Hay m היוםCongregation Agudath Achim 9 LEE BLVD., • SAVANNAH, GA 31405 • 912-352-4737 • www.agudath-achim.com APRIL 2016• ADAR II – NISAN 5776 ISSUE #4 CONGREGATION AGUDATH ACHIM A Glance at what’s inside Rabbi’s Column Information from the President Donor Dues Info / Donor Dues Program Sisterhood Mitzvah-Gram Shalom School Info Upcoming Events Men’s Club In the Community Events Weekly Study Opportunities Yahrzeits Contributions Calendar for April Your April Birthdays
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Hay m היום Congregation
Agudath Achim
9 LEE BLVD., • SAVANNAH, GA 31405 • 912-352-4737 • www.agudath-achim.com
APRIL 2016• ADAR II – NISAN 5776
ISSUE #4
CONGREGATION AGUDATH ACHIM
A Glance at what’s
inside
Rabbi’s Column
Information from the
President
Donor Dues Info
/
Donor Dues Program
Sisterhood
Mitzvah-Gram
Shalom School Info
Upcoming Events
Men’s Club
In the Community Events
Weekly Study
Opportunities
Yahrzeits
Contributions
Calendar for
April
Your
April
Birthdays
APRIL 2016 ADAR II - NISAN 5776 Page 2
RABBI
Moshe Silberschein
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
Motti Locker
PRESIDENT
Steven Roth
VICE-PRESIDENT
Victor Shernoff
FINANCIAL SECRETARY
Elise Shernoff
RECORDING SECRETARY
Ed Bernard
TREASURER
Michael Bonder
IMMEDIATE
PAST PRESIDENT
Kenneth Sadler
BOARD MEMBERS
Liz Arkin
Adam Fins
Doug Goldstein
Kenneth Hoffman
Nancy Isaacson
Barry Luskey
Debby Luskey
Rick Meier
Sherwin Robin
Scott Samuels
Barry Schlafstein
HONORARY MEMBER
David Hirsh
MEN’S CLUB
Bob Schwartz
CHEVRA KADISHA
David Reeves
ENDOWMENT COMMITTEE
CHAIRMAN
Joel Goodman
RITUAL COMMITTEE
Steve Arkin
SHALOM SCHOOL
Eva Locker
Rabbi’s Column for April 2016 HaYom
To this day I will never forget an argument my sister had with our grandfather right before Passover
years back. I was probably about 13 years old then, my sister already 16, when she asked Zeyde if she
could invite her Catholic girlfriend Claudette to the Seder. “Let her come for lunch the next day. You
don’t invite non-Jews to the Seders,” was his reply. To which my sister replied: “Zeyde, you’re a
bigot!” Needless to say, Claudette never made it to our family Seder, since Zeyde was in charge. But
since that time I’ve shared my own Seder table with Zen Buddhists, Japanese Seventh Day Adventists
and even a Catholic priest or two.
In the Eastern European world of my grandparents where red wine was never used at the Seder for fear
of blood libel accusations from their Cossack neighbors come springtime, any dialogue or intellectual
exchange on Passover was never really an option. But thanks to my grandparents’ immigrating to the
shores of America, my world is different. I may still like them view the Seder as a very insider event,
with family tunes, customs and stories to be repeated year after year; but I also view the Seder as a
Jewish symposium where basic issues need to be questioned, reviewed, renewed in a different light,
where new guest-participants each year guarantee that this night will be “different from all other
nights”. We Jews are not missionaries, but that doesn’t mean we can’t compete or participate in the
world of ideas. And by presenting, sharing, explaining our ideas with people other than ourselves at the
Seder, we gain a deeper perspective of who we are. Judaism at its best cannot be clannish or insular.
Otherwise, we will become or even create our own worst enemies.
There is a tale in the Talmud (Sanhedrin 99b) about a woman named Timna which I think needs to be
repeated between Purim and Pesach each year as a preventative and warning against this tendency
among us. Timna, we are told, was a Canaanite princess who wanted to convert to Judaism but the
Patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob rejected her. She thought to herself: “I’d rather be a concubine to
this people than a princess among my people.” So she became a concubine to Eliphaz the first born of
Esau, Jacob’s twin brother, entering the Jewish people through the back door, so to speak. As a result of
their union, Timna gave birth to Amalek. Amalek – the ancestor of Haman and all others of his ilk, the
code name in our tradition for the forces of evil in this world. “Why did this happen?” ask our rabbis in
the Talmud. Their answer: “Because Abraham, Isaac and Jacob should not have rejected her.” Timna
was a sincere seeker after truth and they should have accepted her, bringing her under the protective
wings of the Shechina, the divine presence of God.
“We have met the enemy and he is us.” This quote of Walt Kelley, the cartoonist-satirist of Pogo fame,
sums up the tale of Timna in the Talmud. Amalek is the grandson of Esau, Jacob’s twin brother, and we
created him. It’s all in the family. We’re all part of the same family of humanity.
Amalek is part of us and even within us. Therefore the commandment on Purim to wipe out the memory
of Amalek (Deuteronomy 25:19(according to the Zohar includes wiping out the Yetzer Hara, the evil
impulse, within each of us which bids us to reject the other, the stranger among us. And elsewhere in the
Torah we are told in connection to our Exodus from Egypt:“You shall love the stranger as you love
yourself because you were strangers in Egypt” (Leviticus 19:34). For even after wiping out the
Amalek within our hearts on Purim, our work is not yet completed. And a month later by Pesach we are
commanded to remove from our homes all Chametz, “the leavening yeast which is in the dough”, still
yet another name in the Talmud (Brachot 17a) for the Yetzer Hara - Chametz, that puffed up pride of
leaven which may cause us to reject the Timnas in our midst.
The teachings of our Torah are surely not a monopoly, forbidden to be shared with the rest of humanity.
To paraphrase our teacher Professor Abraham Joshua Heschel: No religion can afford to be an island.
So this year between Purim and Pesach when we do a spring cleaning of our souls, let us not seek to
missionize or to ostracize but rather to dialogue and share with each other and with others.
Rabbi Moshe Silberschein
APRIL 2016 ADAR II - NISAN 5776 Page 3
Information from the President:
Passover. The spring festival that begins on Nissan 15. Our greatest Jewish family
holiday. We gather together to recount the story of the exodus from Egypt. The
story of Moses and Pharaoh. The plagues. The four questions. The answers. Elijah
and the door. The four cups of wine. No leavened bread. The cramps. The two
Seders. The splitting of the Red Sea and the Redemption.
Family and friends and often strangers gather around the Seder table to recount our
history of slavery and exodus. The story of our past lengthy Seders and the
abbreviated forms. The afikomen and inflation.
We have a great history both long- and short-term to share with each other.
By the time we are celebrating Passover hopefully we may be concluding our
search for a Rabbi. We will be nearing our Gala on May 15th and a change in lay
synagogue leadership.
I am hoping you all enjoy your Passover holiday as much as I anticipate enjoying
mine with friends and family.
Steven Roth
Congregation President
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How do I Send a Mitzvah-Gram?
Here are 4 simple steps to do this:
1 Print out the Mitzvah-Gram page from the current HaYom newsletter with the list of
people celebrating a birthday or anniversary in May.
2 Circle the names of all those people to whom you would like to send a Happy Birthday or
Happy Anniversary greeting.
3 Mail or deliver your list, along with your check made out to Agudath Achim Sisterhood
for $.50 for each circled name, to either Agudath Achim, 9 Lee Blvd., Savannah GA 31405, attn:
Sisterhood Mitzvah-Grams, or directly to Barbara Abrams, 24 Raindrop Lane, Bluffton, S.C. 29909.
4 Make sure to include your name(s) the way you want it (them) listed.
In order for your birthday and anniversary greetings to be delivered in a timely
manner, everyone needs to turn in May’s Mitzvah-Gram sheets by the 15th of
April.
If you have any questions about this project, please contact me at [email protected], or at
(843) 705-3723.
Thanks to everyone for participating in this exciting new program.