Kennedy's 50th Yahrzeit

Dear Friends,

Today, like all Americans, we mark the 50th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and remember him for all his wonderful qualities: his youthful energy, good looks, charm and charisma; his vision and leadership of our nation; his achievements during his term as President, tragically cut short.

As Jews, we remember him as well as a good friend of our people. While JFK’s father, Joe Kennedy, Sr. was known as a Nazi sympathizer and anti-Semite, Jack Kennedy certainly was not. President Kennedy opposed anti-Semitism. For example, he fought to change the discriminatory McCarran-Walter Immigration Act, looking to terminate the national origins quota system which had prevented Jews from immigrating to America. His classic essay, “A Nation of Immigrants,” which he wrote after the ADL reached out to him while he was serving in the Senate, presents an inclusive vision for our country, a place where all are welcome.

President Kennedy can be said to be the first American President who had genuinely strong ties to the Jewish community. Kennedy’s broad support among Jewish voters may have won him the Presidential election in 1960, as his victory over Richard Nixon hinged on winning Illinois, where the Chicago Jewish vote helped propel him to the Presidency. Kennedy responded in kind by being the first president to appoint two Jews to his cabinet at the same time: Arthur Goldberg as Secretary of Labor (who was ultimately named to the Supreme Court) and Abraham Ribicoff, who was Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare.

He is also the first president who was a true supporter of Israel. While President Kennedy’s term coincided with a relatively quiescent period in modern Israel’s history, he was instrumental in changing the American relationship with Israel. Kennedy initiated the creation of security ties with Israel and can be said to be the founder of the US-Israeli military alliance. He ended the arms embargo that Presidents Truman and Eisenhower had imposed on Israel and sold Israel advanced “Hawk” anti-aircraft missiles. Kennedy also supported Israel diplomatically when Arab neighbors challenged its water project on the Jordan River. In 1960 Kennedy stated: "Israel will endure and flourish. It is the child of hope and the home of the brave. It can neither be broken by adversity nor demoralized by success. It carries the shield of democracy and it honors the sword of freedom.”

Last but not least, JFK can be said to have been instrumental in changing the relationship of the American Jewish community to American government and society. In addition to breaking the “religion barrier” by being the first non-Protestant to serve as President, Kennedy inspired many young American Jews to serve our nation by going into politics, government and not-for-profit work. This wave of young Jews entering public service, many ultimately reaching high office, changed our standing in American society. As a result we can now say that as Jews we are truly equal partners in the grand experiment called American democracy.

Thank you, President John F. Kennedy. Tonight we will say kaddish for you, marking your yahrtzeit, along with our own dead. You are still missed.

Zecher Tzadik Livrachah – May the memory of the righteous be for a blessing.

Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Jordan Millstein

Haiyan

Dear Friends,

As this week’s Torah portion, Va’Yishlach, opens Jacob finds himself in a desperate situation. After many years of living with his uncle Laban in Haran, in modern day Syria, Jacob sets out to return to the Land of Canaan. On his way he learns that his brother, Esau, is approaching with 400 armed men. When last they saw one another years before, Esau had threatened to kill Jacob. Not surprisingly Jacob sees Esau’s approach as a dire threat. He is forced to make a quick and very painful decision: He divides his family and all the people with him into two camps, reasoning that if Esau attacks one camp at least the other will survive.

Today in the Philippines similar calculus are being made. With the threat of death from dehydration, starvation and disease, the Philippine government and international aid agencies are being forced to make horrendous decisions as to whom they are going to help and whom they will leave to fend for themselves for the time being. So many have already perished after the attack of Haiyan and many more will undoubtedly become victims of the terrible typhoon. Our hearts and prayers go out to them.

Many have asked if the Jewish community is doing anything to help. Of course we are. How could we not? As Jews we understand that our faith calls us to help all those who suffer, whether they be Jewish or not. On Wednesday Israel sent two planes carrying around 100 tons of supplies and 148 personnel from search and rescue units of the Home Front Command, and personnel from the medical corps. The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) has teamed with the Afya Foundation and Catholic Relief Services, in sending medical supplies and food. Many Jewish organizations around the world are mobilizing to help.

Here are three excellent ways for you to donate to help the victims of Haiyan:

1. The Jewish Federation of Northern New Jersey has opened a fund to help the victims of the typhoon. One-hundred percent of the funds they collect will go directly to support the relief efforts providing comfort, food, medicine, and other critical services in the Philippines. Go to www.jfnnj.org
2. When disaster strikes, Reform Jews often turn to the Union for Reform Judaism to distribute donated funds to agencies that are most effectively helping those in need. The Union retains no funds from relief efforts, with the exception of direct costs, such as credit card fees. Go to urj.org/socialaction/issues/relief/
3. If you have children attending Temple Sinai Religious School give them extra tzedakah to bring in over the next few weeks. The Religious School has decided to give all of the tzedakah it collects through the month of November to help the victims of Haiyan.

Though we shouldn't need any additional motivation to help the victims of Typhoon Haiyan, it is worth noting that the Pilipino people were there for the Jewish People when we needed them. In 1940, when no one wanted Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany, President Quezon of the Philippines opened that country’s doors as 1200 Jewish souls made their way to Manila. (He would have saved more had the US State Department not prevented him.) Seven years later the Philippines became the only Asian nation to vote in the United Nations for the partition of Palestine and the creation of the state of Israel. Many of the refugees to Manila eventually resettled in Israel.

May God bless and protect the people of the Philippines as they go through this terrible time and may we be like the fingers on God’s hand reaching out to the victims of Haiyan in love.

Shabbat Shalom,
Jordan

Making Headlines

Dear Friends,

Israel is back on the front pages again.

The major headline today was that Secretary of State Kerry has directly joined the talks that are taking place with Iran about their nuclear program. The discussions are reportedly about an interim deal under which Iran would temporarily freeze some of their nuclear activities in return for some relief of the international sanctions that have hurt the Iranian economy. The sub-headline is that Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel is alarmed about the proposed deal, “The deal that is being discussed in Geneva right now is a bad deal,” Mr. Netanyahu said. “Iran is not required to take apart even one centrifuge. But the international community is relieving sanctions on Iran for the first time after many years.” Kerry’s response: “I have said many times we will not make a deal that’s a bad deal, that leaves any of our friends or ourselves exposed to a nuclear weapons program.” Mr. Kerry also said the United States would not dismantle its sanctions until it had “absolute clarity about what is happening.” We’ll see.

Meanwhile, this is not the only high stakes exchange that took place between Secretary Kerry and Prime Minister Netanyahu this week. Mr. Kerry was in Israel pressing the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority to make compromises to get their negotiations moving. It was clear that Prime Minister Netanyahu resented the Secretary of State’s pressure to stop approving settlement construction on the West Bank. The pressure, he contends, needs to be put on the Palestinians who are refusing to compromise at this time.

What are we to make of all this? We are fortunate to have someone coming to Temple Sinai a week from Sunday who could help give us insight. Alan Elsner, Vice President for Communications for J Street is going to be the speaker at our Brotherhood’s breakfast on Sunday, November 17th at 9:30 a.m. Alan Elsner has had a long career at the top ranks of American and international journalism prior to joining J Street. As State Department and later White House correspondent for Reuters News Agency, Elsner traveled the world with Secretaries of State and was on first name terms with presidents and vice presidents.

Elsner’s talk is entitled, “When Should We Speak About Israel and What Should We Say? American Jews and the Two-State Solution.” J Street – with over 180,000 supporters nationwide and a Rabbinic Cabinet of over 700 – identifies itself as the political home for pro-Israel, pro-peace Americans to advocate for U.S. leadership to achieve a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and to broaden debate around Israel and the Middle East in national politics and the American Jewish community.

Temple Sinai nor its Brotherhood endorse any organizations that take political positions on Israel. However, we do strongly believe that our synagogue should be a center of dialogue for the various voices within the Jewish community when it comes to Israel and the Middle East. It is our mission as a synagogue to educate our members about Israel and to build a deeper connection between our members and the Jewish State.

This is the first in a series of Brotherhood Breakfasts on American Jewish political perspectives on the US-Israel relationship.

Shabbat Shalom,
Jordan

Beyond

Dear Friends,

I hope this Shabbat finds you well and enjoying the remnants of your Halloween candy.

Halloween today is a fun children’s holiday, harmless, for the most part, except to our waist-lines. But, its roots go back 2000 years to the ancient Celts, who lived in Ireland, England and northern France, and celebrated a festival called Samhain (pron “sah-win”) on the evening of October 31,, the night before their New Year. The day marked the end of the summer harvest and the beginning of the dark, cold winter. With the growing season coming to an end it was a time associated with death. The Celts believed that on the night before their New Year the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred and that ghosts of the dead returned to earth.

At about the same time that the ancient Celts developed their beliefs regarding death and the world beyond, we Jews began to develop our own notions of the afterlife. Those ideas shifted a number of times throughout our history, leaving us a rich and fascinating heritage about what happens to us after we die. I find that most Jews today are unaware of this and tend to associate the notion of life after death, of “heaven” and other ideas, with Christianity. In fact, the notion of life after death has been part of our tradition for many centuries, reaching back into antiquity before the arrival of Christianity.

I would like to invite you to join me for 4 evenings of learning and sharing on the topic of life after death, starting this Monday at 8:00 p.m. and continuing for each Monday night through the month of November. I look forward to hearing what you believe or don’t believe, what your experiences have been, as well as sharing some of the heritage that has come down to us through Jewish sources. The class is free; all you need to do is show up this Monday night and join us for what I hope to be an interesting and different kind of learning experience.

Shabbat Shalom,
Jordan

p.s. Don’t forget Sinai Sessions tomorrow night at 8:00!

Mazal Tov!

Dear Friends,

Mazal tov to New Jersey same-sex couples who as of a few minutes ago have the right to be legally married in our state!

Kol Ha’kavod [kudos] to the New Jersey State Supreme Court for denying Governor Christie’s request for a stay on same-sex marriages until his appeal is settled. Governor Christie is appealing State Superior Court Judge Mary Jacobson’s ruling that New Jersey has to allow such marriages to comply with the United States Supreme Court ruling in June. The governor should withdraw that appeal and recognize the right of same-sex couples to marry. It is the right thing to do.

In the meantime, any Jewish same-sex couples out there who need a rabbi to officiate at their wedding?

L’Shalom,
Jordan

Government Akeda

Dear Friends,

It is a guiding principle of rabbinic Torah interpretation that no matter what the Torah portion of the week happens to be, it turns out to be THE “prefect portion” to help us understand the events of the week. This week’s Torah portion, Va’yera, contains the famous story of the Binding of Isaac, the Akeda, familiar to most as the story read on Rosh Hashanah. Need I say more?

This week, at the very last moment, we, the American People, escaped the blade of the debt-ceiling knife poised to strike us, like Isaac escaped the knife poised to strike him in the Akeda. It is instructive that in the Torah Abraham hears the word of God telling him to sacrifice his son. In our contemporary debt-ceiling Akeda story there were congressmen who sincerely believed that their actions, though painful and destructive in the near term, were the morally right thing, a political “commandment,” as it were. Their view is that this action was necessary in order to prevent what they consider a greater social evil, Obamacare, from going into effect, as well as strike a blow against another great social evil, the accumulating national debt. But, just like when we read the Akeda in the Torah, we are left with the question: Is this the way to go about taking a stand for God? Is this the way to take a stand for what one believes is right? Or do such destructive means not justify the moral ends – no matter how strongly one may feel that things are going in the morally wrong direction? One hopes that those who took Isaac up Mount Moriah, and pulled out the blade that threatened severe damage to our economy and our standing in the world, do not try to do this again. Perhaps, we can pray that they now hear the angel calling out from the heavens, “Do not lay your hands on the boy, nor do him any harm.”

After the events of the past few weeks it is hard not to be left feeling completely cynical about politicians. But, it would be wrong to paint all politicians with the same brush, to see all parts of our government as hopelessly dysfunctional. For example, those we have elected to state and local offices – and those running against them in the upcoming elections in November – had nothing to do with the federal government shut down and debt-ceiling crisis.

I sincerely hope that you make a point of coming out this Sunday morning at 9:30 a.m. to our (free!) Brotherhood Breakfast when we will host a candidates forum for those running for New Jersey State Senate and Assembly and Bergen County Freeholders in District 37. Candidates who have confirmed that they will participate are Loretta Weinberg, Valerie Vainieri Huttle, Gordon Johnson, Paul Duggan, Gino Tessaro, and Dierdre Paul. Come find out what these candidates stand for and what issues concern them before going to the polls. Even if you’ve already made up your mind, come out to make sure that all our elected officials know that the Jewish community cares about what they do and believe. Our community and our democracy depend on our active involvement!

Shabbat Shalom,
Jordan

The Internet is for...

Dear Friends,

It is gratifying for any rabbi to get positive feedback on his/her High Holy Day sermons. After all, we rabbis spend a lot of time crafting these messages and we wouldn't be human if we didn’t enjoy hearing from people afterwards that they loved one or another of the sermons or found them meaningful. But, as much as we rabbis want people to like our sermons, it is even more gratifying when we learn that people have taken the message of a sermon to heart, have discussed it with others, and have been inspired to do something that makes a difference in their lives.

With this in mind I want to thank you for the many comments I received about my Rosh Hashanah morning sermon on the impact of electronic media on our lives today. Now I want to urge you to take an action which could make a difference in your life and the life of your family. This Sunday at 10:00 a.m. in the Temple social hall, Dr. Richard Gallagher will be giving a talk on how to be an electronic media savvy parent. (Both the talk and bagel breakfast are free!) Dr. Gallagher is a clinical psychologist and an associate professor of child and adolescent psychiatry at the NYU School of Medicine and a member of the NYU Child Study Center. He has spoken widely on this topic, advising parents on how to deal with their children's increasing exposure to social networking sites, movies, TV, video games and more.

When we hear the term “electronic media” we tend to think of teenagers and their phones. But, in fact, such media includes the videos watched and games played by children as young as toddlers. This program is for parents and grandparents of children of all ages. We need to understand on a deeper level what is going on with our kids and grandkids and learn what kind of measures we can take to help them lead healthier intellectual, emotional and spiritual lives.

Hope to see you this Sunday!

Shabbat Shalom,
Jordan