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[Photo credit: Shana Surek]

We are excited to announce that renovations are underway at the newest addition to the CBI campus: 237 Prospect St., former home to the city water department and therefore known by some as the "Mayim Building" (Hebrew for water). CBI purchased the building last year, and it is the future home of new gathering spaces, offices, classrooms, and so much more. For an introduction to the building see here, and to learn more about our plans for this exciting addition to our space, see here.

Members of the CBI leadership team are currently engaged in a visioning process for the entire campus, including the new building, and there will be many opportunities for you to get involved in the process, so stay tuned. Meanwhile, the historic building continues to reveal its secrets. Thanks to our facilities and events coordinator Thomas Bradbury for sharing this WWII era gem that reemerged when a shelf was removed for painting: 

Hello! Wondering what's going with our new building at 237 Prospect Street? Read on!

Quick recap: Last year, CBI acquired what was once an administrative building for the city's water department, which is why you may hear it called “the water building” or “the mayim building.” If you haven't seen it, it's the big, brick one on the other side of Abundance Farm from the synagogue. Though maybe you were there for the big Chanukah party?               

[Photo credit: Shana Surek]                                                                                                                  

So, what’s in store for 237 Prospect St? Soon, renovations will begin to create new office and meeting spaces on the first floor. No promises, but it might look something like this…

[Image credit: David Whitehill]

Also, a big thanks to our Ad Hoc Building Committee members: David Whitehill, David Kaufman, and Ruthie Oland-Stuckey!  After the immediate refurbishments to make the building more usable, we'll continue working on the bigger vision along with our architect Maryann Thompson.

While nothing is set in stone, other uses for the new building may include a food justice center, more room for our Gan Keshet preschoolers to play, or a cafe-bakery. One thing we know for sure is that the building will help us focus on these three core values:

• Avodah lev (spiritual connections)
• Chokhmah (education)
• Tzedek (social justice)

If you want to learn more, here’s a copy of the Request for Proposal that we originally submitted to the city in our bid for the building. While all plans are subject to change, it will give you a sense of some possibilities!

CBI Community Benefits Statement:

A decade ago, Congregation B’nai Israel (CBI) acquired from the City a strip of land adjacent to the Water Department Building property. Over the last ten years we have transformed this land into Abundance Farm, a community asset that brings tremendous benefits to the City and its residents. Acquisition of the Water Department Building property would allow us to significantly expand these activities and the value they bring to the community as we develop the Farm into a leading center to promote (a) food security and community agriculture, (b) education and training in environmental sustainability and resilience at least until January 01, 2030.

Current role in the community
Abundance Farm, the focal point of much of our community programming, has expanded from a community garden to a small working farm open to anyone. In 2018, the Farm brought well over 5000 participants – most from outside the immediate CBI member community – to Farm-related programs, ranging from child and adult educational activities and communal cooking to food harvests and a street-side farm stand making free produce available to anyone in the community. (These numbers have grown in 2019.) The Farm has also provided a range of education and training programs for youth and professional staff of local community organizations.

Significantly, the Farm’s ten-year demonstrated track record of benefit to the community has been as the primary provider of these program and services, rather than as a participant in or supporter of other organizations’ programs and services. The range of current programs promoting the RFP’s required community benefits include:

• A seven-year collaboration with the Northampton Survival Center engaging Survival Center clients in the Farm. This partnership includes a bi-weekly pick-your-own program enabling Survival Center clients of all ages to regularly add free fresh produce to their meals. (There were over 700 client visits in 2019; over 1100 including client visits outside scheduled pick-your-own hours.) As a result, clients have become engaged in other aspects of the Farm, adding to the already diverse community – in age and background – brought together on this land. Of particular note, recent immigrants and refugees from agricultural communities in Africa, Central America, Asia and the Middle East, have reconnected or brought to the Farm plants from their native homes. The Farm has fostered broader community engagement with the Survival Center through formal internship, education and other programming as well as expanded exposure to new constituencies. The Survival Center has also benefited from regular professional staff development opportunities put on by the Farm. (For additional details, see the attached letter from the Executive Director of the Survival Center and the Abundance Farm’s Pick Your Own Community Harvest Program 2019 Report.)
• Collaboration with Grow Food Northampton (GFN) providing a free, weekly, community lunch over the summer for the last two years bringing together a diverse group of people of all generations from across the city and providing a unique context for meaningful community building. We have also collaborated with GFN to support the pick-your-own experience through farm food demonstrations and recipe sharing events. (See the attached letter from the Director of Programs of Grow Food Northampton for additional details.)
• The Farm has served as a placement for Federal Works Programs including placement for participants under the Workforce Innovation & Opportunity Act, and individuals who qualify for “The Abled Bodied Adult Without Dependents (ABAWD) Work Requirement and Time Limit in order to be eligible for SNAP benefits.
• Work with area colleges. The Farm runs college internships during the school year and summer, and hosts volunteers from area colleges. We have a particularly strong connection with Smith College; Smith students are eligible to receive work-study funding to serve as interns on the Farm, and the Farm serves as placement for summer “praxis” students. The Farm hosts visiting Smith classes each year with Farm staff serving as guest lecturers. In addition, the Farm director has taught classes on the Farm’s work at all five colleges.
• Young adult and teen leadership. For the last four years, we have operated the Shefa Teen Internship, a popular paid summer internship program open to the public, regardless of religious affiliation, that provides an immersive six-week experience in sustainable farming, community organizing and leadership training through food justice work for 12-15 high school students, most from Northampton High School. The Farm also offers an internship program hosting some ten teens during the school year. This past Fall, the Farm hosted Hartsbrook School teens for an eight consecutive week course at the Farm exploring food justice.
• Professional development workshops. The Farm hosts a number of professional development workshops on the subjects of food justice and farm-based education for campus educators and staff (including the Northampton Survival Center), as well as teachers from schools around the region.
• Other programming support and collaborations include work with the Pioneer Valley Workers’ Center over the last four years including staff participating in community organization training for interns, and providing volunteers for the PVWC’s own new farm; a recent joint program with the Karuna Center for Peace to host a lecture and workshop with Leah Penniman, food justice activist and farmer with 200+ attendees; and for the past three years the Farm has hosted the Rosenberg Fund For Justice’s annual fundraising event with the Neilds.
• Drawing a broader community to Northampton. The Farm has benefited the community by drawing visitors to Northampton from outside our area interested in learning from our successes in farm-based curriculum, training and community outreach including visits from schools, churches, camps and other non-profit organizations from around the country. The Farm has also been honored to pilot initiatives in community engagement and early childhood education before they are rolled out nationally by the Harold Grinspoon Foundation.

To ensure a vigorous engagement with the broader community, the Farm has an Advisory Board with community representation.

Continuing a history of serving the community
Maintaining this property in the hands of a faith-based organization driven by a mission grounded in social justice is congruent with the site’s role in Northampton’s history. The current Farm site is situated on land that served as Northampton’s “Poor Farm,” from roughly 1800-1950.  During this period, the Poor Farm and adjoining Alms (“Poor”) House served as a refuge for local residents in need of shelter, food and other services. The Alms House included a 15-acre farm operated by the Alms House residents. We have built on the site’s long history as the city’s Alms House and “Poor Farm” to advance more dignified ways to address food insecurity for Northampton residents. In 2019 the Farm was honored to receive from the City a Whiting Street Fund grant made to agencies that serve low income people residing in the community. We have also been honored to work with the Historic Northampton to bring this story to wider audiences in and beyond our community.

Water Department Building role in the future of Abundance Farm’s mission
Acquisition of the Water Department Building property will open up a range of short-, medium- and long-term opportunities to extend the reach and impact of Farm programs for the community, including collaborations with new external partners. In the more immediate term, the Water Building property would give us much needed space to support growing program staff, as well as administrative and community meeting space. Future opportunities include:

• Value-added businesses and workforce training, including an onsite bakery (further developing our onsite bakery), processed food production, a Farm Store and a commercial kitchen facility offering training and mentoring to local teens, Survival Center clients and others.
• An expanded teen/young adult training and education program drawing 75-100 diverse participants from the region for an 8-week immersive summer program and a smaller academic year program. Programs like these will develop the leaders who can help Northampton be a model for environmental justice and resiliency.
• Expansion of internship experiences that provide students academic credit in cooperation with local schools.
• We have begun discussions with Jackson Street School about supporting curriculum development and programs in relation to their farm initiative.
• An accredited gap year program integrating hands-on training in sustainable agriculture with study of food systems and resilient communities, as well as training in leadership and community organizing, drawing on educators and leaders in the community.
• A food processing center similar to Franklin County’s Food Processing Center in Greenfield.
• In the longer term, creation of a multi-generational residential community, housing students as well as seniors.

Promoting community access and environmental resilience
In keeping with the environmental mission of Abundance Farm, our stewardship of the land would support the city’s broader sustainability and resilience efforts. Our development of the property would include facilitating public access to the current bike path and the wetland preserves behind the Water Department Building property. More broadly, improving the ecological health of the site and, by extension, the surrounding woods and nearby conservation area (Barrett Street Marsh) would be a primary concern. For example, when making land use decisions, we would minimize the amount of impervious surfaces which reduce groundwater recharge to the marsh and contribute to the peak of stormwater flow into the marsh.  We would also focus on managing invasive species, such as Japanese Knotweed, which are rampant in the area.

We look forward to playing a continuing and expanded role serving this wonderful City.

Question, comments, or other thoughts on the building? Feel free to email office@cbinorthampton.org. 

Dear Chevre,

This Shabbat coincides with Juneteenth, which as you know has been signed into law by President Biden as a federal holiday, marking a collective commemoration and celebration for the end of slavery.   Be’chol Lashon, a national organization raising awareness of Jews of Color, is holding a virtual Juneteenth Kabbalat Shabbat today at 5 PM, EST, and we are encouraging people to join this service in lieu of our CBI Virtual Kabbalat Shabbat.  While I do not have more details about who is leading this Juneteenth Kabbalat Shabbat, last year it was led by two visionary African American rabbis, attracted thousands of people, and was a time of beautiful singing and joyous celebration.

In future years, I hope we can find meaningful ways to mark Juneteenth as a Shabbat to recommit ourselves to working for racial justice and celebrating the lives, voices and history of Black people. For now,  our Reparations Working Group has just issued a press release announcing our community’s effort to study how we may actively engage in the work of reparations following a year of intensive study and community conversations that I look forward to continuing well into the future.

Talmud Study Shabbat Morning

For Shabbat tomorrow, we are going to incorporate some of what we grew to appreciate during the pandemic as we meet together in person.  Building on the note that Rabbi Jacob and I sent out a couple of weeks ago about Talmud study, tomorrow I will lead Talmud study in person as part of our Shabbat morning service.  The order will be as follows: we will have Shacharit between 9:30 - 10:00, then begin Talmud study as usual at 10:00, continuing for about 45 minutes or so.  And then, between 10:45-11:00, we will have our Torah service, chant the Haftarah, and go straight into Musaf, ending at approximately 12:00, with an opportunity to stay and have a light kiddush afterwards.

Here is our Talmud text, a reflection on Moses’ very human failure that prevented his going into the land.  As you see, the Talmud’s take on this moment is that it is part of what is most human in all of us.  

Teshuvah Learning Next Thursday

Finally, this Thursday, June 24 at 7:00, please join me for some learning, “The Rhythm of Teshuva, First Steps.”  As we move closer to summer, our Sages have a deep, intuitive understanding of how the season, almost unconsciously, ushers in the spiritual process of return and connection with the High Holidays a little over 2 months away.  This will be at the synagogue, outdoors and in person.  I hope to see you there!

I am so looking forward to studying, singing and praying with you tomorrow, and I hope you find Juneteenth Kabbalat Shabbat sponsored by Be’chol Lashon as meaningful as I will!

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Justin David

Dear Friends,

As we prepare to greet Shavuot, I am thinking of the poetic expression of the Torah’s injunction to count 49 days before Shavuot as seven “complete” weeks.  The completeness, or wholeness conveyed by this verse is intentional, and is emphasized further as the Torah enjoins us to count 7 days each week for 7 weeks, evoking the creation of the universe, expressed in the weekly celebration of Shabbat, and carried over into the 7-year cycle of reaping while providing for those who are most vulnerable.  This rich symbolism ensures that our ongoing yearnings for justice, spiritual connection and peace are all joined together, and particularly this year, Shavuot strikes me as a necessary reminder of the true depths of the human spirit and our capacity to bring goodness and healing to the world.

I want to urge you to take part in our two Tikkunim (study sessions for Shavuot), as well as in-person Shavuot services and...a newly added in-person service for this Shabbat.

 For our first night, Sunday evening, I along with Rabbis Jacob Fine and Sara Luria will create study and conversation around the theme of Tikkun in a Post-Pandemic world.  We know we’re not there yet, and that parts of the world are truly suffering even as conditions are beginning to ease here.  After such a long period of isolation, how do we re-engage with each other?  What deeper connections are embedded in our simple, everyday greetings and interactions?  How do we face the world anew with our fears? Our hopes?

Second night, Monday evening, we will be online as we focus on our community’s responsibility to respond to the call to support the Black community in securing reparations for the injustices of slavery and ongoing systemic racism.  This conversation will be led by a variety of voices, including community members sharing their personal reflections on learning about reparations, as well as our CBI/Abundance Farm reparations working groups.

On both Monday and Tuesday, please join us for in-person services for Shavuot, which will include singing Hallel (both days), chanting the revelation at Sinai from the Torah (first day), the Book of Ruth (second day) and Yizkor (second day).  

And for all of our in-person gatherings, we expect cheesecake to be had.

Finally, join us this Shabbat for an in-person service that will have a unique educational twist.  We will begin at 10:00 with Shacharit and time for some Torah conversation.  Then, from 11:00 - noon, we will be joined by soon-to-be B’nei Mitzvah families for Torah reading and more study of the parashah and service as part of an ongoing series.  We should finish up with Musaf around 12:15.  

And, while this in-person service takes place, we will also have our regularly scheduled Shacharit online beginning at 9:30 with online Talmud study afterward.

As we prepare to greet Shavuot, I hope we look at this season not as only a retreat from the heartbreaking violence taking place in Israel and Gaza.  This year, I am thinking of the poetic manner of the Torah’s injunction to count 49 days before Shavuot as seven “whole” weeks.  The wholeness suggested by these verses is not incidental, but is also embodied by the count of 7 days each week for 7 weeks, evoking creation, the weekly cycle of labor and renewal, and the 7-year cycle of reaping, caring for those without, and ensuring our own just living as an expression of ongoing spiritual connection.  Bearing all of this rich symbolism, Shavuot strikes me this year a necessary reminder of the true depths of the human spirit and our capacity to bring goodness and healing to the world.

Looking forward to seeing you over these next days.

Shabbat Shalom and Chag Sameach,

Rabbi Justin David

Dear Friends, 

In the midst of Passover, we hope that the connections you were able to make and the discussions you were able to have at your seders turned your attention to how we bring healing to the world and make z'man cherutenu, the Season of our Freedom, a daily practice and living reality. 

Today we learned that after nearly three years since Irida Kakhtiranova sought and received sanctuary at the Unitarian Universalist Society of Northampton and Florence, her case has been reopened and she is free to rejoin her family! The family will be reunited without fear of Irida’s arrest as her lawyers continue working to resolve his case.

It is going to take considerable time for Irida to re-establish her family business after she returns home, and so we are asking for your help to provide them with one last provision of food assistance during the pandemic. The CBI community has been generous over the past nearly-three years, and we hope will continue to be a source of support this one last time.

Please consider continuing to provide food assistance to Irida and her family by:

 Writing a tax-deductible check to "USNF," with check's memo line reading "Sanctuary Fund/from CBI." The funds will be used exclusively for Irida's food support. You can send the check by regular mail to "USNF, 220 Main St. Northampton, MA, 01060." 

Thank you for taking this opportunity to consider this mitzvah.  

 Moadim l'Simchah,

 Wishing you a holiday of joy and connection,

 Rabbi Justin David & the Sanctuary Committee

If you prefer, you may go online to the USNF website ( https://www.uunorthampton.org/ ), click on the “donate” link, and fill in the amount you wish to contribute in the line that reads, “sanctuary.” These funds will be used exclusively for Irida’s needs. If you wish to, you may use the “donation is in honor of” box to indicate that your contribution is for Irida’s food needs and is from a CBI member.

Dear Friends,

Here we are, in the first week of Nisan, and so it’s time to take those first steps toward Z’man Cherutenu, the Season of Liberation.  I hope by now you have seen our set of programs for Passover, including pre-Seder workshops as well as a range of programming on and around the days of Passover.  This letter is more about preparing, with some resources to help you set the stage for this deeply meaningful time of year.

Ma’ot Chittin - Donations to those in need

The Haggadah invites us with the words,  “Let all who are hungry come and eat,” and fittingly, it is a historic custom to make donations to charities that provide food to those in need.  The Northampton Survival Center is our critical local partner in helping us work toward food justice in our community.  If it's not already your practice, investigate becoming a Bread and Butter member of the NSC with a monthly donation.  And if you already are, consider giving them some extra tzedakah in the spirit of Pesach.

Passover Guide

Getting rid of chametz (leaven), kashering the kitchen, figuring out what is or is not kosher for Passover becomes its own set of observances within the holiday.  Here is the Rabbinical Assembly’s Passover Guide, with its comprehensive and updated advice.  Some of us embrace the work, some of us avoid it, but this guide will likely both answer questions and raise others - this too is part of the holiday.

Selling Chametz 

It’s simple - appoint me as your agent with this declaration: “I appoint Rabbi Justin David as my agent in selling my Chametz during Passover, 5781.”  Just copy the declaration into email, sign your name, send it to office@cbinorthampton.org, and I’ll take care of things from there.  If you wish to make a donation to the Northampton Survival Center as a token appreciation of the service, please feel free.

A Bracha (Blessing) for Flowering Trees 

It’s probably still too early, but one never knows.  The Talmud provides us with a beautiful blessing over the scent of flowering trees in the month of Nisan: “Praised are You, Adonai our God, Creator of the Universe, who has created good creatures and good trees for the benefit of human beings.”  Before or after saying the blessing, feel free to take a moment to sing or meditate on the last verse from Psalms that serves as the textual foundation of this practice, “Kol ha-neshama t’halel Yah,” “Let everyone with the fullness of soul celebrate the Creator.”

I will follow up this note with others to prepare us for the holiday, steering us toward organizations working for justice and liberation as well as tips for your seders.  Until then, I hope you are staying safe and well, and I look forward to being in touch soon.

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Justin David    

Dear Friends,

This morning, I was moved by a Facebook post by Sheryl Gay Stolberg, a longtime Washington correspondent for the Times, who spoke of yesterday’s violence as trampling on the “sacred space” of our Capitol.  Stolberg didn’t specify how or why the Capitol is sacred, but she enumerated her closeness to the grandeur of the building itself, the dramatic moments she has spent there, and perhaps most importantly, the people who work there - not only moral pioneers and future presidents, but the unrecognized janitors and cooks who keep the Capitol running, as well as the journalists who are so essential to a free society.  

In this compelling and loving litany, Stolberg implied what comes to mind for many of us when we think of what is sacred: the human yearning for equality, freedom and justice as well as the compelling examples of those who bring those ideals into reality.  As sacred ideals, perhaps she suggests that they originate beyond us, and yet can only come into existence through our devotion and commitment.  

In Jewish tradition, we have a vast reservoir of insights into what is sacred, beginning in the Torah and living on through weekly reflections in communities all across the globe.  Looking to the Temple of Jerusalem as one of our central motifs, we may say that holiness may be eclipsed by human destruction, but reconstituted through ongoing acts informed by justice, reverence for creation, and awe for the divine presence residing among humanity.  

In another sense, we can think about how the violence that threatens to drive justice and compassion from our world imposes an obligation upon us to renewed action. In the words of Abraham Joshua Heschel, who was echoing the biblical prophets, few may be guilty, but all are responsible.  

In truth, the guilt for yesterday’s violence in the Capitol runs far and deep. Our President and his enablers have incited and given cover to White nationalists, conspiracy theorists and other neo Nazis for years.  Racism as well likely played a role in the inadequate preparation of law enforcement, especially when we compare yesterday's light police presence around the Capitol to the heavily armed troops who confronted peaceful Black Lives Matter protests in June.  

While it is compelling and necessary to investigate the sources of yesterday’s events, I believe it may be more important to focus on a renewed call to action - that each of us can and should be part of the collective healing that follows.  In the words of the great Black civil rights activist Ella Baker, popularized in the stirring song by Dr. Bernice Johnson Reagon as performed by Sweet Honey In the Rock, “We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes.”

In that sense of responsibility, I believe, there is hope in the promise that justice and righteousness are too powerful to be suppressed when we choose to act.  Isaiah, in the first chapter of his prophecy, addresses a Jerusalem that has been debased and destroyed by its corrupt leaders: “Your rulers are rogues/And cronies of thieves;Every one avid for presents/And greedy for gifts;/They do not judge the case of the orphan/And the widow’s cause never reaches them.”  

But then, after a reckoning, God promises through Isaiah, “I will restore your magistrates as of old, And your counselors as of yore.  After that you shall be called City of Righteousness, Faithful City. (Isaiah 1: 23-26)”  Jewish tradition has since enshrined these words in the weekday Amidah, recited 3 times daily in prayer, to remind us of both the promise of justice and the imperative to act.

The abuse of power may be an inherent temptation of power itself.  Bad actors come and go, and our president has (at most) just a little over two weeks.  And even though he has unleashed forces of hate and despair that may not be so quickly and easily contained, I follow the promise of our tradition: that justice and righteousness will endure when we commit ourselves to the sacred and universal task of bringing healing to our world. 

Wishing everyone the ability to turn toward the light and to be renewed in our moral vision and capacity for action,

B’Shalom,

Rabbi Justin David

Dear Friends,

I am very excited that Professor Joel Kaminsky will teach a 4-session series beginning January 12 on Wealth and Poverty in the Hebrew Bible.  This mini-course will focus on both legal and prophetic texts that explore the creation of wealth, inequities between rich and poor and visions of a just society.  Joel is the Morningstar Professor of Bible at Smith College, and as anyone who has taken his courses will tell you, he is a master scholar and teacher.  

Even in this unprecedented time, we are offering this course as part of our CBI Chevruta series, in which we engage local scholars to take us on extended explorations of classical texts.  To date, we have had the privilege of treasured teachers walk us through topics in the Bible and Talmud, mystical literature of the Zohar and Hasidic masters, halakhah and aggadah.  

In keeping with the tradition of CBI Chevruta courses, we are asking for a suggested contribution for this course of $25, but it is at your discretion and no one will be turned away.  

To register for this course, please follow this link or the one above.

So, as we head into winter, save these dates for your own inspiration through study as we continue to build community through our culture of learning.  In the meantime, I look forward to connecting with you soon.

B'shalom,

Rabbi Justin David

Dear Friends,

This year, I am thinking about how Hanukkah reckons with the past to guide us toward a future shaped by our yearnings for justice, wonder, and the depth of human connection.

It seems that the Rabbis knew that the original story of Hanukkah was too fraught to stand on its own as the foundation for a sacred and celebratory holiday. The triumph of the Maccabees in the original text in the Aprocrypha, while throwing off the oppressor and bringing hope and liberation, raised additional questions about the problems of militarism, power, zealotry and intra-communal conflict.  But the Talmudic story of the miracle of one canister of pure oil for the Temple lights that lasted for eight days, a story the Rabbis invented out of whole cloth, resets the holiday.  Instead of discussing how or whether to emulate the Maccabees, the great sages of the School of Shammai and the School of Hillel debate how to light lamps at the darkest time of the year.  Our practice of adding a candle each night follows Hillel, with the rationale that we “ascend in holiness, and do not descend (B. Talmud, Shabbat, 21b).”  And so, the Talmud transforms Hanukkah into a festival of light by radically re-interpreting the past in order to celebrate the aspirations and dimensions of the human spirit. 

9 months into our pandemic, with likely several months to go until vaccines are widely available, I find myself embracing Hanukkah as a frame to imagine how we will all emerge from this time of illness, fear, and struggle.  I, like all of you, know people whose lives have been devastated by Covid and the accompanying despair of this moment, and speak with many who live in ongoing fear over their own vulnerability or those whom they love.  I regularly speak with parents who struggle to provide their children with meaningful and educational experiences in this time, and with young people frustrated by the challenges of finding companionship and work.   

And yet, I am also inspired by elders and other vulnerable people in our community who have adapted and found ways to live with a measure of satisfaction and purpose.  I am amazed that people I know who struggle to keep up with work, family and social connections often reassure me that they are holding up and managing. And despite our collective isolation, I know that in the future, I will think of this time as one when we joined together to protest racial injustice, hear the Shofar in the CBI parking lot, and spontaneously celebrate online and downtown at the prospect of a hopeful future.

For our community, I am similarly taking the opportunity Hanukkah affords to look back so as to envision greater hope, solidarity and celebration for the time ahead.  

Following the current insights of our Covid-19 task force, I believe we should anticipate both the status quo of protective distancing for the immediate future as well as the possibility that conditions may eventually become safer and therefore permit more in-person opportunities down the road.   

With this in mind, I am committed to work with our CBI staff and leadership to help us move forward in the following ways:

• Maintain our feeling of community through services and study on Zoom, but also create safe, micro opportunities to gather in person as is possible.
• Create and initiate conversations, both 1:1 and small groups, for members of our community to experience a greater feeling of connection.
• Create ongoing learning opportunities for the community that provide us a sense of ongoing growth and learning.
• Envision and plan for the re-opening of Gan Keshet when conditions make it safe to do so, and to plan enhanced educational and social opportunities for our youngest children in the interim.
• Plan for expanded in-person learning for ALMA and educational/social gatherings when conditions allow.
• Envision hybrid services and group learning, encompassing simultaneous robust in-person gathering as well as livestreaming, for when infection rates fall to create safer conditions.
• Plan for both limited in-person work on Abundance Farm, as well as for the possibility of expanded in-person farm activities based on changing conditions.
• Pursue ongoing tikkun olam/social justice work to rally our community around meaningful action as well as continue to develop relationships with groups seeking equity and social change.

These intentions are just the broadest outline of the work that I, along with the synagogue staff and leadership, intend to pursue in the coming months.  I am sure that I inadvertently neglected to mention an initiative that is important to you, or perhaps didn’t consider when writing this note.  With that in mind, if there is something you want, need, or even have the ability to help create, please be in touch with me, Rabbi Jacob or Emily Kieval.  Community is a collective partnership - we’re all in this together, especially now.

In the meantime, I wish you a Hanukkah that brings you - and the world - its beauty, joy, and hope, and I hope you will join us for our community lighting each night at 5:00 and Friday night at 4:00.

Chag Urim Sameach,

Wishing everyone a joyous Festival of Lights,

Rabbi Justin David

Shalom Hevre,

Rabbi Jacob and I are switching off week to week now so that we both have the great privilege of teaching and connecting through these conversations.

Here are tomorrow's sources.  They are a piece of Talmud and a midrash on "De-Othering" Ishmael and Esau.  When such marginzalization lives on and flourishes in our tradition, it creates all kinds of disturbing moral consequences, which is why finding examples of "de-othering" in our texts has been a long term project of mine.  Here's a link to my video d'var Torah for this week where I riff on this theme a little more, but don't worry - no spoilers for our learning tomorrow.

Why is Esau so marginalized, particularly when the biblical account is so sympathetic?  Rabbinic tradition totally went overboard in demonizing Esau (though reasonable so when considering Roman domination of 3rd Century Palestine), and so it falls on us to undo the "othering" and its consequences for the 21st Century.  Do we find hints, shards, or clues to undoing this demonization in the Talmud and midrash, which were the very engines of this "othering?"   

Take a look at these texts and join the conversation tomorrow morning!!

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Justin David