Jewish Education – Rabbi Nat Benjamin

Bergen County Rabbi, Jewish Education, Jewish Survival

Yom Hazikaron

This evening will begin Yom Hazikaron, a day we honor the fallen soldiers of Israel.
To allow us all to understand the importance of this day, we share with you the words of Ryan Greiss, originally from Cresskill, NJ. and a veteran of the Israel Defense Forces’ Golani Brigade. I was honored to perform Ryan’s Bar Mitzvah many years ago and his family were members of our Chavurah for many many years. Thank you Ryan for allowing your moving words to be shared with our Chavurah.

A lot of Americans think of Yom HaZikaron as Israel’s Memorial Day, but it’s really so much more than that.
How many of you are soldiers?
How many of your children have you worried would fall on the field of battle?
How many people do you know who have served in the military?
Could you count them on one hand? In Israel, everybody serves. In Israel, everybody has lost friends and family to acts of war or terror. So in Israel, Yom HaZikaron isn’t just a state holiday; it’s a national day of mourning.

It’s a metaphorical yahrzeit that every single person commemorates together, all at once. When the sirens sound, one at 8 p.m., Tuesday night and the other at 11 a.m.,Wednesday morning, the entire country will literally stand still:
Cars on the highways will grind to a halt and remember all the people who laid down their lives so that they could live free in the Jewish state.

When the siren sounds:
I remember Max Steinberg, usually over a glass of bourbon. Originally from Los Angeles, Max struggled to learn Hebrew but was strong as an ox and never stopped smiling until he was blown up in an armored personnel carrier during Israel’s 2014 war with Gaza.
I remember Oron Shaul, another soldier from Golani’s 13th Battalion, who was riding with Max and whose body is still being held for ransom by Hamas.
I grieve with my friend Shai Amichai, whose little brother took his own life with his service weapon, and with Mikhael Precel, who’d just walked out of the Sbarro in Jerusalem when it exploded, killing 15 people — including his friend — and wounding 130 — including Mikhael. He was only 16 years old.

After a day full of grief, in a uniquely Israeli way, Yom HaZikaron flows right into Yom Ha’atzmaut, Israel’s Independence Day.

It’s a doubleheader: Memorial Day and July 4th, one after the other.
We remember the price and then we celebrate the rewards.

This Yom HaZikaron I ask you to remember my friends and all the heroes who paid the ultimate price to preserve the only Jewish state, and I wish you a very happy Yom Ha’atzmaut. –

Thank you Ryan
Rabbi Nat Benjamin
Chavurah Beth Shalom

Bergen County Rabbi, Chavurah Beth Shalom, Jewish Education, Jewish Survival, Judaic Studies, New York Rabbi, Rabbi Nat Benjamin

Chavurah Beth Shalom Virtual Seder, 2nd Night of Passover

We cordially invite you to our Chavurah Beth Shalom’s virtual second night Passover Seder, Saturday, April 16, at 6:00 pm via Zoom online.

Passover is a time of remembrance of those Jews in the past who did so much to ensure that we would survive as a people and be free to celebrate our Passover Seder. It is also a time of renewal when we celebrate the Exodus from slavery and our love of freedom. As we wish to preserve this freedom, it is important for us to do our part to preserve those institutions that help guarantee Jewish survival.

Our Chavurah works relentlessly to educate our children and adults, to celebrate the holidays and to serve the community. As always, we are available to you for your life cycle events and pastoral needs. We are ever mindful of your continued friendship and generous support, which have enabled us to succeed and serve our community.

Come and celebrate our virtual Passover Seder on Zoom with your wonderful friends from our Chavurah, your out of town family members, and special guests.

This year, we need your help more than ever and so we have inaugurated a Passover Appeal which we hope will meet with the same generous response from our members and friends as in the past.

Whatever you contribute would be deeply appreciated and in the spirit of Passover.

Passover is a time when we say memorial prayers for our departed loved ones. Please email us the names of your dear ones and they will be read at our special memorial service along with the candle lighting.

Bergen County Rabbi, High Holy Days, Jewish Education, Jewish Survival, Judaism, Rosh Hashanah, Tenafly, Yom Kippur

High Holy Days at Chavurah Beth Shalom

Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur — days of sweetness and atonement – are the culmination of a month-long process of coming back to God. During the High Holidays, we embrace the study and beauty of the Torah and rejoice with prayer and song.

2019 / 5780 HIGH HOLY DAYS INFORMATION

We are pleased to announce that our 2019 High Holy Days Services will be held at the Clinton Inn Hotel and Conference Center, 145 Dean Drive, Tenafly, NJ. 07670 on the following dates and times:

Sunday, September 29, 2019:  Clinton Inn & Conference Center
Erev Rosh Hashanah, 7:30 pm
Monday, September 30, 2019:  Clinton Inn & Conference Center
Rosh Hashanah, 10:00 am – 12:30 pm
Children’s Services, 2:00 pm – 2:45 pm
Tuesday, October 1, 2019: Alpine, NJ. Community House
Rosh Hashanah 2nd Day, 10:30 am
Tuesday, October 8, 2019: Clinton Inn & Conference Center
Kol Nidre – Erev Yom Kippur, 7:30 pm
Wednesday, October 9, 2019:  Clinton Inn & Conference Center
Yom Kippur Morning Service, 10:00 am – 12:30 pm
Children’s Service: 2:00 pm – 2:45 pm
Afternoon & Yizkor Service : 3:00 pm – 6:00 pm

We request that you send in your ticket requests early. Your membership dues include tickets for you and your children through college age.

For more information, contact the Chavurah at 201.567.7806 or email ChavurahBethShalom@gmail.com or see our home page under what’s new for all of our High Holy Day information.

Rosh HaShanah History
The origin of Rosh HaShanah, the Jewish New Year, is Biblical (Lev. 23:23-25): “a sacred occasion commemorated with loud blasts (of the Shofar, the ram’s horn).” The Bible refers to the holiday as Yom Teruah.
(the day of the sounding of the Shofar) and Yom Zikaron Teruah (the day of remembering the sounding of the Shofar).

In Talmudic times, Rosh HaShanah became a celebration of the anniversary of the world’s creation and a day of self-examination, repentance and judgment. While the day was called Yom HaZikaron (Day of Remembrance) and Yom HaDin (Judgment Day), the name Rosh HaShanah (Head of the Year) was first used in the Mishnah has become the most prevalent.

Rosh HaShanah is both a solemn and happy day.
It is a time for introspection, asking for forgiveness, giving forgiveness, resolving to do better, remembering God is our King and Judge, and praying for a healthy and happy year to come. We are solemn in our repentance, but happy in our confidence that God is merciful and good.

Yom Kippur History
Repentance (Teshuva) is the theme of Yom Kippur.
While our sins alienate us from God, our repentance reconciles us with God.
On Yom Kippur, we ask for God to forgive us for our sins.

The first Yom Kippur occurred when Moses descended Mount Sinai with the second set of Tablets, a symbol of the renegotiated covenant between God and the Jewish People.
The Israelites alienated God by worshiping the golden calf. Moses ascended Mount Sinai to ask God for forgiveness. The Israelites repented by fasting during the day while Moses was on the mountain. On the tenth day of the Hebrew month of Tishrei (Yom Kippur), Moses descended Mount Sinai with the second Tablets.

God decreed the tenth day of the month of Tishrei as a day of atonement:

“Let it be a statute for you forever: in the seventh month, on the tenth of the month, you shall starve your vital energies and do no manner of work…. For on this day it shall bring atonement upon you, to purify you, before God shall you become pure of all your aberrations.” (Vayikra/Leviticus 16: 29-30)
Just as the Israelites alienated God with their unfaithful behavior, some of our behavior during the year has also alienated us from God.
Just as the Israelites repented for their sins, we also repent for our sins.
Praying and fasting enables us to envision the divine image that lives in each of us.
Just as God forgave the Israelites on the tenth of Tishrei, it is our hope that God will forgive us on Yom Kippur.

Bergen County Rabbi, Chavurah Beth Shalom Religious School, Jewish Education, Judaic Studies, New Jersey Rabbi

The Significance of Passover

As we follow our Chavurah‘s Haggadah at the Seder table, it clearly says several times that we celebrate Pesach “because of what God did for me when I came out of Egypt”. Egypt, “Mitzrayim” is a metaphor for our own lives.

Does each one of us have his or her own Egypt?

What is the personal bondage we each feel in real life ?

Can we be delivered from it ?

The Passover story describes three kinds of slavery:

Physical slavery, actual physical captivity and the suffering caused by oppressors.
Second is psychological slavery. The Israelites were made dependant upon the whims of others causing fear and desire.
The third is spiritual slavery which is ignorance of our status as human beings because of self-deception and self-forgetfulness.

How many of us are still in Mitzrayim ?

How many of us are still in Egypt ?

How many of us are addicted to behaviors we do not control but control us?

How many of us would like to stop smoking or drinking or over eating or living too sedentary a life?

Aren’t these forms of slavery?

How many of us are emotional or spiritual slaves dominated by thoughts, desires and will power which are imposed by someone else in our lives?

The ultimate significance of the Passover Seder is to encourage the liberation of all of us philosophically, psychologically and spiritually in every generation.