Dear Friends,

I recently read an essay written by my son, Simon, who is currently 15 years old.  The paper was on the pursuit of happiness, and I was pleasantly surprised that one of his primary arguments was crafted around something he had learned in Sunday school. The teaching had come from his 7th grade Sunday school teacher, Dolph Simon, who said, “In order to make a change for the better, changing your attitude in order to change your behavior will not work.  You have to change your behavior to change your attitude.”

As I read this essay, my heart swelled with pride. I was proud of Simon who found a way to apply what he was learning in Sunday school to his everyday life, and I was proud of Simon’s Sunday school teacher, Dolph, who consistently inspires our students to apply what they learn to how they live.

Reading this small part of Simon’s essay reminded me that Sunday school should not exist in isolation. The hope is that our children will apply the values they learn in class to making this world a better place.  This hope is embedded in our parenting strategies as well, as our responsibility to transmit our faith to the next generation can, at times, be very challenging.

As Jewish parents, we try our best to provide our children with ways to weave their Jewish values into the fabric of life in a secular world. We want our children to be proud and loyal to their heritage, but when the demands and rhythms of Jewish life compete with those of secular life, major challenges arise.

One of the many ways to approach these growing challenges is to model, through our own behaviors, the values we hope our children will embrace.  We often tell our children, “Do what I do and not what I say,” and the same should be true as we seek to transmit the values and customs of our faith.  In Sunday school and at home, we can talk a good talk about our Judaism, but if our children do not see us applying our Judaism to everyday life, our words simply become nods to the past. However, if we are truly committed to transferring the lessons of our heritage from generation to generation, then each of us needs to find ways to inspire our children (and others) to live what they learn.

In just a few weeks, Jews around the world will gather around their Seder tables in celebration of Passover. Through the rituals and the rites of the Seder meal, we all become students of our faith as values concerning human freedoms and issues around social justice are woven into the fabric of the Passover feast. As we re-enact the story of our ancestral Exodus from Egypt from year to year, we remind ourselves of the importance of applying the values of our heritage to the transformation of the world. This year, may we each find ways to apply what we learn to what we do.

 

Dear Friends,

In the stated core values of Houston Congregation for Reform Judaism is the idea that a small membership base is the best way to preserve a warm and intimate community. While this may indeed be true for many aspects of congregational life, it is equally true that maintaining such intimacy demands nurturing relationships regardless of how many members we may have.

Intimacy is relational, and as it is with all relationships, the intimate nature of a community is dependent on how well people know each other. Such familiarity, however, can pose a number of significant challenges.

As members come and go throughout the years, the landscape of a community morphs. New members frequently do not know anyone for extended periods of time, while longer standing members often feel most comfortable with those whom they already know. These types of challenges are common in congregations with an ever expanding membership base. With more members, it can often feel less intimate, less warm and less inviting. For many longer standing members, the ability to remain familiar with and connected to the congregational family can often be somewhat strained, as familiar faces seem to fade into a crowd of strangers.

Bridging this “familiarity gap” involves generating opportunities for members to engage each other on a regular basis, but onegs after services and holiday celebrations are very limited in terms of how well members can get to know each other. After all, how much can you learn about someone while waiting in line for a cookie on Friday night?

One of the most successful congregation-wide mixers has been the HCRJ Progressive Dinner. It has been almost ten years since we held such an event, and we are excited to announce our grandest effort ever!

Please mark your calendars for the 2019 HCRJ Progressive Dinner which will take place on Saturday night May 4.  The basic premise of the evening is to have small groups of members meet and greet over a first course at one home, a second course with a different mix of members at a second home and a fabulous dessert reception at the temple. Details regarding this program are forthcoming. Please save the date.

The 18th century Hasidic master, Rebbe Levi Yitzchak of Berdichev taught the following regarding human relationships.  He said in a lifetime “a person reaches in three directions – inward, to oneself; up to God; out to others. The miracle of life is that in truly reaching in any one direction, one embraces all three.”  It is our hope that our coming together for a Progressive Dinner in May will enable us to feed the soul as we deepen connections with one another.

 

Dear Friends,

A number of years ago, a congregant who was frustrated with dues, handed me a check for $86.00 and told me that he was covered for the year. “Covered for what?” I asked.  He explained that he only attended synagogue a few times a year and that the check should cover the amount his presence consumed in terms of running the temple’s utilities and maintenance.

This incident was one of the strangest dues related interactions I have ever had, as this individual’s sense of congregational support was extremely ill-conceived.  That said, the exchange does, indeed, reflect a strange tension between the concept of being part of a congregational family and a “pay to pray” mentality that many in the Jewish community have come to resent.

Congregations, like so many other institutions for cultural and communal gatherings, have many sources for support.  Some of this support comes in the form of annual dues and project-specific pledges.  Other ways to support a synagogue is through sponsorships and underwriting. Still others choose to support congregational efforts by volunteering. Each kind of support is valued, and each is essential to the health and mission of the institution.

Our Second Annual HCRJ Golf Tournament is part of a much broader effort to generate a culture of giving.  While golf is the current means for cultivating support, the tournament itself must be seen in light of a much greater mission.  We are trying to develop a culture of philanthropy whereby each of our members considers himself/herself to be personally invested and emotionally tied to the future of the congregation.

One does not need to play golf or bingo or mahjong to be a supporter or a volunteer.  One does not need to be in attendance at the next gala or fundraiser, to feel connected. One does not need to be a donor or an underwriter to feel appreciated and valued.  While all of these are absolutely essential to our financial bottom line, they are only part of the philanthropic mindset.

We want everyone in our community to feel connected and committed to a shared congregational mission.  Through our innovative programs, services, events and more, our goal is to reframe every effort we make as one that is rooted in a culture of giving in which personal resources, finances, time and energy are all welcome and extremely appreciated – and where everything we do, everything we give and everything we develop is entrenched in a desire to build a congregational culture of goodness, graciousness and gratitude.

Our hope is that, over time, attitudes, like the one mentioned at the beginning of this article, will no longer exist and, as we grow as a community, a culture of collective responsibility will become a driving force for our future.

 

Sometimes the etymology of words can reveal tremendous depth and meaning. Such is the case when we examine the deeper meaning behind the commonly used expression, “Thanks for your generosity.”

The word thank is related phonetically to think just as the word song is related to sing. This etymological insight helps us to understand that feelings of gratitude have long been linked to human thought.  When we receive a gift from someone, we tend to think of them in an elevated way, and this cognitive shift is directly imbedded in the way in which we express gratitude.  When we say, “Thank you,” we are essentially saying, “This gift makes me think of you.”

The origins of the word generosity are insightful as well. Rooted in the Latin word for “of noble birth,” expressions of generosity emerge from an honorable place in the human soul. Thus, when we say, “Thank you for your generosity,” we are essentially saying, “This noble offering from the depths of your soul makes me think of you.”

In April, each member of our congregation received a letter expressing a financial shortfall for this fiscal year.  The letter explained that due to a number of factors our expenses were likely going to exceed our revenue.  This letter also made a plea for financial assistance in addressing this budgetary challenge, and our membership rose to the occasion.

It is with tremendous gratitude and joy that we can report that through acts of your generosity (gifts from your soul), the financial concerns have been alleviated.  Thank you!

As we consider the response to this letter, it is important to know that the generous support was not from just a few people — we had 40 gifts and 13 increases in dues.  These numbers are significant.  They demonstrate that the health and future of a community is a collective endeavor.

Our sages taught, “Kol Yisrael Arevim Zeh Ba’Zeh – The entire community of Israel is responsible for one another.”  This statement stresses the idea that Jews in general and our congregational family in particular share a common destiny, and we need each other to achieve it. Your responses to the pleas of our community are a profound demonstration of this long standing Jewish value.

Indeed, whenever we gather to worship, celebrate, learn, mourn and serve, we take these ancient words to heart.  We are all in this together.  We are all responsible for our collective destiny.  We share a responsibility to the youngest through the oldest members of our community, and like a big family, we seek to provide for the present as we ensure stability for the future.  For all this and so much more, “Thank you for your generosity.”

At the end of every Jewish worship service, our concluding prayers include the Adoration or Aleinu, which contains a powerful statement regarding the human partnership with God in the establishment of a perfect world to come.  This messianic hope states that it is our responsibility to “perfect the world under the sovereignty of God.” In Hebrew, the phrase “to perfect the world” is “tikkun olam.”

While there may be many ways to interpret this eternal mission and many pathways to its realization, this article entitled, A Tale of Two Mitzvahs, will focus on two specific commandments and two remarkable members of our congregation who have employed them to perfect the world in which we live.  Each of these commandments is part of the Holiness Codes which are read from the Torah on Yom Kippur afternoon.  They come from the Book of Leviticus and shape our understanding of morality.

You shall not insult the deaf nor place a stumbling block before the blind. (Lev. 19:14)

You shall not stand idly by the blood of your neighbor. (Lev. 19:16)

The ethics embodied by the first of these commandments helps define human decency. The second of these commandments demands accountability.  Both constitute the framework for my Tale of Two Mitzvahs.

When Mort Fefer started recording books for the blind, he did so because it combined his deep love of math and science, his innate passion for teaching and his boundless desire to help others.  In his heart, he knew that blindness should not be an impediment to learning mathematics and chemistry.  So he took it upon himself to remove that stumbling block by recording audio versions of math and chemistry books for blind students.

Mort’s work was more than a labor of love. It was a mitzvah.  Try to imagine how complicated it would be to describe the abstract concepts found in Geometry, Calculus or Chemistry without the use of visuals.  How does one describe a shape to someone who has never seen a circle or a triangle? Yet, this is exactly what Mort did, and in doing so, he took to heart the Torah’s commandment regarding placing a stumbling block before the blind.

Whenever we proactively involve ourselves in repairing the world (tikun olam), we embrace the spirit of the second commandment mentioned above as well, for whenever we actively address an injustice, we make a conscious decision to “not stand idly by.” In Judaism, a bystander has a moral obligation to rescue someone who is in peril. This religious obligation has parameters, but it is understood to be an ethical and legal responsibility to extend ourselves, in whatever way we can, when a fellow human is in danger.

For years, Joel Androphy (a prominent Houston defense attorney) witnessed countless court cases where inadequate legal representation led to overly harsh and often unfair punishments to African American men who could not afford to pay for decent legal counsel.  On Yom Kippur afternoon in 2016, Joel had an epiphany.  During the afternoon service, Pastor Harvey Clemons Jr (a Baptist minister in Houston’s Fifth Ward) delivered a profoundly moving sermon on the Prophet Isaiah.  In it, Pastor Clemons challenged our community to find ways to move the prayers of our hearts into positive transformation in the world.

Upon hearing the Pastor’s plea, Joel refused to stand on the sidelines. He could not stand idly by while economic injustices were unfolding around him, so he immediately set up a program in conjunction with Pastor Clemons to provide top quality, pro bono legal services to young men who needed it.  This program came with one stipulation for those men who chose to work with Joel. This stipulation required these young men to give their time and energy to the church in exchange for legal counsel. In just two years, the program had become so successful that it was awarded the 2018 Harris County Bench Bar Pro Bono Award by the Houston Bar Association and the Harris County judiciary.

The commandments against “standing idly by” and “placing a stumbling block before the blind” might be considered to be among Judaism’s most important directives for human decency in the world.  Each definitively states that it is an admonition to take advantage of others and calls upon us to take action demanding that society and people do everything possible to help the weak, the vulnerable and the helpless. May we find guidance in these commandments and inspiration from Mort and Joel who help us see how to translate them into our lives.

 

My family (on my mother’s side) came from Hungary.  Some have attributed my love of food from this family lineage.  Others have said it is the source of my short temper.  Regardless of what character traits may have found their way into my personality from my Hungarian heritage, this lineage continues to be a source of great pride for my family, and whenever we meet Hungarian Jews long discussions about pastry and goulash are sure to follow.

The Jewish presence in the region now known as Hungary is very old.  Like the Jews of most parts of the diaspora, early Jewish communities in Hungary were the result of the destruction of the Second Temple by the Romans.  Some sources suggest that several communities within the early Hungarian tribes practiced Jewish religion.

These early Jewish communities began to blossom during the second half of the 11th century due to large numbers of immigrants from Germany, Bohemia and Moravia. These Jews settled in the towns of Buda, Esztergom, Sopron, Tata and Old Buda. While life may have been better for Hungarian Jews than in other parts of Europe, restrictions were placed on Jews by Christian clergy and institutions which shaped the community in very specific ways.  In 1092, the Church forbade Jews from intermarrying Christians, working on Sundays and Christian holidays and purchasing slaves. Despite these prohibitions, Hungary served as a haven, and by the end of the 11th century, life for the Jews of Hungary was relatively good.

During the 12th century, Jews came to hold positions of leadership in many economic institutions. These positions elevated the Jewish community in Hungarian society.  During this period, Jews were afforded many legal rights which they did not have elsewhere in Europe, and they were welcomed and supported by the king.  Yet, despite this support from the throne, the Jewish population suffered from many anti-Jewish policies from the church and the nobility. In these anti-Jewish circles, Jews were banned from holding particular offices in the government, prohibited from leasing land and were forced to wear badges. Luckily, many of these anti-Jewish measures were not carried out because of the king’s objections.

For centuries life for Hungarian Jews shifted from acceptance to rejection depending on who was in power.  In the 1300’s, Jews were blamed for the Black Death and expelled from Hungary, but returned in great numbers a century later. These tensions existed for generations, but by the First World War, the Jews of Hungary were fairly well integrated into Hungarian society.  By the early 20th century, the community had grown to constitute 5% of Hungary’s total population and 23% of the population of the capital, Budapest. Jews became prominent in science, the arts and business.

With the rise of nationalism in Europe, Anti-Jewish policies grew more repressive. Hungary’s decision to align itself with the governments of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, became a death blow to the Jewish community in Hungary. It was during this period that my family, like so many others, found its way to the United States.  Sadly, most of the Jews who remained in Hungary after 1938 were murdered.

The heritage of Hungarian Jewry is long and beautiful, and those who share these ethnic roots find kinship whenever they meet.  Among the many Hungarian Jews I have met in Houston, the most famous is Ziggy Gruber of Kenny and Ziggy’s Deli.  Ziggy will be our guest “rabbi” once again at our Fourth Annual Deli Shabbos (see details below).  We hope you can join us for a fabulous culinary and spiritual exploration into the world of Hungarian Jewry.

This year, Purim and Passover both fall in the month of March, which invites a rare opportunity to discuss these holidays together in the same bulletin article. It is interesting to note that the proximity of these holidays on the Jewish calendar was very deliberate from the start. Amidst a long discussion concerning the celebration of Purim, the Talmud argues (Megillah 6b) that it is preferable to juxtapose the redemption story found in the Book of Esther with the redemption story found in of the Book of Exodus.

In other words, our sages sought to conceptually link the Exodus of the Jewish people from Egypt and the salvation of the Jewish people from the genocidal designs of Haman by placing the celebrations of each of these events in close proximity on the Jewish calendar.  Knowing what we know about each of these biblical stories and how we celebrate them, it would be natural to question why the sages structured the calendar to ensure such proximity.

As we consider Passover and Purim, the mood and celebration of each could not be more different.   Passover is a Torah-based holiday whose fundamental observances are rooted in Torah law; Purim is a rabbinic holiday whose laws and customs are grounded in the rabbinic tradition. Passover is a week-long festival that demands tremendous preparation and an ongoing focus on the meaning and value of the themes of the season; Purim is a single day of fun and folly.

Theologically, these two holidays present us with very different messages as well. God is ever-present in the story of the Exodus, while the Book of Esther is the only book in the entire Bible that does mention God at all.  Furthermore, each story presents a very different kind of path to redemption. The redemption celebrated on Passover is completely passive, as the miracles of the burning bush, the ten plagues, and the splitting of the sea constitute the primary forces that lead to our salvation as a people.

In stark contrast, the redemption which takes place in the story of Purim is a human endeavor led by Esther and Mordechai, who take full control of their own destiny and the destiny of the Jewish people. In this less “mythical” version of salvation, Esther and Mordechai utilized their wisdom, ingenuity and knowledge of human nature to shape the outcome of Jewish history.

Thus, in their narrative recounting and ritual observances, Passover and Purim reflect two very different models of salvation.  One comes from a power beyond us.  The other comes from a power within us.

Both of these concepts of salvation and redemption are core to who are as Jews. Each provides a model for faith and action and leads to the sense of renewal associated with the coming of spring.

 

Over the years, HCRJ has had numerous congregational fundraisers. This year, our ONLY annual fundraiser will be a golf tournament. We know that not everyone golfs, and we know that not everyone who golfs will be able to participate in the event, but we also know that dues alone do not pay for everything we do. We need the help of everyone this year. In other words…Not a golfer? We need your help…From volunteering, to joining us for lunch, or making a financial contribution to our fundraiser, there are many ways to support this event. We are currently $17,000 away from reaching our fundraising goal of
$40,000. Your support is crucial in helping us achieve this.