Festival is Coming!

In case you missed it, the Monmouth Festival of the Arts, our temple's annual juried arts show, is rapidly approaching. Part of the festival is the annual student art competition. The Asbury Park Press ran a great story about it including several photos of the students' work. Great job, MFA volunteers. This looks to be a great start to MFA 2009.

Do not forget to sign up for volunteer shifts, to become a patron or benefactor and to submit ads for the annual journal. You can sign up on line here. MFA is one of our temple's longest running and biggest programs every year. Please get involved! A quick look at the student art work will show the quality of the program. The photo at left shows the first prize winner, "Chemistry Self Portrait," a pen and ink drawing by Mary Fenton of Wall High School.

The Torah is for Kvelling

I have to brag. My older son chanted from the Torah on Thursday during the services at his school. It was his first time to chant publicly and he was absolutely amazing. I admit that I had my doubts. Tuesday night I learned that he had not really practiced and I was sure that he wouldn't be able to pull it off. He needed to study for two tests and a quiz, he had extracurricular activities and we were dealing with the flu in our house. 36 hours was nearly impossible. But Wednesday night he came to the temple to practice from the scroll and he was great (bar mitzvah students warning: do not try this at home. You must study weekly and not put off your preparations until the night before you bar mitzvah!). Almost every bar/bat mitzvah student I work with hears the same thing from me when they read the Torah from the scroll for the first time: "There are a thousand reasons you should not be standing here to read from this scroll. From the historical attempts to destroy Jews to the simple things like a dead car battery, you standing at the Torah and reading it was not guaranteed. You represent every Jew who ever stood as you do before the scroll and every Jew who never had the chance. You also represent the future of the Jewish people for without Jewish people keeping this central tradition, we will have no Judaism." I have been with hundreds of 12 year olds for that moment. They are incredible. But nothing compares to the moment my own son stood before his peers and chanted Vaera like a hazzan.

Ironically, I had a conversation this morning about Baldwin Davidson, may his memory be a blessing. In cleaning out his apartment, Baldy's son found two books that he wanted to pass on: a copy of S.Y. Agnon's "Days of Awe" with an inscription from me thanking Baldy for all his years of service leading the corps of ushers and a worn copy of the Torah. Baldy had written on the inside cover of the Torah the name of the portion and the date that he had read publicly from the scroll. Baldy came to Torah reading late in life. He didn't know Hebrew, let alone trope or parshanut. But several years ago with the help of many good friends - especially Karen Karl, Rabbi Priesand and Cantor Clissold, Baldwin learned to read from the Torah and did it for our congregation a few times every year. He always dressed in a suit and got nervous before he read, but every time he read, it reminded me how important it is to read the Torah. And I kvelled. That is what the Torah is really for. Kvelling.

You may not be able to learn a portion in 36 hours, but that doesn't mean you can't learn. It's your turn now. Everyone who reads this should read from the Torah. Call me and we'll get started.

Who says they can't agree

Listen to this interview from the Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC today. Zev Chafets (an Israeli writer and journalist) and Ghaith al-Omari (Palestinian communal leader and former PA negotiator) discuss the morality of the war in Gaza. Both agree that Hamas is immoral and largely bears the blame for the situation in Gaza. It's worth hearing, especially al-Omari, who comes in to the second half of the interview. Lehrer, for his part, is pretty tough with his questions and doesn't let either one off the hook so easily.

No Room for Gray

There's no room for gray in our ultimate assessment of Hamas and Israel's response to it in Gaza. Hamas is a militant Islamic terrorist group that seeks nothing short of the destruction of Israel and the murder of Jews. They must be stopped and prevented from further carrying out their mission. This is sometimes difficult for liberals like us to express so clearly. We see the gray in everything including Hamas and Gaza. The deaths of innocent civilians and so many children among them revolts us, the humanitarian crisis upsets us, and the idea that Gazans have a right to choose their own leaders - even if it's Hamas - strikes a chord at least in theory. But sometimes there's no room for gray. The true nature of Hamas is evident through their own words.

Jeffrey Goldberg, a writer with the Atlantic Monthly, reports two good examples in his blog:

Nizzar Rayyan [the Hamas leader killed earlier this week], was one of the more
bellicose Hamas leaders I have known. I saw him last in Gaza two years ago, at a
mosque in the Jabalya Refugee Camp…. There was no flexibility with Rayyan. This
is what he said when I asked him if he could envision a 50-year hudna (or
cease-fire) with Israel: "The only reason to have a hudna is to prepare yourself
for the final battle. We don't need 50 years to prepare ourselves for the final
battle with Israel." There is no chance, he said, that true Islam would ever
allow a Jewish state to survive in the Muslim Middle East. "Israel is an
impossibility. It is an offense against God."What are our crimes? I asked
Rayyan. "You are murderers of the prophets and you have closed your ears to the
Messenger of Allah," he said. "Jews tried to kill the Prophet, peace be unto
him. All throughout history, you have stood in opposition to the word of God."

Goldberg also pointed out this recent pronouncement from Hamas leadership:

Mahmoud Zahar, the Hamas leader, issued a warning this week to Jewish
parents: Your children, he said, are targets: "They have legitimised the
murder of their own children by killing the children of Palestine," Mahmoud
Zahar said in a televised broadcast recorded at a secret location. "They
have legitimised the killing of their people all over the world by killing
our people."

Put aside Zahar's chutzpah -- Hamas has been happily killing Jewish children for years. What's important is that he is making an explicit plea to jihadists everywhere to take matters into their own hands and kill Jews.

None of us would deny the terrible price that Gazan civilians pay in this conflict. None of us cheer the death and destruction. But none of us should hold illusions about the nature of the conflict and the nature of the enemy. In that regard, this is black and white.