Dear Friends,
Long before the Pilgrims are said to have celebrated their harvest with a Thanksgiving festival in Plymouth Colony in 1621, our ancestors in ancient Israel celebrated their harvests with thanksgiving festivals: Passover, Shavuot and Sukkot. (In fact, the American Thanksgiving is said to have its roots in the Jewish fall harvest festival of Sukkot.) A central part of these thanksgiving festivals for our biblical forebears was the mitzvah of bringing the first fruits of their harvest to the Temple in Jerusalem as an offering to God. In so doing they established what, to this day, is a basic Jewish principle of giving thanks: Giving thanks means giving back.
This Thanksgiving presents many of us with a special reason to be thankful and give back. Perhaps you feel as I do that having gotten through Hurricane Sandy and its aftermath without injury or significant property damage we should be grateful. Meanwhile, as you well know, there are many who were not so fortunate. There are a number of ways that you can give back and help the victims of Hurricane Sandy:
This Sunday, November 25th, Matt Libien, our Tikkun Olam chair, is leading a group of Temple members who will be volunteering with the Jewish disaster relief organization, NECHAMA. NECHAMA, which in Hebrew means, “comfort” or “compassion,” has been taking groups of volunteers from our community to various sites in the metropolitan area to do clean-up work. This Sunday the crew from Tenafly will be made up of Temple Sinai members. As of this moment, we need 7 more people to be part our NECHAMA team. It is physical work so one needs to be in decent shape and at least 16 years old to participate. The group will leave at 7:45 a.m. from the Temple parking lot. Contact Matt Libien at demott50@yahoo.com or cell 2017882077 if you want to participate.
If you would like to give back by giving tzedakah, the Union for Reform Judaism (URJ) Hurricane Relief fund has collected $326,000 to date, including $8,000 for West End Temple in Neponsit, NY, in the Rockaways. You may recall that I shared with you my colleague, Rabbi Margie Slome’s, moving report on the day after the storm, in which she described how her Temple was devastated by flooding. Go to http://urj.org/socialaction/issues/relief/hurricanes/ to give to either the general hurricane relief fund or the fund dedicated to helping West End Temple in Neponsit.
For other ways to help hurricane victims through the Jewish community and elsewhere I highly suggest visiting the dedicated section of the web site of my friend, Rabbi Don Weber’s congregation, Temple Rodeph Torah of Marlboro, NJ: www.sandyhelp.trt.org.
When our ancestors gave thanks at their harvest festivals they gave thanks for the land that God had given them, the Land of Israel. I don’t have to tell you that our brothers and sisters living in that Land need our support right now. The New York Times reported a few minutes ago that Egyptian officials are saying that a cease fire declaration was close. In the Middle East, however, one should never count one’s chickens before they hatch. Moreover, even if hostilities stop, there will be still be a great need for funds for the recovery effort. You can go to the web site of the Jewish Federation of Northern New Jersey, www.jfnnj.org, or of the URJ, at
www.urj.org/israel, to contribute to the Jewish community’s terror relief fund. Monies will go to The Jewish Agency for Israel, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, and ORT, to deliver immediate services and assistance on the ground throughout the southern part of the country. Such services include trauma counseling, financial assistance, portable bomb shelters, and potentially other initiatives including bringing children in the strike zones out of harm’s way.
Last but not least, don’t forget to support our local organizations that help those in need. Local needs are often neglected when disasters strike elsewhere. For several years I have collected donations from members of my family at our Thanksgiving dinner for the Center for Food Action in Englewood. Perhaps you will choose to adopt this custom.
Whatever you do, remember that giving thanks means giving back!
Happy Thanksgiving,
Rabbi Jordan Millstein
No comments:
Post a Comment