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Ansche Chesed Newsletter |
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Greetings! In August we begin to look toward the year 5765. During the month of Elul we sound the shofar every weekday morning as we prepare for the coming High Holidays. Rabbi Kalmanofsky will help us ready ourselves for the holidays by teaching "Shaping Your Heart With Torah," a four-session class beginning on August 18. We will welcome Hazzan Natasha Hirschhorn as our Music Director at a community dinner on Friday, September 10. On Saturday night, September 11, we usher in the holidays with a Selichot study session at 10pm and services led by Hazzan Hirschhorn at 11pm. See the message below from our Board President, Josh Hanft, for other important updates.
CANDLE LIGHTING TIMES 9/3 Light candles 7:06. Shabbat ends 8:05 9/29 Light Sukkot candles 6:22 SERVICE TIMES On Shabbat WEEK OF AUGUST 1 WEEK OF AUGUST 8 WEEK OF AUGUST 15 WEEK OF AUGUST 22 WEEK OF AUGUST 29 WEEK OF SEPTEMBER 5 WEEK OF SEPTEMBER 12 WEEK OF SEPTEMBER 19 WEEK OF SEPTEMBER 26
Most of us contemporary Americans grow accustomed to buying tomatoes in January, peaches in March, and asparagus in November. But for those participating in Tuv HaAretz - Ansche Chesed's and Hazon's Community-Sponsored Agriculture project, bringing organic and locally grown produce from Eve's Garden in Long Island - we can enjoy produce when it ripens in the field. In Judaism, that calls for an extra blessing. When someone even sees a newly ripened fruit the first time in a season - let alone eats it - Jewish teachings (see Babylonian Talmud Eruvin 40b) urge us to bless Shehehiyanu - technically titled "the Blessing on Time." That is, recognizing the consistent power of the earth to generate new plants through the shifting season, one should say: "Blessed are You, Adonay, our God, Master of the Cosmos, for giving us life, sustaining us and bringing us to this special moment in time." You can find this prayer in Hebrew and in transliteration in Siddur Sim Shalom, p. 712. How to do it? This is a mighty simple operation. Usually people say the customary blessing over the fruit or vegetable ("Blessed are You . . . Who creates the fruit of the earth/the tree") and then add the Shehehiyanu. I myself follow the ruling of R. Yehiel Michael Epstein and say Shehehiyanu first, then bless on the food, and then eat [Arukh HaShulhan OH 225.5]. One is supposed to bless Shehehiyanu only on ripe fruit. In fact, that is the reason Jews have mostly stopped blessing at the sight of new fruit - since just by sight you may not be certain it is ready to eat. But as you're just about to enjoy and be nourished by this divine bounty - then you're ready to say the blessing. This latter rule reveals something deep about the practice, I believe. What exactly is the source of our additional gratitude over a new fruit? There is no more nourishment in your first peach of summer than in your second, so this prayer cannot be addressed to the normal reason for food blessings. Instead, it seems to me that by blessing on new produce we are blessing upon the earth's awe-inspiring fruitfulness, on its endless potential to give forth marvels, a power realized in this particular perfect apricot or pepper. Shehehiyanu says to God's earth: You've done it again! In the Holy Zohar's image [Zohar Hadash 13d], God created the world as a 9-month pregnant woman, spilling over potential, immediately ready to bring forth new life. Shehehiyanu is the blessing on potential realized. Tasting the earth's ever-changing flow of produce is a wonderful way to experience the bounty of God's world. Indeed, the Jerusalem Talmud (Kiddushin chapter 4, end) warns against skinflints too miserly to buy and at least taste each new fruit each year. Sure, some individual expenditures are ridiculous, and sometimes you just don't have the extra few bucks. But when you can, live a little! Try one of the white peaches or loquats or exotic berries you might find in a store. And when you do that, or when Eve's Garden gives you a particular kind of pepper for the first time in a season, or a new vegetable you may never have tasted, thank the Blessed Holy One for sustaining you to reach this special moment in time, and bless Shehehiyanu. Rabbi Jeremy Kalmanofsky
The coming year is an exciting one for our shul. We have renewed our contract with Rabbi Kalmanofsky, who will be with us for at least another five years, and we hope much longer than that. He is due back shortly, after a vacation in Israel, poised and ready to lead us spiritually into the new year. This will definitely be a year of change, as Hazzan Natasha Hirschhorn joins us as Music Director. Together they are sure to lead and orchestrate extraordinarily moving and powerful High Holiday services. Hazzan Hirschhorn will also lead part of Shabbat morning services on many Saturday mornings, and will teach in our adult education programming. As you come to hear her and know her throughout the year, you will see what a great addition she is to our professional staff. She is eager to work alongside of our lay leaders, enhancing but not changing the values of our participatory congregation. We say goodbye this year to Lauren Kurland, who has been our Family Educator and done such a marvelous job. But we are fortunate to have Shai Specht taking on that role. Shai has led children's services and taught in our Hebrew School. He will work closely with our family education committee to oversee wonderful programming for our children. Fulfillment of pledges to our capital campaign remain strong. The community has stretched itself financially to help insure the structural integrity of our building. Currently we are repairing our sidewalk vault to prevent water damage which has been problematic for many years. The project is going well and we hope to finish before the High Holidays. The building committee will continue to prioritize and present plans for continued work on our physical home. The Board of Trustees has decided to participate in a Re-Imagine Program with other synagogues, looking at education throughout our programming. Freda Eisenberg, one of our shul vice-presidents, is focusing on this process. You can read more about it in an article by Freda in this issue I am deliberately stressing all the good things going on, but I am aware of the challenges that lie ahead. We need to grow our membership and conceive a long-range strategy and vision for sustainable growth over the coming years. I am sincerely honored that the congregation has entrusted me to be its president. I will do my best to live up to the task. For those of you have not met me yet, I look forward to meeting as many of you as possible over the next few months. Enjoy the rest of the summer! Josh Hanft
Shaping Your Heart With Torah
Please join the Ansche Chesed community on Friday, September 10 as we welcome Hazzan Natasha Hirschhorn as our Music Director with a celebratory community Shabbat dinner. Hazzan Hirschhorn will lead Kabbalat Shabbat services before the dinner, and we will also hear her beautiful voice at Selichot the following evening. Reservations are required. Cost is $25 for adults and $10 for children ages 4 to 10. RSVP to Jordan Horvath, jordanhorvath@yahoo.com or to ext. 415 in the AC office.
Ansche Chesed is one of three Upper West Side synagogues participating in an 18-month long program of discovery and innovation on raising our community's next generation of Jews. The program, called the Re-Imagine Project, is the brainchild of the Experiment in Congregational Education (ECE), an arm of the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. ECE itself is, in turn, the brainchild of Isa Aron, daughter of AC's own Sylvia Ettenberg, who the shul honored at last year's tribute event. The personal connection is a nice one, but it's incidental to why Ansche Chesed has committed itself to the Re-Imagine project - or, for that matter, why the UJA is spending some $1 million to fund our participation, along with that of B'nai Jeshurun, West End Synagogue, and 17 other shuls in the New York area. That reason lies in the program itself, its ambitious goals and unusual methods. So what is Re-Imagine? Basically, the project is a structured and guided visioning process. Over the next year and a half ECE consultants will be working closely with teams of volunteers at each of the participating synagogues to help us imagine - and implement - the best ways to accomplish youth education in our communities. For most shuls this means a focus on the religious school. At Ansche Chesed, this means looking not only at our Hebrew School but also the Havurah School, our large constituency of Hebrew day school students, our family education programs, and more. How can we integrate this diverse population into a coherent, vibrant community of young people? How can we integrate them into the AC community as a whole? What Jewish needs do they have that can be met by the shul, and what are the best ways of addressing those needs? To answer these and other questions, the Re-Imagine program proposes to take Ansche Chesed on a phased journey, the first part of which is "looking inward" to assess our synagogue culture. The project emphasizes a "bottom up" approach, where the work is done by congregants for congregants, with no one-size-fits-all answers being pushed from the outside. After an initial evaluation of AC's weaknesses/needs and strengths/opportunities in the area of youth education, the next phase of the project moves outward with a research orientation to look at models of what other communities have done. It then turns inward again to explore how AC can adapt promising models for its own use, and/or come up with completely new ways of addressing the objectives identified in the first phase. The final stage of the project is implementation. The bulk of the Re-Imagine work will be done by a Task Force, which will be established over the coming weeks. A subset of this task force will be involved in project planning and working closely with the ECE consultants. Over the summer, this planning group attended a number of Re-Imagine orientation and training sessions. Members include Freda Eisenberg and Deborah Pastor of the Hebrew School Committee, Ellen Tucker of the Havurah School, Dawn Kellman of the Family Education Committee, Solomon Mowshowitz, Hebrew School Director Rabbi Iscah Waldman, and Rabbi Kalmanofsky. Freda Eisenberg
WELCOME TO SHAI SPECHT, FAMILY EDUCATOR We are delighted to welcome Shai to AC, and look
forward to a year of exciting family learning. HIGH HOLIDAY SERVICES & CHILDCARE NEILAH ON YOM KIPPUR: CIRQUE DU SUKKAH - SUKKAH DECORATING PARTY
Shabbat, August 21 Children's Services
YAMIM NORA'IM - HIGH HOLY DAYS SCHEDULE ROSH HASHANAH YOM KIPPUR Please return your High Holiday seat request forms promptly to ensure that you receive your desired location. Childcare registration forms must be received by September 3.
Hiking Trips Hikes are co-sponsored by the Mosaic Outdoor Mountain Club. Cost for
each hike: AC/MOMC members $5, non-members $10. To
reserve call 212- 678-7881 before 9pm.
CONDOLENCES TO: MAZAL TOV TO: TODA RABBA TO: AC'S BOARD OF TRUSTEES Ansche Chesed welcomes to the Board Mary Feinberg, Jill Goodman, Tamara Green, Carolyn Greene, Dan Jacob, Carol Levithan, Sheldon Lewis, Nancy Sinkoff, and Tony Zak. Continuing Board members are Melinda Gros, Jordan Horvath, Greg Lyss, Linda Messing, David Morris, Elaine Morris, Judith Oppenheim, Ira Salzman, Michael Weiss, and Bonnie Zaben. Honorary trustees are Maks Etingin, Sam Schiff, and Herta Shriner.
GENERAL DONATIONS Trudy Balch in
memory of her mother, Maisie Karon Balch, and
her grandparents, Ida & Harry Karon KIDDUSH FUND MINYAN RIMONIM KIDDUSH FUND PRAYERBOOK FUND RABBI'S DISCRETIONARY FUND REFUAH SHLEMA SHELTER FUND YIZKOR FUND |
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