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Showing posts from 2012

A prayer after the school shooting in Connecticut

(From my email message to my synagogue community on Friday, December 14:) Dear friends, Shabbat is approaching, but I wanted to share some personal reactions to today's terrible news out of Connecticut . The tragedy is so horrifying -- and the Hoboken connection brings the potential for tragedy so close to home.  While the news is constantly changing, at this point it is not unreasonable to imagine an alternate scenario in which this massacre would  have unfolded in Hoboken rather than in Connecticut .  We cannot pretend that we are not connected to this tragedy. At the bottom of this email I have tried to express some of my most heartfelt prayers at this painful moment.  Those of us with children may appreciate some suggestions for discussing such horrifying events with children; for example,  http://www.nmha.org/ go/information/get-info/ coping-with-disaster/helping- children-handle-disaster- related-anxiety .  This tragedy reminds us all -- in our famil

Birkat ha-Gomel - Prayer of Thanksgiving after the hurricane

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I wrote this for the Rabbinical Assembly's Thanksgiving Service 2012, in light of our community's experiences with Hurricane Sandy. Introduction to Birkat Ha-gomel   by Rabbi Rob Scheinberg, United Synagogue of Hoboken, NJ The traditional Jewish response to a brush with danger is to recite a blessing – just as we try to respond to every life experience with words of blessing. It may appear to be a paradox that the Birkat Ha-gomel, the Blessing of Thanksgiving, is recited following the very most terrifying moments in our lives: Barukh … ha-gomel l’hayavim tovot, she-g’malani kol tov.’   ‘Blessed are you, Adonai, our God, sovereign of the universe, who bestows favor upon the undeserving, and has bestowed favor upon me.’ We express gratefulness, even though we know that our good fortune has nothing to do with our merit. We are all the ‘hayavim’ - the ‘undeserving’. This blessing acknowledges that the fundamental unfairness of the universe sometimes accrues to our

Thoughts on Hurricane Sandy and Hoboken: "Many waters cannot extinguish love"

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Below is our most recent update on the impact of Hurricane Sandy on our synagogue's community and activities. This update will also be reprinted in the Shofar Newsletter for the coming month. Please feel free to forward it to friends and relatives who might be interested in how our Jewish community is faring after the storm --and especially to those who have inquired about how they can assist.   photo taken just a couple of blocks from the United Synagogue of Hoboken.  Photo is from the Rebuild Hoboken website (www.rebuildhoboken.org) מַיִם רַבִּים לֹא יוּכְלוּ לְכַבּוֹת אֶת הָאַהֲבָה וּנְהָרוֹת לֹא יִשְׁטְפוּהָ. “Many waters cannot extinguish love, Nor can rivers drown it.”  (Song of Songs 8:7) These past three weeks have been among the most troubling of my life, but also among the most exhilarating.  I am posting here some updates about the impact of Hurricane Sandy on our community, the current state of the recovery in our community, and some practical suggestio

"Noah Voters and Abraham Voters" (Rosh haShanah 2012)

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(Parts of this sermon are adapted from my reflections from July 4,  http://rabbischeinberg.blogspot.com/2012/07/blessing-for-czar-in-honor-of.html.  It’s time for show and tell. Let me tell you about this book, which some of you have seen before. This book has been in the possession of our congregation since it was founded in 1905. It’s a High Holiday Mahzor -- published in the Lithuanian city of Vilna, today Vilnius, in the year 1914. But suppose you didn’t know that.  Suppose the title page with the copyright information had been missing. When you look at an old Jewish prayerbook, how can you figure out when and where it was published? Let me show you.  I am reading now from page 194- a page immediately before the Torah is returned to the ark. TRANSLATION: May He Who grants salvation to kings and dominion to rulers, Whose kingdom is a kingdom spanning all eternity…. May He bless, protect, guard, assist, elevate, exalt, and lift upwards Our master C