Good Deeds

Dear Friends,

Whenever I meet with a bar or bat mitzvah student we discuss the meaning of becoming bar/bat mitzvah. While the term translates as “son of mitzvah” or “daughter of mitzvah,” what it means, according to Jewish tradition, is that the young person is now responsible for doing the mitzvot (plural of “mitzvah”). This naturally leads to the question, “What is a mitzvah?” Almost every student replies, “a good deed.” The truth is that this popular definition of a mitzvah is not completely correct. A mitzvah is a commandment, something we believe, or according to our tradition, God wants us to do. It includes both “good deeds,” i.e. actions which help others or make the world a better place (“tikkun olam”), and Jewish observances and traditions. Both types of mitzvot are essential to living a rich and meaningful Jewish life. Both connect us to God. Mitzvot are not merely good deeds, they are “God deeds.”

Here is one “good deed” mitzvah and one “Jewish observance” mitzvah that you can do through Temple Sinai this week:

1. GOOD DEEDS DAY. On Sunday, March 9th the Jewish Community Relations Council and Jewish Federation of Northern New Jersey is sponsoring “Good Deeds Day.” Temple Sinai is a host site for collecting non-perishable/unexpired food items to be donated to local food pantries. Everyone at Temple Sinai – members, parents, the ECC community – are encouraged to bring donations as soon as possible to the Temple, starting this weekend and ending on Sun. morning, March 9. On Good Deeds Day, March 9, you are invited to come to the Federation from 2-4 to sort and pack the food items. Representatives from some of the food pantries will come as well to meet and mingle with the volunteers. Anyone who would like to help sort and pack at JFNNJ (50 Eisenhower Drive, Paramus) on Good Deeds Day is encouraged to register at www.jfnnj.org/gooddeedsday. Space is limited and there are free t-shirts for the first 200 volunteers. Please contact Joy Kurland at joyk@jfnnj.org with any questions. This is a terrific Mitzvah project for any bar/bat mitzvah students looking for one.
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3. SHALACH MANOT. This is the Jewish practice of sending gifts to one another in conjunction with the festival of Purim. The origins of SHALACH MANOT go back all the way to the Megillah, the Book of Esther, when Mordechai declared the holiday of Purim as a time “of feasting and gladness – send food to one another, and give generously to the poor”. Our Temple Sisterhood has organized a system through which you can send Purim wishes and goodies to Temple Sinai members, ECC and Religious School families, and Temple Staff. You can also send an $8 donation to the “Purim Connection”, an organization that delivers Purim gifts to young soldiers on active duty in Israel and to Israeli children who are victims of terror and displacement. For more information, click here. Order forms are available at Temple, in the Sentry or click here for form. from Shavua Tov. If you have questions or would like to volunteer for bag "production" or delivery, contact Hilary Eth.

Doing mitzvot is at the heart of what it means to be a Jew. It makes being Jewish more than something that you are; it makes it something that you live. And when we live out who we are, we are truly fulfilled.

Shabbat Shalom,
Jordan

Hanging with Bruce and the Boys

Dear friends,

I don’t know where you’ll be on Feb 27th but I’ll be at the Clinton Inn for the Brotherhood Guys night out! This Second Annual Guys Night out, next Thursday from 7:30 – 10:00 pm at the Palmer’s Crossing Room in the Tenafly Clinton Inn, promises to be a lot of fun. I’m sure you want to hang out with me for an evening, but if that’s not good enough for you to join us that night, how about the following Top Ten Reasons?

1. Hang out with your friends. All the men from Brotherhood will be there as will other guys who are friends with the guys from Brotherhood.
2. Meet new friends. Many men have already signed up so there will probably be at least a few you do not know yet. This is a great, easy-going and relaxed opportunity to meet some new guys and maybe make new friends.
3. Hang out with former New York Jets star running back and kick/punt returner Bruce Harper. Ok, so if the chance to hang with me and the Brotherhood guys isn’t enough of a draw, how about an actual football star??
4. Enjoy an all-you-can-eat buffet of hot wings, pizza and beef brisket egg rolls
5. Enjoy unlimited, free flowing beverages including beer, house wine and soft drinks and for those who prefer cocktails, we’ll have a cash bar.
6. Watch the Knicks v. Heat and the Rangers v. Blackhawks on the large screen TV
7. Take a chance on a great Raffle and at the same time help support our Temple Sinai youth. Buy a raffle ticket for two amazing seats for the NY Rangers v. Phoenix Coyotes game on March 24th at Madison Square Garden. All proceeds of the raffle go to the Brotherhood Youth Scholarship Fund which is being used to send our youth to the URJ Religious Action Center in Washington, DC, this weekend. We will sell only 100 raffle tickets at $10 each (3 for $25). They’re tax-deductible, you do not need to be present to win and the more you buy the better your odds of winning!
8. Support Brotherhood by being a part of the group having a laid-back, enjoyable evening together.
9. Help build the Temple Sinai community by strengthening the Brotherhood.
10. And finally, leave your work behind, put the shovel down, and come out of the cold. Relax, grab a drink and a wing, and kick back with the guys!

I hope to see you there!

Shabbat Shalom,
Jordan

**Cost for the entire event is only $30. To RSVP, go towww.sinaiguysnightout.com

Putin's Games

Dear Friends,

Maybe it’s just me but I’m having a hard time getting psyched to watch the Winter Olympics in Sochi. Perhaps if I was more into winter sports I would naturally be more excited. But, the sight of a bunch of German and Nordic men in body-suits plummeting down an ice chute on a French-named sled trying to get to the bottom of a hill a tiny fraction of a second faster than the rest doesn’t do it for me. OK, to be honest, I do think figure-skating is beautiful, and speed skating and skiing can be fun to watch. So, I should have a more positive attitude.

I guess what is really bothering me is the thought of that latter-day Czar, Vladimir Putin, smugly sitting at the games celebrating the return of Russia to its days of glory under his autocratic rule. He of the “gay propaganda” legislation, political corruption, and shuttering of independent media; he of the detention of protestors and dissenters of every stripe; he who continues to support the murderous Assad regime in Syria; he who seems for all intents and purposes to be President of Russia for life. Forget the stray dogs, unfinished hotels and the toilets that don’t flush. The Sochi Olympics is Putin’s party and the world is there to marvel at his success.

So, what to do? We could just ignore old “Pootie-Poot,” as President Bush called him, and enjoy the show. We Americans often ignore ethical issues when it comes to celebrating the world of sport. But, that would be an abdication of our values. Should we then keep our televisions and computers off and not watch at all? Some may find that to be a good solution. But, we know that the athletes themselves are not to blame nor are we going stop Putin by not watching the Olympics. Let us rather cheer on our athletes, Americans, Jews, Israelis – those who represent the values that we believe – keep our eyes and ears open to what is going on in the world and not forget what we stand for.

Shabbat Shalom,
Jordan

A Plea for the Ukraine

Dear Friends,

Jeremy Borovitz is a remarkable young man. In 2009 he received his BAR from the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan. He then joined the Peace Corp and was sent to a small town in the Ukraine, where he taught English, music, ecology, as well as Jewish history and culture. He founded the Jewish Heritage Council of Peace Corps, to develop Jewish themed lesson plans and projects for Peace Corps volunteers and to create a community for the celebration of Jewish holidays. He then went on to become a Jewish Service Corp Fellow for the Joint Distribution Committee in the Ukraine, researching local Jewish history in Ukrainian villages with local students and organizing local festivals of Jewish Culture. He also engaged young adults in the Kiev community through conducting Shabbat dinners and teaching classes about Judaism. Jeremy recently went to Israel to begin a program of Jewish study there.

This plea on behalf of the protesters in the Ukraine, written on January 12th was sent to me by his father, a friend and mentor of mine, Rabbi Neal Borovitz. I was very moved by this letter. Please take a moment to read it.

Shabbat Shalom,
Jordan

It was exactly four years ago this month when I first got that big white envelope in the mail, informing me that I was to spend the next 2 and a half years of my life as a Youth Development Volunteer in Ukraine. I was excited, and nervous, and scared, and shocked that I had actually followed through on my threats to join the Peace Corps.

Over the next three and a half years (I decided to stay a bit longer) I grew to love this beautiful, complicated, and at times harsh country. The winters made me freeze and the bureaucracy drove me insane. But the people whom I met and worked with were, for the most part, strong, brave, and prideful.

And last week, their government sold their rights down the river. The Senate waved at the raft as it floated by.

When protests broke out in late November against the government’s decision to not sign an Association Agreement with the European Union, I couldn’t pull myself away from my computer. My deep concern for my friends who were shivering on Independence Square, and the very real violence some of them faced, encouraged me to change an already scheduled international flight for the sake of a pit stop in Kiev.

It was a wild few days. Trying to get a sense of what was happening, I spent my days wandering around the protest with my friends, talking to as many people as I could. They were all friendly, of course, and upon hearing my thick American accent when I spoke Ukrainian, their congeniality took on a pleading tone. One man nearly fell at my feet, regaling me with a terrible tale of the government stealing his business and his livelihood because he refused to pay the bribes they were demanding. Tell them, he begged me. Tell Obama what is happening here, beg him to help us.

The protests have often been characterized in the Western press as a desire for Ukraine to move closer to Europe and away from Russia. This is only a part of the story. These people are standing on the square because they are tired of having a government who works against them. Corruption has been so ingrained in their culture that many public service professionals, including police, doctors, and teachers, often expect bribes to simply do their jobs. For a country rich in natural resources, its soil is getting sucked dry by a wealthy and powerful few. The Social safety net designed to aid its weakest citizens is riddled with holes, and it becomes nearly impossible to not fall through the cracks.

So when the people took a stand on that square, the government raised its night stick and began swinging wildly into the night. People were beaten indiscriminately, others thrown in jail, and yet they kept showing up, night after night, Sunday after Sunday, to stand with their fellow citizens, to protest this time warp back to Soviet-style politics where the political discourse is conducted with blood and handcuffs.

And on Thursday, in one of the greatest shams from a government that has aced the art of feigning democracy and justice, Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada passed a law that strips away the rights not only of those citizens standing on the square but of its people as a whole. Suddenly NGOs who receive overseas charitable work will be considered foreign agents. Journalists who print things unfavorable to the regime will be given years in prison. And one can be convicted of a crime without ever showing up for their day in court. Vladimir Putin must be gleaming with pride at all the tyranny his money has bought him.

I received my letter in the mail four years ago, but this story began a year before that, when my father and I drove down to Washington, D.C. on a cold Tuesday and stood outside on the freezing grass to watch as Barack Obama was inaugurated as our 44th President of the United States. And as he stood up there I believed his vision of a better tomorrow, I realized I wanted to do something to help my country, to serve in my own way. A few days later, I had applied to the Peace Corps.

In that first white envelope, on a small pamphlet that might have easily been discarded, was a statement of the three goals of the Peace Corps, the aims which were to be my mantra for the duration of my service.

Goal One: To help the people of your host country, to provide support, to install internet in a small village so the students can follow the protests in their country without media bias, to teach English to a young University student so he can give interviews to foreign reporters who come visit him on the square, to strengthen the organizational capacity of a Human Rights NGO so that they can stand by their countrymen as their constitution is burned before their eyes.

Goal Two: To help promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of the peoples served, to tell them of the wonderful country I came from and the values we stand for, to regale them with tales of inaugurations and marches and hope and change that we still hold on to even if it never quite comes as we’d imagined, to teach them to dream in a culture that suppresses it, to teach them to believe in a tomorrow they can’t yet see.

Goal Three: To help promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans, to tell everyone I know that there is a country called Ukraine that is not Russia, filled with people who yearn to create a real democracy, to post on facebook and to write to Senators and to scream at the top of my lungs until the world takes notice that these people still exist and are still standing and we seem blase to their cause, to implore for action from my government, to insist that they send these bandits a message that such tactics will not fly, not on our watch.

Help me to fulfill the three goals, because otherwise, I would have been better off to never open my letter.

Jeremy Borovitz

MLK Day Message: Rabbis Arrested

Dear Friends,

On June 18, 1964, just three days before the three Freedom Summer activists - Michael Schwerner, James Chaney and Andrew Goodman – disappeared, 15 Reform rabbis (and one lay leader) were arrested in St. Augustine, the largest mass arrest of rabbis in the United States. The rabbis had come to St. Augustine, Florida in response to an appeal made by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to the Central Conference of American Rabbis (the Reform Rabbinic Association) through his friend, Rabbi Israel “Si” Dresner, then serving Springfield, New Jersey’s Temple Sha’arey Shalom. Reverend King asked the rabbis to join him in St. Augustine in “a creative witness to our joint convictions of equality and racial justice.”

Two of those 15 rabbis are my father’s friends, Rabbis Danny Fogel and Alan Secher. To mark this Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. holiday and to remember the courage of these Jewish civil rights activists I share with you Rabbi Secher’s personal account of what happened. Fifty years later it’s hard to imagine that this happened in the United States of America:

…[On June 17th] we were met by King at a local church, [and] given instructions…. That night we were going to march from the black area through the white area to the slave market, and return. And what King told us was be on the lookout, because the night before someone had been shot and killed along the route. Someone had crawled up a tree, and as the group passed below, had shot and killed them.

…we kept marching. And it’s dark where we’re marching, and I’m in the lead. And I’m holding this Black girl’s hand as we’re marching. I gotta tell ya…the scariest two, three, four hours of my life. We’re passing under the same trees where the night before someone had been shot…and with the full knowledge the National Guard that had been called out wasn’t very sympathetic to start with. So…I was scared…Well, we marched…from the black section, through the white section…to the slave market…did a prayer service there of some sort and turned around and walked back – that was our evening.

The next day we did a prayer service, we were to divide into three groups…one group was to go to the local Woolworth’s lunch counter …be like going to a Target nowadays to a lunch counter, or to a lunch counter at a WalMart. One group went to the Woolworths. Another group went to a lunch counter at an interstate motel. And the third group was to go to the parking lot of this same motel and gather in the parking lot, and that’s the group I was assigned to. There were about fifty of us, in a circle in the parking lot, doing a prayer service, whites and blacks, crossing arms, and again singing and doing prayers. And at that moment I was witness to the most courageous act I’ve seen in my life – in my life!

We’re in the circle, and at a given moment, two young black kids – teenagers – broke away from the group, and as they broke away they peeled off their clothing, and they had bathing suits on, underneath their clothing, and they ran from us to the swimming pool, of this motel. And the swimming pool was probably no more than thirty yards away – and they jumped into the pool…and of course the patrons of the pool, white people, immediately exited. Oh my god, swimming in the same pool with a black! And the manager was called. And the manager panicked. And he didn’t know what to do and he ran, and he grabbed a gallon jug of acid…and he took the acid, and he poured it into the pool…with the two black kids still in the pool – they didn’t budge! Now, he had no way of knowing that the acid diluted itself with water, but you could see on the bottle…’acid’ – and the kids just stayed there in the pool till the guy was done with the acid, and they didn’t move. Those two kids…that’s indelible…that scene…is absolutely indelible…that hasn’t changed over the years, the vision of that scene.

Then we were arrested…and they put five of us in each of the cop cars…then they took us to a huge parking lot outside the jail…then each cop had his picture taken with his five charges…I guess so he could put it in his scrapbook for the future…

And there I saw one of the most horrific acts in my life, one of the cops had a cattle prod…and there was a young white girl, I’d say early 20’s, who had been arrested with us, and the cop took that prod, and shoved it right up her behind, and turned on the juice, and the scream from that girl, the absolute scream from that girl, and the agony…and she was not counter-demonstrating at all. She had come, she had been arrested, and she was going peacefully.

They separated white from black and Jew from gentile…
I think…I think it’s important to tell the story…[so] it’s not lost…it doesn’t go down the drain…so that others realize what had gone on then…so that it’s not just about going on Face Book and seeing that your friend had ice cream for dinner. It’s about realizing a piece of history, and about how those things affected history as time went by. And so I tell these stories as often as I can…. (http://www.thenakedrabbi.com/freedom-riders-part-ii/)

These past few weeks in the synagogue we have been reading the story of the Exodus. Last week we read the passage about when our People crossed the Red Sea to freedom. This past Shabbat we read what is really the culminating moment of the Exodus, according to our tradition, the moment at Mt. Sinai when we stood as one and freely entered into a covenant with God to be God’s People. We heard revealed God’s Ten Statements, the Ten Commandments.

Years ago I was fortunate to study this portion with Rabbi David Saperstein of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism in Washington, a civil rights hero in his own right. He pointed out something I hadn’t noticed before. The first of the ten commandments, the first thing that God says to us gathered at Mt. Sinai, is “I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the Land of Egypt.” It’s not really a commandment. It’s a statement. It is a statement about the nature of God, Godself. God is many things. But, who is God, first and foremost? God is the one who brought us out of the Land of Egypt, the God of Liberation, the God of Freedom.

While in jail in St. Augustine the 15 rabbis (and Al Vorspan, a layman and staff person of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations) penned the following letter explaining why they went:

…We shall not soon forget the stirring and heartfelt excitement with which the Negro community greeted us with full-throated hymns and hallelujahs, which pulsated and resounded through the church; nor the bond of affectionate solidarity which joined us hand in hand during our marches through town; nor the exaltation which lifted our voices and hearts in unison; nor the common purpose which transcended our fears as well as all the boundaries of race, geography and circumstance. We hope we have strengthened the morale of St. Augustine Negroes as they strive to claim their dignity and humanity; we know they have strengthened ours.

Each of us has in this experience become a little more the person, a bit more the rabbi he always hoped to be (but has not yet been able to become).

We believe in man’s ability to fulfill God’s commands with God’s help. We make no messianic estimate of man’s power and certainly not of what we did here. But it has reaffirmed our faith in the significance of the deed. So we must confess in all humility that we did this as much in fulfillment of our faith and in response to inner need as in service to our Negro brothers. We came to stand with our brothers and in the process have learned more about ourselves and our God. In obeying Him, we become ourselves; in following His will we fulfill ourselves….

On this Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day let us remember and find inspiration in the courageous deeds of the rabbis arrested in St. Augustine and all those who fought for civil rights in our land.

Rabbi Jordan Millstein

P.S. View the full text of “Why We Went: A Joint Letter from the Rabbis Arrested in St. Augustine”

Nelson Mandela, z"l

Dear Friends,

He was for black South Africans their Theodore Herzl, David Ben-Gurion and Natan (Anatoly) Sharansky, all wrapped into one. He was first a dreamer and activist, a visionary of a new nation. Then he was a long-suffering prisoner of conscience, doggedly fighting for freedom against the old, oppressive order. Then he was the leader of a great national movement, founder of a new government and its first president. He was, no exaggeration, a latter-day Moses: the liberator of his people and its lawgiver. And he was, as well, a latter day Joseph, who, having been tormented and imprisoned by his brothers still found a way (in this week’s Torah portion, Va’Yigash) to forgive them, thus bringing his family together in peace. Nelson Mandela found a way to forgive his tormentors and his people’s oppressors, doing everything in his power to bring his nation together in peace.

In addition to all of his wonderful qualities and acts of great leadership, Mandela had his faults, for sure. He was not always a great manager of government affairs once he became president and he tended to overlook the faults of those who supported him. As Jews, it was hard for us to stomach his embrace of Muammar Gaddafi and Yasser Arafat.

At the same time, as Jews we understood the meaning of the anti-apartheid movement. Many Jews participated in the movement, both in South Africa and abroad. But, even those who didn’t understood that Nelson Mandela’s struggle for freedom and equality for his people resonated deeply with our Jewish values. His story was another iteration of our master story, the Exodus from Egypt. It was analogous to what we experienced so many times throughout our history. It was a vision we shared for the future of the world.

Nelson Mandela’s soul has now gone to join with the souls of the other great men and women who helped bring about tikkun olam, the repair of the world, taking us all one step closer towards the vision of a world redeemed.

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

Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Jordan Millstein

Thankgsivukkah Miracle

Dear Friends,

Thankgsivukkah is finally here!  Fry up those pumpkin latkes! Light the “Menurkey”!  (In case you haven’t heard, that’s a menorah that looks like a turkey.)  To quote the sendup of the song, “O Chanukah,” on http://menurkey.com: 

“Thanksgiving and Chanukah, come light the Menurkey

Once in a lifetime the candles meet the turkey.”

It’s actually once in a lot more than a lifetime.  Today is the first time since 1888 that Chanukah coincides with Thanksgiving.  And, in case you’re wondering, the first day of Chanukah won’t coincide with Thanksgiving again for another 77,798 years.  So, enjoy those latkes with cranberry sauce!  Also, be sure to light three candles this evening – two candles plus the shamash, or “server” candle – as tonight is the second night of Chanukah.

So, once you’ve lit the menurkey and stuffed yourself with stuffing and latkes, what should you talk about with your family on Thanksgivukkah?   How about discussing what you will be doing on the last day of Chanukah next year, which also happens to coincide with Christmas Eve?  No, I am not suggesting that you celebrate Chanukah and Christmas together – that’s an altogether different thing than celebrating Chanukah and Thanksgiving!   I am referring to something much more exciting:

On December 24, 2014 Temple Sinai’s next congregational trip to Israel will depart for our homeland!  Join us at Temple on Sunday, December 8th at noon (bagel brunch included) and meet Ezra Korman, our celebrated tour guide, who will be visiting us from Israel that day to give us the lowdown on the trip.     

Our Temple Sinai trip will be a multi-generational, fun-filled adventure packed with sites to see, both and ancient and modern; direct encounters with Israelis of differing backgrounds; and an opportunity for students who turn 13 between the fall of 2014 and the winter of 2015 to become b’nei mitzvah together at Robinson’s Arch at the Western Wall.  (Relatives of Temple Sinai families may become b’nei mitzvah with us as well.)  This is the perfect trip for “first-timers” and “first-in-a-long timers” as well as those who have been to Israel several times before but want to see their children or grandchildren experience it with them.  Whether you would be coming alone as a single individual, or bringing an entire clan, this trip is for you!

This evening when we light our chanukiot (Chanukah menorahs), be they menurkeys or regular menorahs, it will be a moment to reflect.  We have so much to be grateful for as families, as a nation, as a Jewish community.  But, we must not take what we have for granted.  What can we do to make our family bonds stronger, our Jewish identities deeper, and the future brighter and more meaningful for ourselves and our children? 

Join us on our trip to Israel next December and join us a week from Sunday on December 8th at 12 p.m. to learn more about it.

If you are considering coming on our trip to Israel and or may be joining us on December 8th please rsvp to Ronni Zlotnick, our Israel trip chairperson, at ronnibzlot@juno.com.

Happy Thanksgivukkah (or as I prefer, “Changiving,” to you and yours).

Jordan

p.s. Below please find the remarks I made about the confluence of Chanukah and Thanksgiving at the Tenafly Interfaith Thanksgiving service this past Tuesday evening at Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Church. 

Thanksgivukkah:  Remarks at Tenafly Interfaith Thanksgiving Service

November 26, 2013

When we Jews speak about our holidays you will often hear us remark that the “holidays are late this year” or “the holidays are early,” as the holidays shift forward and back against the Western, Gregorian calendar.  But this year our unique Luni-Solar Hebrew calendar just seems downright loony.  For the first time since 1888 Chanukah coincides with Thanksgiving.  In fact, the first night of Chanukah is tomorrow night, the night before Thanksgiving.  And here’s the kicker:  Chanukah won’t coincide with Thanksgiving again for more than 70,000 years!

Now, as one can imagine, with the coincidence of Chanukah and Thanksgiving being so rare it has many of baffled as to how to observe it.  Make pumpkin latkes and serve them with cranberry-apple sauce?  Light a Menurkey – a Menorah shaped like a turkey?  (Yes, there really is such a thing; it is America, after all, and there is an entrepreneur ready to capitalize on just about anything.)  Christmas and Chanukah coming at the same time just seems to make more sense, both being festivals of lights.

But, the truth is Thanksgiving and Chanukah really do go well together.

1.    They are both holidays which are centered on eating.  Well, most Jews would say that all Jewish holidays are centered on eating.  But, you can’t have Chanukah without a Chanukah party where you stuff yourself with latkes (potato pancakes) and you can’t have Thanksgiving without plain stuffing yourself.  So, this year there’ll just be a little more food.

2.    They’re both holidays which are celebrated at home with our families.  We have this lovely interfaith service each year in one of our houses of worship, of course, and we have our menorah outside our Temple that we light – BTW, you’re all welcome to join us any of the 8 nights of Chanukah at 5:30 on our lawn on Engle Street – except Friday, when we will do the lighting at 7:15.  But, fundamentally, both of these holidays are celebrated at home with our families, which is one of the beautiful things about them.

3.    And it goes beyond the way that these two holidays are celebrated to their spiritual meaning.  Thanksgiving is about that band of Pilgrims who in days of yore came to this land to escape religious persecution and find a new place where they could worship God freely and follow their beliefs.  Chanukah is about that band of Maccabees who in days of yore in Israel’s ancient land fought to escape the religious persecution of Antiochus and worship freely in their old place, the Temple in Jerusalem.  At both Chanukah and Thanksgiving we celebrate our religious freedom.

4.    And on both of these holidays we recognize how lucky we are, how fortunate we are to live in a place where we can worship freely, and how fortunate to have what we have – not only freedom, but the prosperity to enjoy it – the abundance that if only we shared with one another as we should would mean no one would go without.  An attitude of gratitude and giving is fundamental to both holidays.

5.    Last, but certainly not least, is the recognition that our freedom, our prosperity, indeed all that we have is a gift from God.  It’s interesting because both the Maccabees and the Pilgrims looked to the same story from the Bible, from the Torah, for inspiration:  the story of the Exodus.  The Pilgrims saw themselves as the new Israel, rescued by God from persecution, and led here to the new Promised Land.  The Maccabees, of course, were the old Israel, and recognized in their redemption the same hand of God that had redeemed their ancestors from Egyptian bondage.  Perhaps that is why the rabbis of old told the story of the miracle of the Menorah – how the Maccabees only found enough olive oil in the Temple in Jerusalem to keep the menorah lit for one day and it lasted 8 days, enough time to make new oil.  It was a reframing of that age old story of that bush that Moses saw at Sinai, that bush that burned, but its flame never going out.  Indeed, it is the message of both Thanksgiving and Chanukah, that God’s spirit is behind the wonders that all of us experience, both great and small.  May we all recognize it for what it is and may that light never go out!