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HEBREW TABERNACLE CONGREGATION November 19, 2011 D’var Torah
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Rachel
is an 8th grader at I.S. 187, and is looking forward to graduation this
coming June. The last of the Kitah Zayin of 2010/2011 to become Bnei
Mitzvah, Rachel moved her mitzvah from August to November to be sure that
Rabbi Gale could officiate, and her family and friends could attend. She has been
in Hebrew School at Hebrew Tabernacle since Kitah
Aleph, and is already enrolled in Hebrew High. Rachel has spent portions of
her last three summers at Eisner Camp, a URJ camp in the beautiful Berkshire Mountains. Rachel
is a former competitive ballroom dancer with many ribbons and awards. She
also plays the shofar and chose a long Yemenite shofar as her 13th birthday present, much to her parents'
surprise–they were expecting her to ask for yet another electronic device.
The shofar group played in the sanctuary for the
high holidays as well as for homebound congregants and neighbors. As well as
volunteering at Hebrew Tabernacle, Rachel volunteers at her school for events
such as health fairs and the Oral CancerWalk; this
year she accumulated the required fifteen hours of community service before
the school year even began. To date, she has accumulated over 150 hours and
the number continues to rise. Although Rachel wanted to volunteer for the
ASPCA or the Humane Society for her Bat Mitzvah project, she wasn’t permitted
to because she was too young. Undaunted, she made survival bracelets and key
chains out of parachute cord, sold the bracelets, and donated the
money to the Humane Society and the ASPCA. The proceeds from all pink
bracelets and key chains went to Breast Cancer Research.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
* * The word Torah has been
interpreted as 'teaching'. The stories teach us about our ancestors and about
ourselves. They were people, so, were they so different from us? Their world
was different, just as my world is a little different from my parents' at my
age and their world is different from their parents at their ages. The Book of Genesis is one
of the easiest to understand, but maybe not at first glance. My Torah
portion, Chayai Sarah, has to do with Jewish
Survival. There are two different types of survival. There is physical survival and spiritual
survival, both of which are demonstrated by Abraham, in this chapter of the
Torah. When his beloved wife
Sarah died, Abraham wanted a good place in the promised land in which to bury
her. He wanted the Hittites to sell him a burial place, but the Hittites
didn't want him to pay for it because of who he was. The Cave of Machpelah on Ephron's land near
Mamre,
was a nice piece of the promised land, and not cheap, yet Abraham insisted on
paying the 400 sheckles requested for the land so
he would legally own Sarah's final resting place and nobody could say he only
paid for part of it, or got a discount.
This act gave him spiritual peace and kept him from feeling like he
was an outsider. Paying his bill gave
him a sense of spiritual survival. But
it was also physical. Land is a physical thing, and paying for an object
gives ownership of that object to that person. Abraham owned the land and he
was spiritually and physically part of the Promised Land. Spiritual survival
keeps your spirit alive, but physical survival keeps you alive. Abraham attempts to insure
survival of his family, and fulfil a need for his
son, when he sends his servant to the land of his kin to find a wife for his
son, Isaac. He didn't want Isaac to
marry into the Canaaninte people amongst whom they
lived, but he wanted his son to marry well and continue the family. The
servant brought back Rebecca. Isaac married Rebecca, but also loved her, so
his spiritual and physical survival were covered.
They could raise children together, love each other, support each other, and
continue the survival of the family. Jewish survival is both
spiritual and physical because although you need a place to live, and a place to shop, to eat, to work, and to play
you also need love and contentment. Without
families there would be no children, without children to grow, no
adults. Love and spiritual contentment
is necessary, but you cannot survive without food, and shelter. When you make
sure that there is a roof over your head, food in the kitchen and a warm bed
to sleep in, you protect your survival. When you add a loving family,
friends, and cable TV, internet access and whatever in your world keeps you
happy, you insure your spiritual survival. Throughout the ages, Jews demonstrated both
their physical and spiritual survival, which is why we can uphold traditions
from thousands of years ago, today. We modify them to suit the era in which
we live, yet we have not been obliterated. The Egyptians enslaved the Jews,
who fled on foot, baked unleavened bread on their backs in the hot desert
sun, and continued their Jewish teachings on the other side of the red sea.
Hitler tried to kill all the Jews and might have succeeded, but the desire to
survive and the will to live and continue the culture and religion of the
Jews pushed our not so distant ancestors and some members of this
congregation sitting here today, to survive. Without physical Jewish Survival
we would not be here today, reading from this 300 year old Torah, celebrating
that we can continue our spiritual traditions. Becoming a Jewish adult is
a life changing process. You learn from your teachers, your tutor, your
mentor and especially the rabbi. You learn from your friends and family, and
after a while you start to learn from yourself. The words you are reading are
in another language, but when you translate them and see that the words are
talking about what happened long ago but still hold true today, it makes you
proud. I learned that helping your
community is physically and spiritually rewarding. You can do the simplest
things for the biggest jobs and be a part of physical survival. You can clean
up and recycle to help save the ecosystem. You can sell bracelets to help
animals when you are too young to volunteer. You can clean your room to keep
your mom sane. You can sell your scooter to benefit your synagogue. Little
things add up eventually and, like Abraham wanted the best for Isaac and
Sarah, we all want the best for our own.
There is no such thing as
a 'super Jew'. You can practice Judaism in any way shape or form, if you
believe it is right. I will practice Judaism by helping those in need and
doing as much as I can to support my community. I will try to pray with
others to remind me that I am not alone in this world and that everyone has
problems, but not always solutions, but we can support each other at times of
need as well as times of joy. My
community's physical survival will be my spiritual survival. To conclude this long
speech I would like to thank everyone who dragged themselves out of bed to be
here. I would like to thank Sandy Horowitz, my tutor, for helping me learn my
Torah and Haftarah portion. Thank you to Rabbi Gale for your excellent
teachings and real world examples of old world stories, and of course for
helping me figure out how to relate my Torah portion to today. Thank you to
Cantor Rubel for staying an extra year to be here
today. Thank you, mom and dad for not freaking out in the past 3 days, and
for putting up with me for these past 13 years, 3 months and 13 days and 3
hours. Thank you Grandma and Grandpa for encouraging me to do this! Thank you
to Connie Hayman and Shelly Koy, past and current
principals of the Hebrew School and all of the excellent teachers who have
helped me sort out my Hebrew, and myself, these past
8 years. Thank you to Helen Blumenthal who mentored my family through the
whole bat mitzvah process. Thank you
to the board of trustees and the congregation for being my extended family,
and for the unconditional love that I feel when I walk through those
sanctuary doors. And please, those
people who said they would 'bean me', please don't. I don't have my catcher’s
mitt... Thank you all.
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