*Tonight, Friday, April 5th, 6:30
p.m., Gan-Aleph Shabbat. (Happy Hour 6 p.m.) Services run on kid-power,
featuring the very youngest of our congregants. Sermon topic: California Kosher: Why is it
TOTALLY COOL to Keep Kosher?
*Saturday, April 6th, 9:30 a.m., Shabbat
services (Torah service, 10:15 a.m.) Sermon
topic: Parashat Shemini: The Death
of Aaron’s Sons & Yom Ha Shoah: WHY
DO WE SUFFER?!
Many Yom Ha Shoah/Holocaust Day
Commemorations to choose from:
*Sunday, April 7th, 3 p.m., Siegel JCC. Congregant Rachel Harad will be dedicating a
tree to honor and memorialize the two sisters who sheltered her father during
the Holocaust, Suzanne and Andree Romain. Our congregants, the Kan/Alexander
family, are also dedicating a tree to remember the institution that provided
shelter for Elly's mom, Francisca. The ceremony will take place at the
Rededication of the Garden of the Righteous Gentiles. Eva Fogelman, co-founder
of the Jewish Foundation for Christian Rescuers and author of Conscience and
Courage: Rescuers of Jews During the Holocaust, will be the featured speaker at
3 p.m.
The
garden, the first monument outside Jerusalem to Christians who saved the lives
of Jews in Nazi-occupied Europe, contains trees originally planted in 1981 by
Holocaust survivors residing in Delaware. Three decades of exposure to the
elements took their toll, but the garden has been restored by its original
landscape architect, Robert Grenfell, and the Halina Wind Preston Holocaust
Education Committee.
*Sunday, April 7th,
7:30 p.m, Shiva for Jerry Grossman’s father, Marvin, at Congregation Beth Shalom, including
an abridged Yom Ha Shoah service.
Also *Sunday, April 7th, 7:30 p.m, Community-wide Yom Ha
Shoah Service, Temple Beth El, Newark.
*Monday, April 8th,
12 noon – 1 p.m., State-wide Yom Ha Shoah Program, Carvel State Office Building,
820 N. French St., Wilmington, including musical
offerings by both Cantor Elisa (Sephardic) and Rabbi Michael (Ashkenazic).
And our Omer Self-Improvement Count continues…
WEEK 2 ― GEVURAH: JUSTICE, DISCIPLINE, RESTRAINT, AWE
After
the miraculous Exodus from Egypt, the Jewish people spent 49 days preparing for
the most awesome experience in human history ― the giving of the Torah at Mount
Sinai. Just as the Jewish peoples' redemption from Egypt teaches us how to
achieve inner freedom in our lives; so too, this 49-day period, called 'Sefirat
Ha-Omer' the Counting of the Omer, is a time of intense character refinement
and elevation.
During
this time, the aspect of the human psyche that most requires refinement is the
area of the emotions. The spectrum of human experience consists of seven
emotional attributes, or sefirot.
The seven emotional attributes are:
- Chesed ―
Loving-kindness
- Gevurah ―
Justice and discipline
- Tiferet ―
Harmony, compassion
- Netzach ― Endurance
- Hod ― Humility
- Yesod ― Bonding
- Malchut ―
Sovereignty, leadership
This
week we continue Sefirat Ha'Omer, utilizing the seven dimensions of the seven
emotional attributes. The first week after Pesach was dedicated to examining the
aspect of chesed, loving-kindness. The second week corresponds to the emotional
attribute of gevurah, discipline or justice.
If
love (Chesed) is the bedrock of human expression, discipline (Gevurah) is the
channel through which we express love. It gives our life and love direction and
focus. Gevurah ― discipline and measure ― concentrates and directs our efforts,
our love in the proper directions.
Underlying
and driving discipline must not only be love, but also compassion. Compassion
is unconditional love. It is love just for the sake of love, not considering
the others position. Tiferet is a result of total selflessness in the eyes of
God. You love for no reason; you love because you are a reflection of God. Does
my discipline have this element of compassion?
Exercise
for the day: Be compassionate to someone you have reproached.
Effective
discipline must be enduring and tenacious. Is my discipline consistent or only
when forced? Do I follow through with discipline? Am I perceived as a weak
disciplinarian?
Exercise
for the day: Extend the plan you made on day two for a longer period of time
listing short-term and long-term goals. Review and update it each day, and see
how consistent you are and if you follow through.
The
results of discipline and might without humility are obvious. The greatest
catastrophes have occurred as a result of people sitting in arrogant judgment
of others. Am I arrogant in the name of justice (what I consider just)? Do I
ever think that I sit on a higher pedestal and bestow judgment on my subjects
below? What about my children? Students?
Exercise
for the day: Before judging anyone, insure that you are doing so selflessly
with no personal bias
For
discipline to be effective it must be coupled with commitment and bonding. Both
in disciplining yourself and others there has to be a sense that the discipline
is important for developing a stronger bond. Not that I discipline you, but
that we are doing it together for our mutual benefit.
Exercise
for the day: Demonstrate to your child or student how discipline is an
expression of intensifying your bond and commitment to each other.
Discipline,
like love, must enhance personal dignity. Discipline that breaks a person will
backfire. Healthy discipline should bolster self-esteem and help elicit the
best in a person; cultivating his sovereignty. Does my discipline cripple the
human spirit; does it weaken or strengthen me and others?
Exercise
for the day: When disciplining your child or student, foster his self-respect
During
the third week of Counting the Omer, we examine the emotional attribute of
Tiferet or compassion. Tiferet blends and harmonizes the free outpouring love
of Chesed with the discipline of Gevurah. Tiferet possesses this power by
introducing a third dimension ― the dimension of truth, which is neither love
nor discipline and therefore can integrate the two.
Truth
is accessed through selflessness: rising above your ego and your
predispositions, enabling you to realize truth. Truth gives you a clear and objective
picture of yours and others' needs. This quality gives Tiferet its name, which
means beauty: it blends the differing colors of love and discipline, and this
harmony makes it beautiful.
Examine
the love aspect of compassion. Ask yourself: Is my compassion tender and loving
or does it come across as pity? Is my sympathy condescending and patronizing?
Even if my intention is otherwise, do others perceive it as such? Does my
compassion overflow with love and warmth; is it expressed with enthusiasm, or
is it static and lifeless?
Exercise
for the day: When helping someone extend yourself in the fullest way; offer a
smile or a loving gesture.
For
compassion to be effective and healthy it needs to be disciplined and focused.
It requires discretion both to whom you express compassion, and in the measure
of the compassion itself. It is recognizing when compassion should be expressed
and when it should be withheld or limited. Discipline in compassion is knowing
that being truly compassionate sometimes requires withholding compassion.
Because compassion is not an expression of the bestower's needs but a response
to the recipient's needs.
Exercise
for the day: Express your compassion in a focused and constructive manner by
addressing someone's specific needs.
True
compassion is limitless. It is not an extension of your needs and defined by
your limited perspective. Compassion for another is achieved by having a
selfless attitude, rising above yourself and placing yourself in the other
person's situation and experience. Am I prepared and able to do that? If not,
why? Do I express and actualize the compassion and empathy in my heart? What
blocks me from expressing it? Is my compassion compassionate or self-serving?
Is it compassion that comes out of guilt rather than genuine empathy? How does
that affect and distort my compassion? Test yourself by seeing if you express
compassion even when you don't feel guilty.
Exercise
for the day: Express your compassion in a new way that goes beyond your
previous limitations: express it towards someone to whom you have been callous.
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