With Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur behind us, our attention now turns to zma’an simchateynu — the season of our joy. Joy, of course, takes real work, and maintaining this Jewish Center is an enormous joy coupled with a lot of work for everyone involved.

Without the Board of Trustees and Synagogue Officers, the many and various Committee members, and Chairs, the office staff and Edith, the custodial staff and Anderson, and without our beloved clergy, this would really be a difficult place to find joy in.

It is with our friends and colleagues at EMJC, that we plan events, attend lectures and movies, daven and pray at daily and Shabbat minyans, listen to Torah, and learn what it means to be Jewish in Brooklyn, USA in the 21st Century.

We raise our children in this community and teach them the joy of being Jewish. We tend to the elderly in our community, and share the joys of being Jewish. We say bruchas over mitzvot together, bless the Sabbath and holidays, enjoy simchas together, and kvell at each others’ blessings and good fortune. We tend to each other’s tragedies and shortcomings, wish each other good health, visit the sick, and are present when our friends mourn, and say Kaddish. We say amen together.

Summer is really over, yet, we are joyous. Our lives together are joyous, and we’re thankful for all of the blessings that the East Midwood Jewish Center has offered us. Primarily, we are thankful for the blessing of Community.

Our joy is in working to ensure that EMJC thrives on a solid footing and will be here for many tomorrows, as it is for us, today.

Larry Isaacson & Michael Sucher
EMJC Presidents

It's Simchat Torah! Join us for the unrolling of the scroll, on Saturday, October 10, 2009.

Services, including Hakafot, begin at 6pm in the Grand Ballroom.

Followed by: a guided tour of the Torah, led by Cantor Sam Levine.

Reading the Bible the Kugel Way
The Henry R. Goldberg Memorial Lecture Series
Tuesdays, 8:00pm, beginning October 13 (10 lecture series)
Lecturer: Rabbi Dr. Alvin Kass
$40 members, $50 non-members

Hebrew Language - Morning Class
Mondays, 10:30 - 11:30am, beginning October 26
A course for beginners and those who have some basic skills in Hebrew.
Instructor: Rachel Povarsky
$40 members, $50 non-members

EMJC Chorus
Wednesdays, 7:30 - 9:!5pm, beginning October 21
Come join us as we prepare for the Interfaith Thanksgiving Service, a Chanukah mini-concert, choral selections for Shabbat services, and more! Always looking for new members!
Director: Cantor Sam Levine
$18 members, $25 couples, $36 non-members (suggested)

Shvitzing with Sally
Tuesdays, 7:00 - 8:00pm, beginning October 13
Exercise with weights to Jewish music; good for both the body and the soul!
Instructor: Sally Hipscher
$45 members, $55 non-members

Kibbitz with the Cantor
First meeting on Sunday, November 15, 7:30pm (following meetings on 2/14 and 5/16)
Informal discussions on timely issues - hosted in members' homes.
Please RSVP through the EMJC office.
Moderator: Cantor Sam Levine
Free of Charge

Arab-Israeli Conflict Reading Group
Next session on Sunday, December 6, 7:30 - 9:00 pm. Others TBA
Pick up the reading packet at EMJC (in November) and join in on provocative and challenging discussions on writings by some of the New Historians and other writers
Moderator: Cantor Sam Levine
$18 members, $25 non-members (free for prior enrollees)

Nevi'im - The Prophets: An examination of the weekly Haftarah
Thursdays, 6:30 - 7:30pm, beginning October 15
Discussion of the Haftarah of the coming Shabbat and how it ties into the weekly Torah portion. This class will take place immediately prior to the ma'ariv service on Thursday evenings.
Instructor: Judith Berman
$18 members, $25 non-members (free for prior enrollees)

The Mystery of the Sabbath: Unlocking the Shabbat Service through Text Study, Examination of Ritual, and Classic Cantorial Recordings
Mondays 8:00 - 9:00pm, beginning October 19
This course is for novices and regular shul-goers alike. We will examine the Shabbat service with the aim of opening it up and taking the mystery out. How is the service structured? What do the prayers mean? How does music service to affect the atmosphere of the service? Come and learn!
Instructor: Cantor Sam Levine
$40 members, $50 non-members

Torah Study
Thursdays, 10:00 - 11:00am in the Board Room (4th floor)
Moderator: Cantor Sam Levine
$40 members, $50 non-members
Continuing studies in the Book of Exodus - join us for a fascinating discussion. No prior knowledge necessary.

Israeli Folk-Dance mini-Series
Thursdays, 7:30 - 8:30pm, October 15, 22, 29 (3-week course)
Come learn some new Israeli folk dances with Faige, a noted and experienced folk-dance teacher. (We will attempt to extend the course if there is sufficient interest.)
$24 members, $28 non-members

The Morton Binder Study Session Lunch and Learn
First session (date TBA): Biblical Questions and Answers in George Bernard Shaw's plays Major Barbara, St. Joan, and others
Guest Lecturer: Dr. Rhonda B. Nathan

My teacher, the late Abraham Joshua Heschel, once said that Judaism must be caught, not taught. By that he meant that religious loyalty and observance are the consequence primarily of emotional convictions, not just cognitive insights. We are constantly bombarded by countless stimuli which add to our knowledge of the world; but what ultimately affects our behavior is the whole constellation of experiences throughout our life which have assigned strong emotional value to certain instructions while others fall on deaf ears.

I always tell conversion students that I can teach them all the facts they need to know about Judaism; but I can’t give them Jewish memories. I can instruct a person on how to light candles on Friday evening, for example; however, I can’t transmit the emotional attachment that a Jewish person feels toward such rituals as a result of
watching his mother and grandmother do this from the time he was a child. I indicate to my students that they have to be patient with themselves. Many Jewish rituals will seem strange and artificial at first; but the longer you do them the more attached you become to them and the more they become a natural component of your behavioral routine. Converts have to create their own memories over time. Conversely,
Franz Rosenzweig, the eminent philosopher, flirted with the idea of converting to Christianity as a young man; because he had come to the conclusion that Judaism lacked emotional depth and the capacity to touch the soul. Even though Judaism might be more rational and logical, that wasn’t enough for Rosenzweig. He needed and wanted a religion that had intensity and a sense of engagement. It was only when he became convinced that Judaism could also reach the depths of the human heart and soul that he decided to remain Jewish. That fateful resolution was reached, not by rational argumentation but emotional experience.

I recall as a student in college that we often had “bull sessions” in the dorm about whether God existed. Not infrequently, on the basis of the epistemological criteria we mastered in our philosophy classes, we succeeded in “disproving” the existence of a Supreme Deity. Then immediately thereafter we would pause to daven minha and maariv. Logically that may not make sense. If there is no God, why should we pray? Clearly our emotional loyalties at the time superseded our rational conclusions. Subconsciously, our belief in God was obviously a lot deeper than our superficial arguments as “smart-alecky” college students who thought they knew everything.

Norman Podhoretz has written a fascinating new book entitled Why Are Jews Liberals? In it he argues that from a rational point of view, Jews should now become conservatives in this country; because their self-interest lies in fostering causes and personalities on the Right which, he maintains, are increasingly philo-Semitic. Regardless of whether you agree or disagree with his conclusions, Rabbi David Wolpe, who participated in a Commentary Magazine symposium, is correct in saying that “kinship is stronger than any ideology.” Emotionally, Jews will always feel a lot more comfortable making common cause with people on the margins than the Daughters of the American Revolution. In other words, in spite of all the arguments advanced in political debates, it is ultimately an emotional attachment with the underdog that proves decisive for the preponderance of American Jews. J.H. Bradley put it this way: philosophy is ultimately “the finding of bad reasons for what we believe on instinct.”

Recognizing that emotion trumps reason every time is very important in our effort to inculcate values in young people. Thus, when a teenage couple is in the back seat of a car, whether they have sex or not, or unprotected sex or not, will not be based solely on maxims learned in the classroom or health risk reports. Those teenagers will ultimately decide on the basis of sub-conscious and communal attitudes absorbed over a lifetime. A whole web of previous interactions with friends, family and the world-at-large will determine whether sex is a no-go zone or not.

In the last analysis, our success in influencing behavior depends on our getting human nature right. That is the case whether you’re dealing with teenagers or trying to solve the problems of the Middle East. Heschel was right. Not only in the realm of religion, but in regard to every significant dimension of our lives, values must not only be taught; they must also be caught.