INSIDE THIS ISSUE Services Under the Stars ........................ 2 Hineynu ....................................................... 3 President’s Message.................................. 4 50th Anniveresary .................................... 5 Service Times ............................................. 6 Israel’s Gone Platinum HH Concert .... 7 Q&A/CBS Staff........................................... 8 CBS Connections...................................... 9 B’nai Mitzvah ............................................ 10 Youth/Young Family Programming….11 School ........................................................ 12 Keruv ......................................................... 13 CBS University/HAZAK ........................ 14 Social Action ............................................ 15 Sisterhood................................................. 16 Men’s Club .......................................... 17-19 Milestones ................................................. 20 Save the Date ........................................... 21 CBS Annual Meeting .............................. 22 Live Streaming ......................................... 23 Birthdays/Anniversaries ................... 24-25 Yahrzeits ............................................. 26-27 Donations ........................................... 28-29 Ads ........................................................ 30-31 High Holiday Honors ............................. 32 Rabbi ................................................... Aaron Melman Cantor ..................................................Steven Stoehr Assistant Rabbi ..................................... Ari Averbach Executive Director ............................ Michael Garlin Director of Jewish Life & Learning ................................................. Leann Blue Director of Education .......................... Stacy Ybarra Ritual Director ............. Cantor Raquel P. Gershon Director of Youth Activities................ Matt Rissien Controller ......................................... Susan Karlinsky President ......................................... Debbie Solomon Sisterhood President..........................Leatte Gelfeld Men’s Club President ................................. Dan Sher USY President ................................ David Zelkowitz Rabbi Emeritus .......................................Carl Wolkin Executive Director Emeritus .................................... Harvey Gold, FSA z’l Director of Education Emeritus ................... Rabbi Sander J. Mussman, RJE SHALOM INFO Shalom is published monthly by Congregation Beth Shalom, 3433 Walters, Northbrook, Illinois 60062-3298 for the exclusive use of its members and staff. All material contained herein is the property of Congregation Beth Shalom.
JUNE/JULY 2018 • VOLUME 62 ISSUE 32
JUNE/JULY 2018 • VOLUME 62 ISSUE 32 Rabbi Averbach
RABBI AVERBACHS REVELATIONS “Aicha!” is the exclamation that starts Tisha B’Av’s reading, Book of Lamentations recounts Judah’s last bleeding. Concerns itself with when Jerusalem fell During the time of mighty Bavel. Everyone was banished, out they poured For the sins committed against the Lord. Gone were the days of the Temple so holy Heathens had influenced them surely but slowly. In came Nebuchadnezzar, army and all Jeremiah would weep and scream and bawl: “King Zedekiah, you were our last hope Leading us away from this downward slope. Manasseh was wicked, worshipping idol Now our great enemy has become genocidal. Our fate is locked, and out we scoot Passed the known territory, into galut.” Quiet now, our city on the hill Reticent to speak that voice small and still. Silence for our history in each of its components Tisha B’Av honors those moments. Usually we eat, but that day we fast Venerating the horrific times of our past. Wailing and mourning and sitting on the floor Xeric land we are still longing for. Year after year, we read Jeremiah’s lament Zion awaiting our imminent ascent.
As is probably obvious by the above, the book Aicha (Lamentations), which we read on Tisha B’Av (July 22), is a series of acrostic poems. Thought to be written by Jeremiah as the Babylonians burned Jerusalem and took all the Jews into exile in 586 BCE, it is a great work of theodicy. Jeremiah looks into the deep “HOW?” of the moment. How could God desert the Jews, the chosen people? If God is good and just, how can we justify the destruction of God’s home, the Holy Temple in Jerusalem? Jeremiah then gives reasons: we deserted God; we worshipped idols; we turned our backs on our history and Torah; Jerusalem is crying out for us, God has been searching for us; we failed to hear the call and this is our punishment, the Babylonians are just tools for God to carry out the plan. On Tisha B’Av, we mourn Jerusalem’s fall by the Babylonians, as well as the second destruction by the Romans in 70 CE, which also happened on the ninth day of the month of Av. This day has been noted as one of the saddest throughout the years – the destruction of the city of Betar and killings of 100,000 Jews in 132 CE, the first Crusade declared by Pope Urban II in 1095, the beginning of the Spanish Inquisition in 1492, the first day of World War I in 1914, the mass deportation of Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto to Treblinka in 1942. This month, as we read this lament, we remember the atrocities of our history, and the fact that despite all of them, we are still here. Just as we would never celebrate alone, we as a community never mourn alone. On the evening of July 21
and the morning of July 22, we read Aicha and wrestle with all the ancient, painful questions.