Rabbi’s Blog

We’ve just welcomed the Hebrew month (new moon) of Adar – you may have noticed this because of the Chinese New Year’s is also welcomed on a new moon. Other than this coincidence, the moon does not have quite the celebrated status in the west is it has on the Jewish calendar. But this was not always so. The word “month” is really the non-word “moonth.” A “moonth” is a full moon cycle – from new to full to fully waned.Here comes some math. A moonth is 29-30 days long. So a year of moonths – 12 lunar months – is 354 days long, whereas a solar year is 365 days long. This is the reason for the constant shift of Jewish holidays relative to the western calendar. A Jewish (lunar) year of 12 moonths is 11 days shorter than a solar year. But our holiday cycle is agricultural! We need our spring festival (Passover) to come in the spring. We need our fall holidays to arrive around the fall equinox. How is this done? Jews have a luni-solar calendar; we have a leap month 7 times in a 19 year cycle, roughly every third year.Sensibly enough, the leap month is inserted in the late winter – before the spring planting season – so that the lunar and solar years synch up. 2016 is a leap year for us and so the month of Adar we have just welcomed is Adar One. Adar Two will begin on the next new moon and Purim will be celebrated on the full moon of Adar Two, March 23 this year. All the holidays will be a little “late” this year. Mystery solved.One more note: The Hebrew calendar (and other aspects of our tradition) are fully integrated with astrological systems. This “double moonth” of Adar equals Pisces, the twin fish. It makes sense that our double month would be inserted during the reign of these twins. Purim itself – the story of reversal of fortunes – fits beautifully with the theme of these twin fish, swimming to and fro in a frothy mix. Now ya’ know.

This week’s Torah portion, Jethro, points us to a famous and useful metaphor, one of my favorites, Standing at Mount Sinai. The image of hundreds of thousand of people circling a mountain gives us a way to think about community. They stand to gether in a huge circle at the foot of a mountain and face upwards, inwards, to where the communication from the Living Unity will reach them. All of them together, with their varying points of view. Each one will all have to contain one ray of light, one spoke of the truth. The message can only be received by our unity.Everyone has to show up and represent their point of view. Everyone has to listen to everyone else. Two poles of a stick. To Show Up and to Listen. There is a natural tension here, an active balancing. Everyone literally sees everything from a slightly – or hugely – different point of view. Everyone had someone in the circle who saw things entirely opposite to their perspective. And isn’t this so in life? Conflict is ubiquitous. It is needed for growth. And the holding of the circle is needed for growth. Standing together in one circle, for a common elevation, open to each others views, is necessary for growth. This showing up and this willingness to listen. The Children of Israel evolve to become the Community of Israel, the grown ups, by representing our own position without rancor or pride. And listening to the other perspectives, again, without rancor or pride. Many of us, at times, hesitate to offer our perspective for one reason or another. Many of us, at times, opine too much and bristle too quickly at disagreement. Both excesses are errors. Errors that can be seen and corrected, to serve a higher cause. Try it. You’ll like it.This Shabbat will be a little different, special and fun. Please come for Friday dinner starting at 6:30. We’ll have our meal and then just sing at the tables, some Friday night songs and other styles as well. No official service- just the table rituals and singing. Very relaxing, as shabbat should be…Our Compassionate Listening Practice group will meet again, first Thursday, that is Feb 4 this month. We begin at 7. This is a free, drop-in group until May.

Winter is a seed-time, a kind of night. In our Torah readings we read of Pharoah’s dreams and the dreams and promises of freedom for our ancestors. In our lives as well, we enter a kind of waiting – a between time. For now, we peruse our seed catalogues and dream of gardens. To everything there is a season.Dream time at the temple too. This month we’ll celebrate the new year of trees, Tu B’shevat. Our membership will gather for it’s semi-annual meeting on the same day – January 24. We’ll hear of the efforts of active committees so far this year and dream together about long-range goals and near season programming. Come help build our calendar and community on Jan 23. (See Calendar for details)I bet you don’t know that something happens here at TI every weekend. First and fourth Fridays we meet for Shabbat services. Second and third Saturdays we meet in the morning. This coming Shabbat , the 16 will be a chanting service followed by a Torah study discussion. The following Shabbat morning will be a regular Shabbat service, followed by a Kiddush luncheon. The singing has been great. Please come and enjoy our prayers together.To get ready for Purim, I am offering two opportunities to read the book of Ester together, once in Shelburne and once in Greenfield. We will retell together the book of Ester on March 23 at our Purim celebration. After we read the story, we plan to break it up into narrative chunks and create small plays and vignettes that tell the Purim story. Let me know if you’d like to help with the playful plays. You do not need to come to the reading groups in order to participate!The two readings will be 5-6:30 Monday January 25 in Shelburne and 12:30-2 the following day, Tuesday January 26 at the temple (in place of Torah study group that week). For directions to the Shelburne address (21 Gudnow Road) email me at the contact form

This end of the year moment feels like a beginning to me.We open to a new book of Torah this week – Shemot/Names called Exodus. In it, we read the story of our collective decent into grief and dislocation and make the long journey back to connection and right relationships, with self, other and the divine.Another new beginning for our community: we launch our new website this week. We share with the wider community who we are, what we value and what we are striving to become. This wonderful new communications vehicle will help us attract people who share our passion for community, learning and right action. We are very grateful to the fantastic IT team and other contributors who shepherded this effort to fruition. So many of us were part of creating the new format, but we must single out and thank new member Bram Moreinis. Bram brought technical skills, project management capacity and his teaching skills (to empower the rest of us!) to this project. You can see for yourself how beautiful the launch is and we will refine and add resources over time. A huge thank you Bram and all the contributors.I was installed as the new rabbi over the weekend of Hanukkah at a ceremony facilitated by my friend and teacher Rabbi Shefa Gold. Many of you were there – my old and new friends, old and new friends of the Temple as well. It was wonderful to be together in a happy and appreciative spirit. My personal thanks to the many folks who created this beautiful weekend, an excellent and loving team. The installation was another good beginning. I am finishing my first 6 months as spiritual leader of TI. I have met and fallen in love with so many of you. This is a special “rabbi” kind of love. It never runs out and there is enough for everyone. It is a love that sees us as we are – broken AND full of light. In the light of this love, we are seen as the lovely mess that each of us is. As a community, we strive to feed and support our better selves. I feel that more and more folks are finding meaningful ways into this congregation. I am so grateful to help guide this “holy yearning” into vibrant programs, classes and davenning/worship. The Semi-Annual Membership meeting is the next step in this process on Sunday January 24 from 9:30-12:00. This open meeting of members and not-yet-members will hear committee reports (short and not boring!) from active sub-groups of the temple. You will hear the goals and aspirations of our education group, adult ed, programming, ritual, sustainability and others. The second half of the meeting will be the time to co-create our calendar of events for the next 6 months and to set some general goals for the next few years as well. There is no better way for you to be part of the development of TI than to come to this meeting and add your aspirations to the mix. A delicious breakfast will be served right at 9:30 and you are invited to remain after 12 for a short Tu B’shevat/Jewish Arbor Day celebration with the Hebrew school.Please take a moment to visit our website and make a note of up-coming events which may be of interest to you, including classes (Hebrew, Compassionate Listening and Torah) and celebrations (Shabbat services, meals and other holidays).

December 27 will be an all out work day, with committee meetings, roving groups of organizers tackling room after room and a few fun and tasty surprises. 10-6 is the full day – come for all or part. See the calendar for the full schedule.Our monthly practice group on Compassionate Listening continues on the first Thursday of each month at a new time 7:00-8:30PM. Our next session will be on January 7 in the temple library. The practice group is an open drop-in group with some review and some new practice each session. At January’s meeting, we’ll review core principles of CL and practice a listening technique called Facts, Feelings and Values. Our beginner Hebrew class will restart on Thursday evening January 14-21 from 7:30 to 8:30PM. Folks who missed the fall classes are invited to come at 7:00PM for tutoring. We have texts for a few additional students. Please let me know if you plan to attend, [email protected]. Our Tuesday afternoon Torah study group, 12:30-2PM continues in its sixth year! A mixed crew of Jews and allies meets together and plows through a few chapters of Torah each week, culling insights from each other. The study group is free and open to all. Drop in!Many of our programs are free and open to all. You don’t have to join to be part of things. You don’t have to join to learn, or volunteer or daven/pray with us. But I invite you to join. I invite you to invest. I invite you to help us build our mission. Generous subvention is available for those of us with limited means. Please see our member page for other benefits and the application form.

December 27 will be an all out work day, with committee meetings, roving groups of organizers tackling room after room and a few fun and tasty surprises. 10-6 is the full day – come for all or part. See the calendar for the full schedule.Our monthly practice group on Compassionate Listening continues on the first Thursday of each month at a new time 7:00-8:30PM. Our next session will be on January 7 in the temple library. The practice group is an open drop-in group with some review and some new practice each session. At January’s meeting, we’ll review core principles of CL and practice a listening technique called Facts, Feelings and Values. Our beginner Hebrew class will restart on Thursday evening January 14-21 from 7:30 to 8:30PM. Folks who missed the fall classes are invited to come at 7:00PM for tutoring. We have texts for a few additional students. Please let me know if you plan to attend, [email protected]. Our Tuesday afternoon Torah study group, 12:30-2PM continues in its sixth year! A mixed crew of Jews and allies meets together and plows through a few chapters of Torah each week, culling insights from each other. The study group is free and open to all. Drop in!Many of our programs are free and open to all. You don’t have to join to be part of things. You don’t have to join to learn, or volunteer or daven/pray with us. But I invite you to join. I invite you to invest. I invite you to help us build our mission. Generous subvention is available for those of us with limited means. Please see our member page for other benefits and the application form.