Impression after four months

We are a special family!

The Shabbat before Rosh-Chodesh (the first of the month

One Friday morning, while sitting in my office, preparing the services for the coming Shabbat I realized we will announce Rosh Chodesh/ the beginning of a new Hebrew month. I love chanting the melody recently composed by my uncle to the Rosh Chodesh prayer. Funny to think that our sages built the Jewish calendar in such a complicated way. They calculated the moons monthly route in accordance with the sun and its yearly journey (365.2422 days).

I smile to myself, in G-d’s eyes it is probably not me announcing the date. It is the Cholent of Rose Ellis (sponsored by Nathan Fishman) that does a much better job to let our Shul comers know about the coming Rosh Chodesh… Jews, with so many distinguished people, still what we enjoy most is an all-night pot of cooked beans.

Talking about food

Sometimes it seems this is the major concern of Jewish events!

Half the budget of the last AJC convention was for delivering boxes of Kosher meat all the way from Montreal. (thank you Jon for such a lovely event).

In the Youth’s Pizza evening, I had to send Josh Davis and Nathan Pink back to Superstore to buy a different cheese. Although it had a ‘Kosher’ mark on it, we won’t accept the symbol of the K with tablets. It’s just not good enough for us. Thank you for taking over the evening and praying for the soldiers in Israel).

On the way to visit some Jewish patients in the hospital I meet Linda. She sees me, and with a winning smile on her face, she takes out a list of Kosher Teas from her purse. Halleluya! What a treasure to bring the Rabbi. Everybody knows the Jews are fanatic about having their own system of Kosher food.

Who is Linda?! –  Linda is a lovely Christian lady who is in charge of the ‘Spiritual Care Department’ in the VG hospital. You might have seen her in Shul lately. It’s easy to recognize her: she’s the only Shul goers who’s not late…

Money, Money… Money

It seems to be a well known thought that the Jews are wealthy people wherever they are. You can read it in every Nazi website or pro-Palestine magazine.

Look around us and see that there are more than a few businessmen, accountants,  lawyers, financial consultants etc. in a typical Jewish community. Such economical professionals and experts will usually not spend a penny unless it is one-hundred percent justified financially. Nevertheless, whenever  see a ‘Pushke’ (Ts’daka box) or a new charity or Philanthropic organization, we are usually pleased to donate. We strictly manage our finances but for one day a week, the Shabbat, we buy the best food regardless of price? 

We are willing to pay lots of money to the Shul, but visit it so seldom.  This could be the one case where the more you use something, the cheaper it is.

Chanukah and Jewish tolerance

I received an Email from a Priest from one of the local churches who wanted to check the possibility of converting to Judaism. This was so surprising I couldn’t resist meeting him. We sat the next day together for a chat.

As Halachikly required in such cases, I tried to dismay him from the prospect. “Why not continue to live your life as you are?” I asked him. I  suggested he accept the minimum required for all G-d fearing non-Jews: just obey the seven Mitzvot of the Noachides if you really want to be a “Kosher Non-Jew”?! Why would you want to take upon yourself so many more commandments and responsibilities (at least 613), not to mention risking a Jewish fate which isn’t always so pleasant. He walked away with much to think about.

Chanukah – at the onset of the Greek rule in the land of Israel, they were quite successful in attracting Jews with their Greek culture and values. Many Jews adopted the Greek’s “advanced” culture and so-called progress.  The Jews assimilated. This wetted the Greek’s appetite even more and motivated them to try and accelerate the process by forcing their culture on those who did not embrace it by choice. Upon being violently threatened to forsake their faith, the G-d-fearing Jews were suddenly reminded that they were freed from Egypt for a reason…that’s why the famous Chanukka rebellion came to be, and the rest is history and is celebrated these days to remind us of those times of assimilation.

In the year 632 C.E. in his last visit to Mecca, Mohamed stated that all Muslims are ‘brothers’ and must not fight each other. During that time he also ruled that they must fight and kill for the sake of converting all other peoples to Islam- this mission/war is still called till to this day ‘The Jihad’.

As history unfolded, the Christians with their Crusades acted along the same lines. In plenty of countries, and with plenty of nations this worked to creating more Christians.  If it works so well for every other religion, why do we Jews not adopt this strategy? It would be appalling to most of us! Objectively speaking, such a plan would be more efficient than our current attempts to increase the Jewish birthrate and to increase the observance of Jewish laws. Obviously we are a different people than the rest of the world.

The Jewish Club House

I recently heard a nice say that “G-d is in the details”. I guess it fits also with the traditional events and miscellaneous things we do that remind us of our uniqueness.

Here are a few examples you can already chart down in your calendars J

– Cinema – Yuri Leving just started an initiative of putting up a ‘Full moon cinema’ once a month followed by a twenty minutes discussion.  Of course when he lectures about a movie in Dalhousie, the equipment is much more professional and the seats are better. But hey, he’s one of us and this won’t be a just another nice movie, it is another Jewish movie that we’ll have a discussion after that we can learn from.

– Singing group – It is fun, Ed Berkovitz is great with his keyboard and Betty Fineberg’s tenor mixes wonderfully with Adam Conter’s base voice. Although, there are other singing groups nearby that perhaps serve better refreshments, I was so happy people preferred joining the Jewish group! If we won’t give each other encouragement and boosting love- who will? I am looking forward to even a bigger crowd in May to enjoy this superb performance.     

– Hebrew – it is so amazing to see these cute kids after a full day of regular studying in which they struggle with French (in a bad Canadian accent), put a true effort in learning Hebrew. This time it is the Biblical language of their forefathers in its more modern form of today’s Hebrew. When they will eventually make that meaningful trip to Israel- they will get along fine with their Israeli-peers in the Holy land! Which leads us to the next topic.

– Names – In Israel, people have one name, in Hebrew. In Halifax most of us have an English name and an additional Hebrew name which we do not always feel  comfortable with it in the outside world but… when are together, I like the idea that we have an ethnic identification name that rings familiar to the Hebrew tongue and to the worldly Hebrew person (regardless of religious affiliation) .

– Our Kidddush – I doubt that anyone orders crackers with cheese when he/she goes to a restaurant and  where else would you eat Herring! And the price is right!

– For sure there are better spokesmen than I am, and perhaps with more interesting topics and in a better English than I have … still each Shabbat you choose to sit up at my speeches, to listen and to comment afterwards. I can’t tell you how much this means to me.  Well yes, I can…it means a lot to me and I appreciate all your helpful suggestions.

– Gym – If anyone asks me, Canada is the place where fitness awareness is at its best. An average Haligoinian person is never in a hurry and always stops the car hundred meters before the crosswalk. But when he comes to the sidewalk, everybody runs across the street.

Recently, the gym was fixed under Steven Pink’s supervision and already I received many calls to use it again for basketball. No one really thinks it’s going to be the best league in the city, still I think it’s fantastic that we have so many Jewish people who want to play together.

– The prayers and blessing for Yartzheits, birthdays and anniversaries are not normally considered to be entertainment performances…. still we show up each time when Marty sends out an Email and when Irwin/Steve call us to come. Because we care. Deep down we know these events are important, the right thing to do and that we would like our friends and Beth Israel family to come together when we have such events in our lives. It is what we have in common and keeps us together as the core-club members of the most influential club-house in human history.

Three thousand years ago Hashem took us out of Egypt,

He then gave us the precious Torah and basically told us:

Wherever and whoever YOU ARE – you are A FAMILY – stick together.

I was amazed to hear a black youth say to another black you, as they parted “Stay Black”. And so I say to you “Stay Jewish”.

It is a pleasure to celebrate in such delightful ways with such an amazing congregational family. Lechayim!

All the best & happy Chanukah

From Avia & Amram Maccabi