From the Rabbi's Desk...
 
Rabbi Irwin Huberman
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April 29, 2010
Cleaning Up Our Spiritual Home
We speak much at CTI about Tikkun Olam, the repair of the world.
This Sunday, Tikkun Olam will begin at home.
Beginning at 10:00am, our congregants will take to the woods and grounds around our synagogue, picking up cans, bottles, trash, and other items deposited during the winter months.
This is a community effort to beautify our spiritual home, and everyone can play a part.
Although we will have garbage bags, rakes, and cloth gloves on hand, please feel free to bring your own supplies.
Yom Sport: Recreation Day at Cti
Sunday also marks Lag B’Omer, the thirty-fifth day of the forty-nine day count from the second day of Passover to Shavuot, the day we received the Torah on Mount Sinai.
Throughout the world, on Lag B’Omer, bonfires are lit to exemplify how brightly the flames of Torah have shone throughout the generations.
At CTI, our fire will be a bit more reserved. We will hold a barbecue for our Limud Hebrew school following a morning of baseball, football, catch, and other outdoor games.
We will be cooking hot dogs and hamburgers for our young families and our cleanup volunteers. It’s a way to celebrate families, the preciousness of life, and the blessing of Torah and creation.
Family field day begins at 9:30am.
Young Family Shabbat
Speaking of barbecues, CTI will be cooking up hot dogs, hamburgers, and other good things this Friday night as we celebrate another young family Shabbat.
This event is ideal for families with very young children. As with all CTI activities, you need not be a member to join in.
Young family Shabbat will include a scavenger hunt, games, stories, crafts, and songs. The program will run from 5:30pm to 6:30pm.
Families of mixed backgrounds are very welcome.
Musical Shabbat
The young family Shabbat will precede our regular Musical Kabbalat Shabbat, which will begin as usual at 8:00pm.
The Friday night service is an ideal entry or re-entry point for friends and family who are not currently affiliated.
Our Friday night services provide a spiritually rich and rewarding experience, and knowledge of Hebrew is not required.
As always, we invite friends and family whether they are affiliated or not. Additional musicians are always welcome.
Holy Places: A Story from the Talmud
We often speak within our congregation about what it takes to “keep God in our midst.”
Our tradition tells us that when we act with compassion and wisdom, and place the feelings and goodwill of others before our own, then a spirit of goodness showers our lives, our homes, our work, and our places of worship.
Indeed, there is a legend of how Jerusalem was chosen as the eternal home of the Jewish people.
Long ago, on the site where Jerusalem now stands, there lived two brothers. They were farmers who tilled the land they had inherited from their father. The older brother was not married and lived alone, while the younger brother lived with his wife and family.
The brothers loved each other dearly and did not want to divide the fields between them. So together they plowed, planted, and harvested the same crop. After they cut the wheat, they shared equally the produce of their labors.
One night during the harvest, the older brother lay down to sleep. But he was troubled. “Here I am” he said to himself, “all alone with no wife and no children. I don’t need to feed or clothe anyone. But my brother has the responsibility of a family. Is it right to share our harvest equally? After all, he needs more than I do.”
At midnight he arose and took a pile of sheaves from his crop, carried them to his brother’s field, and left them there. Then he returned home and slept in peace.
That same night, his brother also could not sleep. He was thinking about his older brother. “Here I am” he thought, “when I grow old, my children will take care of me. But what will happen to my brother in his old age? Who will take care of him? His needs are greater than mine. It isn’t fair to divide the crops equally.” So he arose and took a load of sheaves, brought them to his brother’s field, and left them there. Then he returned home and went to sleep in peace.
When morning came both brothers were amazed to find their crops exactly as they had been the night before. They decided it was a miracle of God.
The next night each brother repeated their actions of the previous night, and experienced another “miracle of God.”
On the third night, when each of the brothers was carrying a pile of sheaves to the other, they met at the top of the hill. Suddenly they understood. They dropped their sheaves and embraced, weeping with joy. They knew it was not a miracle of God they had experienced, but a miracle of love.
God saw this act of love between the brothers, and blessed the place where they met that night. And in the course of time, when King Solomon built the temple from which peace and love and compassion were to flow to the whole world, God chose that very spot.
Often it is not God who bestows good fortune upon us but rather our own respect, love, and selflessness toward each other and the world around us.
In our actions and in our deliberations may we continue to act with respect toward one another. Through care and compassion toward others we possess the ability to create new Jerusalems within our midst.
May Glen Cove, and the personal and communal temples we have built, continue to be places where God chooses to dwell.
Shabbat shalom, v’kol tuv (with all goodness)
Rabbi Irwin Huberman
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