to be a big milliennial blow-out, it should be when 2000 turns into 2001! Even more to the point - what makes January 1 the beginning of the year anyway? Another arbitrary declaration! 500 years ago April 1 was New Year's Day - and even that was arbitrary. And since when does a human invention - the clock - mark the end of one day and the beginning of another? What makes midnight the dividing line? Because it occurs in the middle of the night? Maybe in Middletown, New York, 12:00 a.m. is the astronomical middle of the night, but I can tell you from experience that the middle of the night in Cincinnati, Ohio, occurs at 12:45 a.m. It all leads me to the conclusion that midnight on December 31, 1999, leading to January 1, 2000, is just another second of recorded time, no different than the one before or the one after.

And that realization leads to a second thought. The particular date we are speaking of happens to fall on Shabbat, that G-d-ordained day of rest, commemorative of the very creation of this world. Now that, to my mind, is something to celebrate! A day which begins as day ends and night begins; a day which reminds us of the holiness we can introduce into the world; a day of remembering that we live in a world created by G-d, the Eternal One, the Supreme Being of the Universe. So, if you will excuse me, I think I am going to spend Friday evening, December 31, 1999, as I do every Friday evening - thanking G-d for this world G-d created by greeting Shabbat in the synagogue and then at home, through kabbalat Shabbat and kiddush and the glow of candles and blessings of children and family. It is, after all, my favorite time of the entire week; why would I miss the opportunity to follow G-d's expectation to observe Shabbat for an arbitrary occasion which, on closer inspection, seems to me to have very little true meaning?

Would you like to join me? You're invited. Anyone who would like to participate in a quiet Shabbat dinner and evening of Shabbat rest at Temple Sinai is welcome to contact me so we can arrange such an evening's observance. Early services, maybe a Shabbat dinner prepared with our own hands in the synagogue kitchen, or perhaps some home hospitality for Shabbat dinner followed by a quiet gathering for however long we might wish - that sounds like a real Shabbat treat to me. How about it? We could really have a "Shabbat of the Millennium" of our own and truly make the evening one filled with meaning.

75 Highland Avenue, Middletown, NY 10940 (914) 343-1861 (Voice) (914) 343-4568 (Rabbi's Study) (914) 343-1915 (Fax) Rabbi Joel Schwab