Thursday, April 4, 2013

California Kosher to Yom Ha Shoah Commemorations



*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:

  1. Chesed ― Loving-kindness
  2. Gevurah ― Justice and discipline
  3. Tiferet ― Harmony, compassion
  4. Netzach ― Endurance
  5. Hod ― Humility
  6. Yesod ― Bonding
  7. 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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