Rabbi Benson Offers a Blessing at Steve Bellone's Inauguration

I'm very honored to have had the opportunity to participate in Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone's inauguration ceremony today:

http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2015/12/30/steve-bellone-second-term-swearing-in/

Rabbi Benson Around Town, December 2015

Two Announcements to Share:

1.  I'm proud to tell you I have a piece in the current issue of the Port Times Record and related papers.  You may be able to find a link to it here:  http://tbrnewsmedia.com/.  

2.  Next week I am very honored to deliver a blessing on Wednesday the 30th at the Inauguration Ceremony of Suffolk County Executive Steven Bellone.

Yours,

Rabbi Benson

NSJC Takes Bold Steps to Keep Synagogue Life Relevant and Strong

Share this message from Rabbi Benson about NSJC's dramatic and exciting steps to keep it the strong center for Jewish life in Suffolk County it has been for over 120 years:

The 18th is Coming - Go Team Malachim!

Friday is December 18th, the next day for Team Malachim to commit to doing one extra good deed somewhere for someone.

For some extra inspiration, check out this website which is full of good ideas:

https://www.randomactsofkindness.org/kindness-ideas

Good Luck!

Rabbi Benson

Join us Friday Night, Sleep in Late(r) Saturday!

Join us at NSJC for the next in my series on on Intermarriage and Interfaith Relationships this Friday at 8pm during services.  We take a look at issues surrounding dating.

Come back on Saturday morning at 9:15am for the next in our Extra Soul Shabbat Saturday morning services.  We promise to end at (just about) the same time, but provide all the same rich, intellectual, emotional and spiritual uplift you'd normally get from Saturday mornings.

Shabbat Shalom and Happy Hanukkah,

Rabbi Aaron Benson

Special Prayers for San Bernadino Victims this Shabbat

Please join us at NSJC for special prayers in memory of the innocent victims of the attack in San Bernadino during our Shabbat services this Saturday.  

Services begin at 8:45am and special prayers at around 9:45am.  

Let the light of the Hanukkah season shine even in the face of this dark moment in our country.  

Rabbi Benson

My Remarks from the Interfaith Clergy Council Thanksgiving Service

We had a wonderful service last night together with other members of the Three Village Clergy Council at Caroline Episcopal Church (built in 1729 - quite the beautiful and historic house of worship).  Funds were collected for Hobbs Farm (http://www.hobbsfarm.info/about.html) in keeping with this year's them of "The Welcoming Table."

As is our custom, a text from out of the represented faith traditions is read by one clergy member and then reflections are given by another.  Rabbi Sharon Sobel of Temple Isaiah shared this text from the Talmud (Shabbat 127a) on which I commented:

These are the obligations without measure, whose reward too, is without measure:  to honor father and mother; to perform acts of love and kindness; to attend the house of study daily; to welcome guests; to visit the sick; to rejoice with bride and groom; to console the bereaved; to pray with sincerity; to make peace when there is strife; and the study of Torah is equal to them all (because it leads to them all).

Why try to be religious?  Why bother in our day and age?  A question we all hear and must all wrestle with.  Too many people today confuse religion with the mere performance of ritual, with solely the complexities of theological debate.  Too many people who would describe themselves as religious make this mistake let alone the numbers of those who have rejected religion for these reasons – what need have I of religion’s secret handshakes and code words, of its arguments over angels and pins if that is all it offers?

Our text seeks to fix the focus of religious life in the life of relationships – to live with active consideration of the true needs of those around us and to respond to them as best as we can.   To be there out of a love for our shared humanity, to celebrate, to mourn, to advocate for, to fight for even, those who need the help of another human being.

And our text, in its last line, adds a revolutionary note to this already valuable lesson.  For without it, our text teaches a consideration for others that we might very well learn and practice in any number of venues, through any number of outlets.  I don’t need ritual alone to be a good person, and I can certainly do good in this world without being associated with a religious tradition.

Our text does not deny this to be true.  But it does reveal to us that care for others through actions like those listed for which there is no fix limit – no minimum that isn’t enough nor a maximum that is too much – by connecting these all to the study of God’s revelation, God’s will, here called Torah – this teaches us what we might not learn otherwise, which is that having been born into life in the first place, we are born in to relationship with it, that this is undeniably our great blessing and great duty – to the world around us, to the people in it, to God the Creator of All, however the Author of the Universe might be understood by us. 

And so the true purpose of religion is thus revealed to us – for it to be that system by which we seek to be ever mindful of our duty to Creation to be loving stewards of it.  To remember always our human “need to need” and to seek to fill the needs of others and to see in so doing our own needs for purpose and meaning and love to be met as well.

Through our own faith traditions let us study regularly this great truth.  Let it open our hearts to welcome others.  Others who are not strangers, for no other human being is truly strange to us when we in fact all share the same human needs and wants and the same potential to reach out to others confident in the knowledge that we each have been blessed by God with the ability to contribute our share towards aiding our fellow human beings and aiding Creation itself.   

Happy Thanksgiving!

Rabbi Aaron Benson