Dear Temple Sinai Members and Friends,
The holy days and holidays are now behind us, but if you were to look at the weekly list of all the activities going on here at Temple Sinai your response would have to be “Wow!!!” The list shows a never-ending flow of activities from religious to social, from intellectual to gastronomical, from cultural to just plain fun. Please make sure that you look at the list and find those Temple Sinai activities that interest you and come on down!
This coming Shabbat is the second Torah parasha of the year and is the well-known story of Noah, the survivor of the great flood. Many ancient cultures had their survivors such as Uta-napishtim, a legendary king of the ancient city of Shuruppak in southern Iraq, who, according to the Gilgamesh Flood myth survived the flood by making and occupying a boat. Unlike Uta and other survivors, our Noah did not survive because he was some kind of a herculean warrior but rather, as the Torah tells us, he was a blameless and righteous person, the most righteous of his generation. From this early part of our bible, we already come to see our Torah tradition’s emphasis on the value of living a righteous and moral life. Interestingly enough, God tells Noah that he is going to destroy all humanity because Hamas, in Hebrew meaning violence, had become the way that people lived and treated each other. Interesting that the Hamas of today took this name. In the Torah narrative, God destroyed them by the flood.
In honor of Noah and his saving the world’s animals, Cantor Shir and I will welcome those of you with pets to join us for our Annual Blessing of the Pets this coming Saturday, to be held outside the Temple building after Shabbat morning service, around 12:30 pm. We will bless the pets as a group. Each pet owner will then bless his or her own pet and then Cantor and I will be glad to pose for photographs.
Also, in honor of Noah, in my sermon I will reflect on our environment and “global warming” and the role we as human beings play in keeping this planet earth a “healthy” planet. After all, if in last week’s opening of Genesis we read: “God said, ‘Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground”, then we have a responsibility to take care of our planet, our only planet.
This Thursday, October 23rd, aside from being the first day of the new month Cheshvan, I will be concluding my three-part series on God in Judaism. Even if you could not attend or Zoom the first two classes, you are welcome to attend this one. It will be most engaging as I will bring to the class the great theologians of the 19th and 20th centuries, Eugene Borowitz, Abraham Joshua Heschel, Martin Buber, Franz Rosenzweig, and Mordecai Kaplan and their views of God. We will then open the discussion as the class will discuss their own views and experiences of the Divine.
Please remember to put on your calendars two very important dates in the same week of November.
On Tuesday night November 18th at 7 pm here at Temple Sinai, our Temple and choir and the choir and Pastor of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Delray Beach will come together in song and prayer at the Annual Delray Beach Thanksgiving Service. Members of the Muslim, Haitian, and Baptist communities will be joining us as well. The keynote speaker will be the newly installed Chief of Police for Delray Beach, Darrell Hunter. Come and give thanks and support to the participants, and especially our new Chief of Police.
I also want you to be sure to attend the annual South Palm Beach County Israel Bonds Event on that week’s Thursday night, November 20th at 7 pm. This will be held in Boca Raton. For security, the actual location will be shared only with those who call 561.939.1369 to register. Fourteen synagogues will be present. Our Temple Sinai honorees will be Doreen Solkoff and her son Scott. Even if you cannot purchase a bond that night but hopefully did support our Temple’s Israel Bonds drive on the High Holy, Days, please also come to support the Temple’s presence and our wonderful Temple members Doreen and Scott.
I wish all of you a Shabbat Shalom and a blessed Rosh Hodesh Cheshvan.
Your Rabbi Steve