09/30/2009

High Holydays 5770  2009 Appeal

Rosh Hashana:  Sheldon and Lucile Lichtblau

Yom Kippur:  Avi Dresner and Alice Swersey

                              SHELDON

My inspiration for this appeal comes from the name of our temple, Netivot Torah, paths to the torah.  I’ve taken the liberty of changing it a bit to Netivot Taschi, paths to the pocket, or pocketbook.

The first path comes from my childhood schul, Temple Emanuel of Union City, NJ and is called the “Geschrei/Heysidonder” technique.  Here the President of the schul stands on the bima and geschries, invoking the Rabbi’s salary, the chazans’s payment, the high cost of coal to heat the temple etc.  After which, the heysidonder- maybe you don’t know what a heysidonder is?  Well, when the President gets up to make his appeal a couple, a few, some, a lot of people, stand up to leave the schul and this loud voice booms out, “HEY!  SID DOWN DERE!”  That technique was appropriate for my schul but not very effective.

Another approach is called the Fagin approach.  This is where I stand before you and say “Ladies and gentlemen,  be very careful.  There are pickpockets among you.”  As everyone pats his or her pocket or pocketbook for reassurance, my confederates  identify the easy targets.

  Needless to say, this is an effective ploy but not appropriate to a temple.

Another example comes from the retail trade and is known as “The T.O.”This is where a salesperson has a real, live customer but is unable to clinch the sale.  He or she then resorts to “the T.O.” or “Turn Over” to another salesperson who usaully is able to finish the sale.

Since the Jews are a “stiffnecked” group, I’m going to T.O. you to that bundle of intelligence, wit and charm, my wife, Lucile.

                                                LUCILE

My first Temple was Reform, The Barnert Temple, B’Nai Jeshurin in Paterson, NJ.  It had a center aisle with pews on either side, a pulpit, a round stained glass window, an organ, a  choir and a cantor with an operatic voice. The service was almost entirely in English and the congregation never sang a note. Our Rabbi, Rabbi Raisin was an elderly man who asked important questions.  One year on Rosh Hashonah when I was about ten, the subject of his sermon  was “Is there A God?”

I very much wanted to know the answer to this particular question but I fell asleep somewhere in the middle and when I woke up the organ was playing and the  choir was singing and I had missed my chance to find out.  I went to Sunday school there every Sunday but we didn’t talk about God.  Bea Raisin, the Rabbi’s daughter, ran the class and what she taught I have never forgotten. She told us that we were the representatives of Jews world wide so where ever we went we had to stare straight ahead, keep our mouths shut and our knees close together.  To this day I look like a political prisoner whenever I ride a bus. I think of this Temple as my parent’s Temple.

My second Temple was also Reform.  Temple Sinai, in Tenafly NJ.  It had a  round  shape and  many aisles with  light wood pews, a  pulpit backed by an imposing wooden ark, a stained glass window, an organ, a choir and a cantor with an operatic voice. The service was almost entirely in English and the congregation never sang a note.  Our Rabbi, Rabbi Blank was a relatively young man who  had marched with Martin Luther King and had risked his life on more than one occasion.  He was a modern rabbi  and the questions he asked in his sermons had to do with events that were in the news. Three of our four sons had their bar mitzvah at this temple and they all learned to live socially responsible lives in great part because of Rabbi Blank. The night before our oldest son’s bar mitzvah, the assistant Rabbi conducted the service.  We sat in tn a circle in the social hall and the assistant

Rabbi played the guitar.   We sang Kumbaya.  My mother in law shot me a

  look that said life as she knew it was over. And she was right.  I think of this Temple as my children’s Temple.

My third Temple was Bet Havoruth, a group we joined when Rabbi Blank retired and Temple Sinai  imploded.  Bet Havoruth was Reform.  It was made up of thirty or forty families who met on Friday nights in each other’s homes. For the High Holy Days we met in Montammy Country Club in Cresskill NJ which had a ballroom with gold chandeliers and a mirrored ceiling.  We had  a collapsible traveling ark,an organ, a choir, and a cantor with an operatic voice.  The service was almost entirely in English and the congregation never sang a note. Bet Havaruth had several Rabbi’s in its twenty six year history.  The first one told jokes and left to go into his father-in-law’s business,  the rag trade. The second was a brilliant but  unrepentant hawk with a reverence for all things military and the the third was a nice young peacenik.  We called his sermons “Bridge Sermons” because he made them up on the fly every Friday night as he drove across the George Washington Bridge.  Whatever the sermon was and which ever Rabbi gave it, there was a fight afterwards and sometimes during, which most of

the congregants called a discussion.   I  think of this Temple as my

friend’s Temple.

My fourth Temple is the Chatham Synogogue, Netivot Torah. It is unaffiliated. It has a medium sized, light filled room with no aisles, no choir, no cantor, no sermon and everybody sings.  The service is at least half in Hebrew  with an English translation on the side and transliteration for everybody, like me, who needs it.  Our Rabbi is Or Rose.  He comes for the High Holy Days and also every few weeks to keep us on our toes, ask important questions, give us a historic persective, let us get a peep at Judith and the twins and provide spiritual guidance and counsel, wit and wisdom. We have five or six members who are capable of leading a Saturday morning service and two members who gallantly lead our Torah discussion which follows. I never fall asleep.

  I am still grappling with the god question, although I had a glimmer of an answer one Saturday morning during a family service which was attended by one of our sons and two of his children then aged six and four.  The six year old, Ori, had made a connection with a beautiful older woman of seven or eight during story time outside, led by Nancy Rothman.  When they came in for the kiddush, Ori and his lady friend went to the buffet table and came away with identical plates piled high with noodle pudding, egg salad, humus and an apple apiece.  As I watched them eating and schmoozing over their lunch, the answer to the God question seemed tantalizingly close after all these years. I think of this Temple as my Temple.

   Of course, it is also yours.  It belongs to all of us. We do not charge for tickets to the High Holy Day services or for weekly attendance at our Saturday morning services.  We have a monthly Jewish movie night for which we do charge a nominal fee but we serve delicious refreshments afterwards.  We urge you all to come to our services, our movie nights our current event discussions and other events throuout the year and to become members.  We urge you all to fill out the card in the envelope in your prayer book and give to our Temple and yours, generously, so that we can continue to serve this community, to answer what ever questions you may have, and to be a place where your children and your children’s children can hear a story, share an apple and schmooze to their heart’s content.  Thank you. Shabbat shalom. Happy New Year.

                                                          AVI

Good Yuntof, Shana Tova, and gmar chatimah tova – may you be sealed for blessing.

For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Avi Dresner, co-chair of the synagogue Development Committee, which means it’s my job to get you to take these envelopes [hold one up] home, and send them back stuffed with hundred dollar bills, or a check, if you prefer.

It’s a real challenge figuring out how to do that each year and, for those of you who were here last year, I tried to do it by delivering the now famous and to some, infamous, Buffet appeal.  Without going into too much detail – inspired by the financial crisis, which hit at this time last year – I delivered my speech as if it were a letter to our congregation from Warren Buffet.

For those of you who were here then, who don’t already know, you might be interested to learn that I sent the appeal to Mr. Buffet afterwards, and received a handwritten reply about two weeks later, which said “Avi, if it works in Chatham, you can use it in Manhattan & Beverly Hills – Warren.”  Alas, there was no check included so, if you don’t respond to this year’s appeal, I may have to sell the letter.  But for now, this year, I’m going to speak not as Warren Buffet, but as myself.

Those of you who know me know that I’m a Reform Rabbi’s son.  I grew up in a typical suburban congregation in Wayne, NJ, and, unlike Alice, got to see far more of synagogue life than anyone ever should – the politics, the pettiness, and the sheer mishugeness that comes with any organization and any human endeavor, but particularly with Jewish ones.

I told myself that when I grew up, I’d never belong to a synagogue, much less become an insider – a board member, no less – and yet here I am.  That is a testament to the kind of shul and the kind of community we are.

In life, we are all insiders and we are all outsiders, in different contexts.  In this shul, everyone is an insider.  The only thing that is required to be one is an open heart, and a willingness to share that heart and your time and talents with others.

It’s easy to open your wallet, and I hope that each of you will do so to the extent that you can, but that’s not why we’re here tonight, or why this community exists.  The truth is that our tent is open to you whether you give or not, and this free service is proof enough of that.

But our hearts and our hands are also open to you, and I hope you’ll grab on to them over the course of this most sacred of days, and join us throughout the year as an insider in this open tent that we have made our home.

May you be inscribed for blessing.  Amen.

                                                          ALICE

Shana tova!                              

OK I am going to ask you for money. (hold up the envelope)

 (Phew), Now that I got that out of the way,

You already heard from Sheldon and Lucile last week- about Lucile's temple history- how after being involved with her parents' and then her children's temples she finally came home to us and found her temple

A lot of folks could relate to that, I'm sure.

So how did I, the child of socialists, communists and artists, I, unlike Avi, who never stepped into a synagogue until my late teens, get to stand up here in front of all of you?

I grew up in a family where there was a distinct dislike of religion. Don't get me wrong, we were a big close knit clan and we always gathered together- 30 or more of us- for holidays and sometimes even had Jewish foods.

I did not grow up with a tradition of synagogue but I grew up pretty Jewish.  Lots of people in New York City were Jewish and I felt comfortable as a "cultural" Jew.

Marrying Burt Swersey, fifty years ago, brought me into a synagogue-somewhat under protest

We deferred to his parents who wanted some traditions.  I on the other hand I would have liked a hippie affair- flowers in my hair, tie-died skirt, peasant blouse.....but it  had not even been invented yet- it was only 1959.   

I was always good with the holiday feasts- always a foodie- I learned to cook more Jewish foods than my mother had.....so I found a place at the table.  That was good.

Our children arrived -we lived in the suburbs of Westchester County.  A new synagogue was being formed and our friends thought we'd be interested.....we were- sort of.....we learned....we got involved...I taught music....learning the chants from the Rabbi (who could not sing) and the Cantor (who had an operatic voice) and a young woman named Debbie Friedman who had not yet published her songs- I heard them and, wrote them down and taught them....

The music spoke to me.....I created a singing community down there and I am still singing...here with all of you......

The sounds, the tastes and smells appealed to me....I was becoming a visceral Jew.

And then ten years ago here in these hills, this shul found me and I found this unadorned, unpretentious place of learning, of tradition and of contemporary thought.  This is a place where my talents are valued- not only my love of food and music- but also my leadership and organizational skills.  So I work hard here and receive support and encouragement from all of you.

This is a place where people whose path is quite different come together. Some grew up in Yeshiva, some grew up without any formal Jewish education, and some didn't even grow up Jewish at all- and converted later in life.  And yet, we all find ourselves here as vital parts of The Chatham Synagogue Netivot Torah.

Here we question, we argue, we discuss, we agree, we disagree and we respect.  We are a community.

I think we are very special and so I stand here before you today.

If you feel that you are or would like to be a part of what we have here.... you do the math..... (hold up the envelope)

Happy New Year