February 29, 2012 - Temple Emanuel of Beverly Hills

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By Rabbi Laura Geller RabbiGeller@tebh.org The Rest of My Life The English word “sabbatical” comes from the word “Shabbat.” It was first used in 1886 to refer to a year’s absence granted to researchers which typically occurred once in every seven years of teaching. The idea emerged from the Biblical injunction to let the land lie fallow every seven years to give it a chance to regenerate. Not a bad idea for those who are teaching and researching to have a chance to take a breath and regenerate a bit. In fact, it is probably a good idea for all of us! Professors and rabbis are among the lucky few whose professions encourage this privilege. The clergy at Temple Emanuel are grateful to have leadership who recognizes that it is important for clergy to have time to reflect, study and renew ourselves. Over my almost 17 years as rabbi here, I have taken two separate months of sabbatical leave, both in the summers when I studied as a Rabbinic Fellow in the Hartman Institute in Jerusalem. In January I will take another month of sabbatical leave to give me some time to think about a project which I hope will benefit the congregation and myself as well: reaching out to baby boomers and helping them discover meaning and purpose through their connection to Jewish experience and our synagogue. My greatgrandparents’ lifetime was characterized by three major life stages: childhood, midlife and old age. The idea that “adolescence” was a life stage didn’t develop until the early years of the twentieth century. For my parents, there was childhood, adolescence, midlife and then retirement at 65 to Florida. For the Boomer generation it seems to be different. We are seeing a lot being written about another life stage between midlife and old age, sometimes called “the third stage” or the “encore stage.” It constitutes a very large cohort, getting larger by the year. As of January, 2011, a person in the United States will turn 65 every eight seconds. (4) TEMPLE TOPICS /// JANUARY – FEBRUARY 2012 The well known social scientist Steven Cohen has written: “Boomers (people born between 1946 and 1964) are the first generation in human history… to reasonably anticipate living well and wholesomely into their 80’s and 90’s if not beyond…. Jews (as others) are not only living longer, they are living in an age of meaning-seeking, with the interest and wherewithal to make living a life of meaning an ultimate and reasonably obtainable objective for any point in their lives. As such, this aging, yet largely healthy generation of American Jews poses a challenge and an opportunity to a society and community that is as yet unprepared for the totally new policy and planning opportunities that loom in the near future.” My sabbatical project will begin with my catching up on the literature that relates to this third stage; it turns out there is quite a bit, but not much of it focused on the Jewish community. I also intend to meet with people already thinking about these questions around the country. I’m hopeful that when I return to work in February, we can begin a series of informal conversations that will help us clarify how best to create a culture within our congregation that helps the Baby Boomers among us celebrate the next stage of our lives. Let me know after February 1 if you would be interested in being part of one of these conversations. I’ll be back in time to welcome one of my heroes, Anat Hoffman, Director of the Israel Religious Action Center, sponsored by the Reform Movement, and a leader of Women at the Wall, on Friday night February 3. More information about her visit is on page 22. I hope I’ll see you there. Save the Date: Behrendt Scholar-in-Residence Rabbi Rachel Cowan� Senior Fellow, Institute for Jewish Spirituality March 9 and 10 "Growing Older and Wiser" "Bringing Mindfulness into Your Daily Life"
Music Talks By Rabbi Jonathan Aaron RabbiAaron@tebh.org We talk all the time about the synagogue being a kind of mezuzah, or set of mezuzot that adorn the many different doors with which one can enter Judaism. Whether you enter through Torah study, Israel, education, prayer, poker, choir, the intergenerational play, food, or as a social center, our synagogue opens its doors for all who wish to experience Judaism in a way that gives them meaning. From the time I was small, singing a little too loudly at my mother’s choir rehearsal in a tiny classroom of my childhood synagogue, to leading 200 teenagers in a song session at Kutz Camp in Warwick, New York, music has been the mezuzah that generates meaningful Jewish moments. Over the years, I’ve spoken many times about my grandfather, Cantor Hugo Chaim Adler, the main cantor at the synagogue in Manheim, Germany and Worcestor, Massachusetts, and his son, my uncle Dr. Samuel Adler (who came here a couple of years ago for a scholar in residence weekend). Each of them has added significantly to the corpus of Jewish music in America. My uncle wrote a melody that is known by almost every Jew in this country, the “Motzi” song that goes before the blessing for the bread. My grandfather has been responsible for saving the music of Levandovsky, a nineteenth century composer who died on the day Hugo was born. And then there was me, a rabbi in Beverly Hills, who has continued the tradition of writing music for the synagogue, although my music has entered the synagogue in a more subtle and quiet way. My writing doesn’t have music written out (although someday I’m sure that will happen), isn’t for purchase (yet), and you may not even know you have heard it at all. It is the place where my Judaism and my art intersect, the place where I can enter the synagogue in a way that enters right to my heart, and to that place inside of me that can’t be measured or found with any monitoring machine – my soul. Since I was a teenager and I first picked up the guitar, I’ve been writing music. Of course, early on most of my songs involved kissing girls or unrequited love like any good teenager in angst. Later, they were about anything that caught my eye. But over the last several years, I’ve concentrated on music for children (the CD Michelle and I made together can be found in our gift-shop and iTunes, under the name “The Treehouse Band with Slim and Lulu”), and music for our services at Temple Emanuel. My Shalom Aleichem has been used in Unplugged since it’s inception, and this past year, two melodies of mine have been added to the service, Ufros Aleinu and just this past month, V’shamru. This last melody has come from deep inside of me, and I just wanted to share the process. These past two months have been difficult ones for me, personally. One evening I had a meeting at seven PM, and I headed into my office at about five o’clock, at dusk. The room had some light in it, but not much. I was filled with a heavy feeling that evening, and had the urge to create something with lightness and positive energy, so I picked up my guitar and just started playing. I had wanted to write a V’shamru that went along with the mood of the Ufros Aleinu in the service so that there would be a flow of energy moving across that section of the service…it needed to be in the same key, have a similar feel, but keep us moving forward. About an hour later, a knock came on the door. Cantor Kliger heard the guitar and slowly opened the door into a room that was pitch black. He said, “What the heck is going on in here?” I said, “You wanna hear our new V’Shamru?,” he said, “sure, but what if it’s bad?” (He was kidding). I played it for him, he learned it quickly, and that week, we debuted it at the Shabbat Unplugged service. We sang the chorus a couple of times, and by the time we were on the third chorus, it seemed like everyone was singing, smiling, closing eyes, almost as if they had known this song their whole lives. That moment brought tears to my eyes. How could something that didn’t exist one week ago, come to life in a way that actually moved people? I will never forget that first moment it was played and sung in our new sanctuary. More than any sermon, more than any d’var Torah, people were touched by the waves of the music, the combination of tones that left them with a feeling. It is very difficult to describe why a melody touches someone inside, but when it does, it can carry a person to a new place, and for me, for just a couple of minutes, I found that place, amongst our congregation singing this melody, singing what was in my heart. TEMPLE TOPICS /// JANUARY – FEBRUARY 2012 (5)
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Page 3: Scott Shlecter Dr. Elisa Newman Whi
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Page 9 and 10: TEMPLE TOPICS /// JANUARY - FEBRUAR
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Page 13 and 14: Dylan Michelle Brenner February 18,
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Page 17 and 18: 5 Thursday Friday Saturday 10 Tevet
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Page 21 and 22: Intergenerational Production Auditi
Page 23 and 24: Shabbaton� March 23 and 24 Final
Page 25 and 26: SYNAPLEX� Friday, January 6 and F
Page 27 and 28: Mazel Tov to... Marnie Greenwald, w
Page 29 and 30: General Fund From Jamie and Lee Bro
Page 31 and 32: Tzadikim Erika & George Kobor Shery

February 29, 2012 - Temple Emanuel of Beverly Hills

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