Great Shavuot Programs at NSJC!

Vote Mercaz for the World Zionist Congress

Now more than ever it is critical that the Conservative movement be strongly represented in the World Zionist Congress. It is there that the leadership of the World Zionist Organization, the Jewish National Fund, and the Jewish Agency will be determined, impacting on policy and budgets of hundreds of millions of dollars that will affect the character of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state as well as how resources will be expended on enhancing Jewish communities around the world.

It is vital and urgent that we make our voice heard. This is our Israel, our Judaism, our future that we are talking about and every vote cast will make a difference. We need you to vote MERCAZ, Slate #2 in the elections to the World Zionist Congress taking place at this very moment, and we need you to urge your friends, congregants and colleagues to do the same. The 5 minutes it takes and the $10.00 it costs (a fee that goes directly to the American Zionist Movement to cover election expenses) are a small investment to make in promoting an Israel where everyone will be able to live, practice, pray, educate and celebrate as they wish.

A vote for MERCAZ is a vote for pluralism, egalitarianism, environmental sustainability, democracy and peace. Do it now at www.mercazusa.org. The Zionist Congress elections will run through April 30th.

CLICK HERE TO START THE VOTING PROCESS

- From Mercaz USA

Passover Help is Here

The Rabbinical Assembly offers its very useful guide for Passover preparation once again this year.  Please find the link to the Guide here: RA Passover Guide 2015/5775

Faith and Personal Struggles - This Sunday

Join me and other members of the Three Village Clergy Council as we consider together how faith can guide us in times of personal struggle.

The program takes place at Temple Isaiah, 1404 Stony Brook Road, from 3-5pm.

Learn how Christianity, Judaism, and Islam handle this question of faith.  And come back the following two Sundays for the rest of this three part series.  March 8th at All Souls Episcopal Church for "Faith and the Family", and March 15th at the Islamic Association of Long Island for "Faith in the Larger World".

Rabbi Benson

On the Town with Rabbi Benson - Upcoming Events

In Time for the New Year - My 2014/5775 High Holiday Sermons

Some months ago you may recall me giving these sermons on the High Holidays.  Since then I have wanted to posted them online and now I have finally done it.

But they aren't here...

To find them, you must visit my website, www.rabbiaaronbenson.com and you can find them there.

Or try this link:  http://www.rabbiaaronbenson.com/sermon-samples.

Please note, the text represents what I wrote down prior to speaking and therefore in some ways will be different from what you heard delivered during services.

Yours,

Rabbi Benson

Thoughts on the Violence in Israel this Week

A story about two yeshiva students assaulted in Israel is breaking as I write this post:  http://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Two-stabbed-lightly-injured-in-Jerusalem-yeshiva-382496

In college, a Jewish Studies professor I had told the story of how he once attended a program at which spoke people who had saved Jews during World War II.  Each person was impressive, a real hero, but one made a distinct impression on my teacher.  Most of those who spoke connected their actions to a personal connection they had - they had Jewish friends, they worked for a Jewish business, etc.  One speaker though, a nun, said regarding her reason for helping, "I didn't really know any Jews, I didn't even particularly like them, but I felt like it was against my religion to see people suffer and be killed and so as a Christian, I had to act."

In this past week, I have been touched by the way we as Jews are so closely connected to each other.  How we do experience horrific attacks like that which took place in Har Nof this week as "personal" because in a way they really are.  To think that a bookstore owner I knew was lifelong friends with one of the murdered rabbis or that a congregant's family is married into the family of another's, is striking and makes the attack which took place during morning minyan and which I first learned of on my way to morning minyan, all the more personal.

But then I also think of Zidan Saif, the Israeli Druze policeman who was killed responding to the attack.  Whose sacrifice saved the lives of others.  Nobody I know knows him.  And yet here was an Israeli, a non-Jew dying to save the lives of Jews, to stop murderers, how can one's heart not go out to such a person?  And how can it not make us pause to consider that our response to such atrocities not be measured by how closely connected or similar we are to those attacked, but how dedicated we should be, and close we should feel to those who love life and truth and peace - no matter what they look like.  And how united and resolute we should be in battling those who are full of hate and violence and death.  

Tomorrow we will recite the prayer announcing a new Jewish month and in that prayer recite one of my favorite lines in the liturgy, chaverim kol yisrael, "all Israel are friends".  No doubt we will all think of how an attack on the Jewish community anywhere in the world feels like an attack on our own, home, communities - because it is.

But I also hope that as we pray those words we will think of something another of my teacher's said.  Rabbi Ira Stone taught that for the classical rabbis, "Israel" didn't so much refer to a Jew, but to a good, a righteous person.  Someone who you admired.  Someone who you sought to become.  

With that meaning in mind, let us pray that  those in the world who aspire to be part of that definition of the House of Israel, all those who are righteous and just, can learn to work together, in a friendship built on their shared values and beliefs, to protect the innocent and stop those who seek to do evil, and make the world the place God wants it to be.   

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Aaron Benson