Temple Beth El Blog

We hope that you are all feeling more comfortable and confident using our new website and the features of ShulCloud. With all the technology we now have available, we are working to reduce the amount of paper we use and mail we send. As we continue our technological journey with ShulCloud we are using it's features to make Temple Beth el's information easier to access and ecofriendlier.

Connect with us with our very own member app!

We are excited to announce the rollout of the ShulCloud member app.

You can access your account, pay a bill, donate, read our blog, check the directory, register for an event, see the calendar, and MORE - all from your phone or tablet!

To download the member app go to: https://www.tbemadison.org/getapp. Download the app the log in with your regular ShulCloud login. Each adult account holder that has an email address can have their own login. If you don't have one, please email Stefanie at finance@tbemafinance@tbemadison.orgdison.org. Look for more tips and tricks about using the Member app in future communications.

Go Green! 

Electronic Statements and Payments

You can now pay your Temple fees online when you choose, or you can set up recurring payments. You can also choose to receive your statements electronically as opposed to mailing a hardcopy to your mailbox. This email will include a link to go directly online and pay your bill.

Bulletins

You can go paperless and keep informed by going paperless and opting in to receive notification of when the Bulletin is available online. All Bulletins are uploaded to our website under About/Recent Bulletins. Like the Membership Directory, you will only see and be able to access this link if you are logged in. The Bulletin is published six times annually. You will receive an email announcing the newly uploaded Bulletin so you can read it as soon as it's uploaded. This link will also be in the Weekly Happenings. 

Choosing Your Mailing Preferences

To choose your mailing preferences please fill out the form at: https://www.tbemadison.org/form/mailingpreferences. Choosing a preference on this form is not set in stone! You can try it one way and if it doesn't work for you, you can switch it back!

If you share an account with a family member be sure you are both in agreement on how you would like your statements and Bulletin delivered to you. Of course, for those that still want to continue receiving mailings that is still an option too. If you have any questions about this or anything else about ShulCloud, please contact Stefanie Kushner at finance@tbemadison.org. 

In 2017, the Union for Reform Judaism’s (URJ) social justice arm, the Religious Action Center (“the RAC”) unveiled the “Urgency of Now” Initiative. This Initiative focuses on building power and momentum by engaging Reform congregations in issue-specific social justice work that enables congregants to benefit and learn from one another. The RAC launched this initiative because developing a strong network of active and empowered congregations is imperative to the sacred work of tikkun olam (“repair of the world”). Temple Beth El is engaged in this work focusing on all three issues identified by the RAC: (1) Immigrant Rights; (2) Racial Disparities in the Criminal Justice System; and (3) Transgender Rights.

On Tuesday, February 13, 2018, the Temple Beth El Board of Trustees voted unanimously to approve the proposal of the Urgency of Now Steering Committee and Immigration Rights Action Team to join the Dane Sanctuary Coalition, https://wisconsinfaithvoicesforjustice.weebly.com/dane-sanctuary-coalition.html I know I speak for the entire UON Steering Committee in expressing how thrilled we are that at this critical time, Temple is stepping up to deepen our engagement and commitment to this extremely important issue. Listening to the discussion and witnessing the Board’s unanimous vote, I thought of the sermon given by Martin Luther King Jr., in April 1967, entitled “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence” in which he urged protest against the Vietnam War and first spoke of the “Fierce Urgency of Now.” I find his words just as relevant today as they were 51 years ago.

From Beyond Vietnam by Martin Luther King, Jr. (1967):

“These are revolutionary times. All over the globe men are revolting against old systems of exploitation and oppression and out of the wombs of a frail world new systems of justice and equality are being born. The shirtless and barefoot people of the land are rising up as never before. “The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light.” We in the West must support these revolutions. It is a sad fact that, because of comfort, complacency, a
morbid fear of communism, and our proneness to adjust to injustice, the Western nations that initiated so much of the revolutionary spirit of the modern world have now become the arch anti-revolutionaries . . . Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism.

With this powerful commitment we shall boldly challenge the status quo and unjust mores and thereby speed the day when “every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight and the rough places plain.”

A genuine revolution of values means in the final analysis that our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. Every nation must now develop an overriding loyalty to mankind as a whole in order to preserve the best in their individual societies.

This call for a world-wide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond one’s tribe, race, class and nation is in reality a call for an all-embracing and unconditional love for all men . . . When I speak of love I am not speaking of some sentimental and weak response. I am speaking of that force which all of the great religions have seen as the supreme unifying
principle of life. Love is somehow the key that unlocks the door which leads to ultimate reality. …

Let us hope that this spirit will become the order of the day. We can no longer afford to worship the god of hate or bow before the altar of retaliation. The oceans of history are made turbulent by the ever-rising tides of hate. History is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals that pursued this self-defeating path of hate.

We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked and dejected with a lost opportunity. The “tide in the affairs of men” does not remain at the flood; it ebbs. We may cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage,
but time is deaf to every plea and rushes on. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residue of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words: “Too late.” There is an invisible book of life that faithfully records our vigilance or our neglect. “The moving finger writes, and having writ moves on…” We still have a choice today; nonviolent coexistence or violent co-annihilation.

We must move past indecision to action. We must find new ways to speak for peace . . . and justice throughout the developing world — a world that borders on our doors. If we do
not act we shall surely be dragged down the long dark and shameful corridors of time reserved for those who possess power without compassion, might without morality, and strength without sight.

Now let us begin. Now let us rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter — but beautiful — struggle for a new world. … Shall we say the odds are too great? Shall we tell them the struggle is too hard? … Or will there be another message, of longing, of hope, of solidarity with their yearnings, of commitment to their cause, whatever the cost? The choice is ours, and though we might prefer it otherwise we must choose in this crucial moment of human history.”

Amen.

I would like to tell you the story of Arnold. His last name, sadly, is not known, but as a Jewish victim of the Holocaust, his story needs to be told along with all those who suffered disability and death at the hands of the Nazis.[1]

Arnold’s story also involves Mr. and Mrs. Schatzberg, two young Polish Jews caught up in a desperate struggle to remain alive during the Nazi occupation of Poland.

Arnold actually becomes involved in the story a bit later; this tale begins with the Schatzberg’s.

They were two young medical students in the town of Lvov, about to receive their medical certifications when the invasion of Poland occurred. Because of the German occupation and restrictions against Jews, they could not work as doctors.

And because of those wartime restrictions and persecutions, they assumed new identities: By purchasing false Catholic identity papers, they became Mr. and Mrs. Sawicki. And not only did they survive by assuming new names; throughout the war, they succeeded by hiding in plain sight.

Using their new identities, they left the town of Lvov. Mr. Sawicki took to playing the violin in various street orchestras, and Mrs. Sawicki tutored in Polish underground schools. Still, they lived in constant fear of someone recognizing them from their past and denouncing them to the Germans or to the Polish police, who were duty-bound to hand them over to the Germans. Their war-time lives consisted of constant movement around Poland, never staying in one place for more than a couple of months.

By the spring of 1944, the Sawicki’s had made their way to eastern Poland, and were working as orderlies in a small hospital. They were lucky to have a room provided for them by the hospital for their living quarters.

By this time, it was also clear that the Nazis were going to lose the war, and Polish sentiment was turning away from Germany. Consequently, it became dangerous for Germans to come to the hospital for treatment because the partisan fighters in the surrounding forests were now searching for Nazis and arresting or killing them. And further, the hospital staff began openly treating Polish underground fighters as a sign of their allegiance to their native land.

The Sawicki’s heard a report one night that a certain Polish underground unit was making its way to the hospital for treatment. They also understood that this unit had a medic attached to it who was from Lvov, the town where they had gone to medical school. Afraid that they might be recognized, they abandoned their shift for the night, and hid in the attic of the hospital.

They were, however, curious, and through holes in the ceiling they were able to look down upon into the treatment areas below, and they recognized the doctor who worked as the underground’s medic. His name was Arnold, and he was a medical student whom the Sawicki’s recognized from school. Mr. Sawicki had even known Arnold’s family quite intimately in their home town, as his father was a kosher butcher there.

For reasons that remain unknown, the Sawicki’s decided to leave their hiding place in the attic, and help treat the wounded underground fighters. Arnold and the Sawicki’s recognized one another but behaved as though they didn’t know one another.

Later the next day, Arnold came to the Sawickis’ room in the hospital to talk. He had been serving with this underground unit for the past two years, but because this unit had been infamously nationalistic and antisemitic, he never revealed his identity, and certainly not his religion.

The Sawicki’s and Arnold parted when the underground unit left the hospital, but they made plans to reunite somehow after the war.

A few months later, by the summer of 1944, the Red Army arrived, and eastern Poland was freed from Nazi occupation. As different underground units came out into the open, the Sawicki’s began overtly searching for Arnold, hoping to renew their relationship. Finally, they came across some of the underground fighters who knew of Arnold.

“Ah, that Zhid[2] doctor,” someone said. “When he told us he was Jewish, we shot him.”

The underground fighters, who had fought at the direction of the Polish government in exile in London, and who had bravely defended the Polish homeland, killed a doctor who had tended to their wounded for two years. They killed someone who had saved many of their own lives.

And if we were living in Poland today, it’s legally possible that we would be arrested for even discussing this story.

As you may know, the parliament of Poland recently passed, and the Polish president signed, an ominous and outrageous piece of legislation that could stifle free speech and suppress the truth about the Holocaust.

The new Polish law would impose jail terms for merely suggesting that Poles were complicit in the Holocaust. The Law and Justice party – the leading party in the parliament and one rife with nationalistic and right-wing sentiment – says the law was necessary to protect Poland's reputation and to ensure historians recognize that Poles as well as Jews perished under the Nazis.

Polish government officials believe the law was needed to fight expressions like “Polish death camps” for the institutions Nazi Germany operated in occupied Poland during World War II. Poles object to this terminology because, they feel, it defames Poland for the Nazi-run camps, where Poles made up the largest group of victims after Jews.

But others, such as academics, the government of Israel, and the US state department, believe the law would undermine free speech and stifle legitimate historical inquiry. Israeli officials insist the issue is not the language about “Polish death camps.” Instead, they see the law as a slippery slope that could minimize the role of Poles in the Holocaust, as well as devalue the painful Jewish experience in that country. Poland has a long history of antisemitism, and Holocaust scholars everywhere believe that many Poles were willing to at least look the other way, if not actively collaborate, with the Nazis.

Emmanuel Nahshon, an Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman, said in a recent tweet: "Dear Polish followers — the issue is NOT the death camps. Of course they were not Polish. Those were German death camps. [Rather,] the issue is the legitimate and essential freedom to talk about the involvement of Poles in the murder of Jews without fear or threat of penalization.”[3]

Whether we talk about the involvement of any country’s citizens in acts of genocide, or whether we wish to inquire one government’s intervention in a national election of another country, the suppression of the truth is an enemy to the freedom of humanity. Lying to protect the guilty makes a mockery of the human intellect and can lead to disastrous effects. We know when governments lie. And when they do, so erodes our confidence in systems that were established to bring order into a chaotic situation.

…which brings us to the Torah portion of Mishpatim, Exodus 21-24.

Among the myriad of laws and regulations that our Torah portion sets forth are judgments about lying. Here are two such laws, from the first verse of chapter 23 of Exodus:

“Do not carry with you false rumors; do not join hands with the guilty so that you become a corrupt witness.” (Exodus 23:1)

Gossip, rumors, denying the truth, conspiracy, and obstruction of justice: These personal actions are wicked enough, and can bring anyone grief if they practice them. We’ve seen many instances of this in our times and before, and we understand how such actions will weaken a person who engages in such deception.

But another consequence of these laws is that lying and complicity with evildoers could lead an entire society to lawlessness, disorder, and chaos. Unless people bear truthfulness in their intentions, they can literally bring destruction into the lives of those around them.

The antiseptic effect of truth, transparency, and honest historical evaluation: These are things that we need to promote in our world, whether we discuss current events in Warsaw, Jerusalem, Washington, or wherever we choose to focus our attention.

Is it embarrassing to discuss the role of loyal Polish citizens, or those of Vichy France, or of other countries, in being complicit with the Holocaust? Yes, perhaps it is.

Is it necessary to investigate and acknowledge Turkey’s role in the mass killing of Armenians a hundred years ago? And shall we call that genocide as well?

The straightforward search for truth continues in many areas, from academia to history, perhaps in fulfillment of these laws from Exodus.

For like Germany, which has strongly acknowledged its monstrous role in World War II history: Out of a transparent reckoning – out of a search and discovery for the truth – we can derive a proper cleansing and resolution of animosities and grief.

As the Torah tells us, deception and duplicity with the truth will lead us to corruption. So, let us always point ourselves toward the truth.

For the Torah Portion of Beshalach, Exodus 13:17 – 17:16

Rabbi Jonathan Biatch

Does Prayer Work?

I recently had a conversation with a member of my synagogue who discounted the effects of prayer in the healing process. “Why say a healing prayer for my relative? God’s not going to be swayed on her behalf by my worship.”

And I had to agree. From what we believe today, God does not intervene in the affairs of the world, whether requested or not.

But this does not mean that our prayers are ineffective. And the Israelites, in this week’s Torah portion of Beshalach, demonstrate this point.

We read in the Torah this week that the Israelites have departed from Egypt, and God has led them to the sea that will eventually part for them.

According to the text, God carefully manipulates this situation:

• God hardens Pharaoh’s heart and causes him to regret his decision to let the Israelites leave.
• God brings the Israelites to the sea, so that they appear to be hemmed in against the raging waters.
• The Pharaoh makes the decision to bring the Israelites back to Egypt.
• After the deaths of all the animals of Egypt during the Ten Plagues, God allows Pharaoh to wondrously find six hundred horses to enable Pharaoh, along with six hundred charioteers, to pursue the Israelites to the final confrontation at the sea.

There by the sea, the Israelites are oblivious to God’s machinations, and imagine only the worst possible outcome, which is their recapture and return to Egypt. The last resort is for them to cry out to God:

“Pharaoh drew near [to the Israelites by the sea], and the people of Israel looked up and – behold – the Egyptians were advancing after them. They were very frightened, and the people of Israel cried out to the Eternal” (Exodus 14:10).

A Third-century midrash interprets this cry of panic and fear not as distress, but rather as prayer, and reminds us that each of our three Patriarchs offered prayed at crucial moments in their lives:

“Concerning Abraham, scripture says of Abraham, ‘to the place where he had stood [in prayer] before the Eternal’ (in concern for Sodom and Gomorrah, Genesis 19:27); concerning Isaac, it is stated, ‘he went to pray in the field’ (to find a wife, Genesis 24:63); and concerning Jacob, it is related, ‘He prayed to the Omnipresent’ (in wonderment of the ladder extending to heaven and his finding the doorway to God’s abode, Genesis 28:11)” (Midrash Tanhuma).[1]

For the Israelites, their “cries” might not have directly affected God; the Divine One’s plans were in motion long before they arrived at the seashore. But their entreaties inspired one another to maintain courage and to await ‘the redemption of God’ (Exodus 14:13). It also strengthened those who took the first tentative steps into the sea, between the walls of water – on the right and on the left – that had never been seen before.

In a similar way, our prayers might not persuade God to change the Divine Mind on matters already destined to occur. But they can help us maintain courage at moments of doubt, and they can encourge us find our own solutions to our problems.

A Weekday Taste of Torah

For the parashah of Vayeishev

Genesis 37:1 – 40:23

Dreaming

The Joseph story cycle begins! This is the stuff that dreams are made of!

Joseph’s brothers kidnap and sell him into Egyptian slavery! His master Potifar’s wife’s unsuccessfully attempts to seduce him! He gets thrown into an Egyptian prison, and he meets the Pharaoh’s butler and baker whose dreams he correctly interprets! And then, they forget about him, even though the butler promised to remember him and have him be offered a reprieve!

Great drama, great theatre!

One of the primary focuses of this portion is dreams, and their influence in the lives of our biblical ancestors. For them, dreams represented not only a vision into the divine mind, but also a foreshadowing of their destinies. They learned how God would influence their lives and their fortunes.

Contrast, now, what dreams mean to us: We have yet to learn whether they are the detritus of our reactions to our days’ events, or unfulfilled unconscious wishes, or the result of our inner mind’s problem-solving tasks. Some of us rise refreshed, other of us may be plagued by the strange events we perceive while sleeping.

There are others whose dreams may not be in the unconscious mind, but represent hopes to be fulfilled, or major aspirations in their lives. Each dream they have reflects an optimism that, one day, they will realize their dreams and participate freely in the life that God has granted them. These dreamers have the most difficult future ahead of them. This is because of others who wish to control the dreamers’ destiny, who do not want to help them fulfill their dreams.

The dreamers I refer to are those 800,000 migrants who live in our country as part of the program known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. These young people arrived in our nation as children, some as young as a few months, who have lived here continuously, who know no other home, and who now face punishment, such as deportation, for no real infraction of the law, but only because their parents brought them here because of their desperate need to flee persecution and economic deprivation.

The Hebrew bible states on 37 occasions that we need to be mindful of the plight of the ‘stranger’, because ‘we knew the heart of the stranger having been strangers ourselves in the land of Egypt.’ Our experience as servants to Pharaoh, re-enacted each year during the Passover seder, stimulates our empathy for the needs of others, and we must act on that empathy in order to save lives that are desperate and difficult.

These dreamers deserve a chance to live a life of promise, here in their adopted nation to which they have paid taxes, and in which they have taken various jobs that few if any Americans would enjoy, and in which they have lived virtually all their lives. Their lease on secure living here ends next March, and it is incumbent upon us American citizens to advocate on their behalf and help them remain secure in their lives.

I encourage you to contact your national legislators and ask them to support the new, clean DACA legislation when it is introduced into the Congress. We can bring dream fulfillment to these dreamers if we, ourselves, help them live up to their dreams.