Chanukah Dreydelettes
Come celebrate the Feast of Dedication at our
Shabbat morning service, Dec 31.
There will lots of latkes, Bennett Eisenberg’s newest Chanukah carols,
and a new skit called “Chanukah: the Musical” featuring the Dreydelettes
and the Latkees.
They don’t call us House of Joy for nothin’!
Jeffrey
Bernstein
Jeff has been
sharing the good news with fellow Jews for
thirty years. First he went to the
Orthodox in NYC. In the 80’s, he began a
live talk radio show on a
secular station in the mid 80’s proclaiming Yeshua as Messiah to the Jewish
community of the
John Rose Coffeehouse
Our
havdalah coffeehouses have been
intimate and inspiring times of worship and fellowship. Our next one, January 28 at
Dance classes
Psalms 149:3
and 150:4 bid us to praise Hashem with dancing.
Learn how to praise him with your whole body (and get a good workout!)
at Beit Simcha. My wife Pamela, who has
taught dance at the Messiah conference for years and coordinated dance worship
and classes at this year’s Tikkun Advance and Northeast Regional, teaches dance
classes once a month after oneg
(about 1:15PM), Jan
14,
Feb 11 and Mar 18.
Come and dance with us, and bring a friend who wants to learn with you.
Mentshlekeit
Having
held our children’s attention much of the summer with a series on the 10 commandments,
the Rabbi has recently began a new series of short children’s sermons. Here are
notes from his first two messages.
So, yeladim [children], today
we’re going to start learning about Mentshlekeit.
That’s a funny sounding word, isn’t it?
I think it’s sort of fun to say—don’t you?
Do any of you know what language this word, Mentshlekeit, comes
from? Yiddish: the language of our Jewish great-grandparents and
great-great-grandparents. They spoke
Yiddish when they lived in places like
Mentshlekeit comes from a smaller word, mentsh. Does anyone here know what a mentsh is? A mentsh is a
decent person, a person of good character, a person you can respect, because a mentsh regularly does the right thing. A Yiddishe
mama might say of a good person—now there’s a real mentsh! In the Complete Jewish Bible, 1
Corinthians
A real mentsh is a real person, a truly human being, really who
God intends a person to be—a decent,T good person, a
person of character, a person who is honest, brave, generous, caring—such a
person your Mama would want you to be!
Your Dad, too—Amen, Dads? So can any of you guess what Mentshlekeit
means now? It’s the life of a mentsh! So for children’s messages, we’re going to
look at different characteristics of a Mentshlekeit.
One thing about a real mentsh: he thinks of others before
himself. And that’s what the Bible says,
in Philippians 2:3. “Think of others as better than yourself.” What’s the opposite of thinking of
others before yourself? Selfishness. That’s
what Philippians 2:3 says, when you listen to the whole verse: “Don't be selfish; don't live to make a good impression on
others. Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourself.”
How many of you put others before yourself, all the time? That’s not so easy… Why not?
Because most of us struggle with selfishness. Can you think of anyone who never struggles
with selfishness? (The children
knew.) Right, the one person who never struggled with selfishness was Yeshua.. Everyone else fell short… Abraham was afraid of powerful
kings, Joseph boasted about his dreams, Moses lost his temper, but Yeshua just
jumps out of the Bible, because he never gave into sin. And he always put others before himself. Though he was God, he didn’t just sit up in
heaven but came to earth to help us, to save us. Though he was the Master, he got down his
knees and washed the feet of his followers.
How many of you would agree that Yeshua is a real mentsh? Amen, the mentsh
above all mentshen!
How many of you put others before yourself, sometimes? We just need to get better at it, become more
like Yeshua. V’eemru? [And let us say? (Ah-main)].
Let’s think of some examples of preferring others above yourself the way Yeshua would. How about if your brother or sister or friend
wants to play with one of your toys? How
about if your Mom or someone in the congregation asks
you for your help? How about when you
are getting in line for oneg and someone comes up with a guest?
Do any of you think you need God to help you be a mentsh,
preferring others above yourself? Then ask Yeshua to give you more of His
spirit and His character. Let’s pray…
b b b b
b b b b b b
b b b b b
Another aspect of Mentshlekeit is
honesty. What does it mean to be
honest? A mentsh tells the
truth.
In Psalm 15, David asks: “LORD, who may dwell in your
sanctuary? Who may live on your holy hill? He whose walk is blameless and who
does what is righteous, who speaks the truth from his heart.” David wanted to dwell in God’s holy presence,
to be close to God. How many of you think it is good to be close to God, in his
presence? Why?
Then David
tells who gets to live in God’s presence: “He whose walk is blameless and who
does what is righteous.” In other words, a person who
regularly does the right thing.
That would be a mentsh, right?
Also: “He who speaks the truth from his heart.” A mentsh speaks the truth, from his heart.
How many of
you have ever said something you knew, in your heart, wasn’t true? (Almost all raise their hands, including the
adults.) Gee, why do so many people lie?
Because we are trying to protect themselves, because
we are afraid, because we want to impress other people, because we are selfish. For example, if you took something that
wasn’t yours, you might lie so others wouldn’t know. But you know what happens?
You have to try to prevent people from finding out that you lied.
Tell me: if you found out someone was
lying to you, would you trust that person?
Lying is bad because it destroys trust.
How can you trust someone who tells lies? Do you want your parents to
trust you? Then you’d better not lie to
them. V’eemru? Do you want others
to trust you? Do you want God to trust
you? Then trust God and tell the
truth! God knows, because he knows your
heart. V’eemru? That’s why I say:
honesty is the best policy.
So, if someone
took one of Jeffrey D. Miller’s pins, what should he do about it? If you are honest, you will have nothing to
hide, and you can dwell in God’s presence. V’eemru?
Who was the one
person who always told
the truth? In Yochanan
18:37, Pilate, a cruel Roman who was in charge of
Yeshua said, “I
am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but
will have the light of life.” When you lie and try to cover it up, is that like
walking in the light or walking in darkness?
Whoever follows Yeshua walks in
the light of the truth. Let’s sing: “Come, house of Jacob, let us walk in the light, walk in the light, walk in the
light…” (We sang the chorus of Ted
Pearce’s song—Ted was featured in a great coffeehouse last month.)
That’s something to remember when
we celebrate Hanukah, isn’t it? When you
light the Hanukah candles, remember: it is good to walk in the light of the
truth.
Here’s a
spiritual exercise that you and your parents and do each night of Hanukah: Each
night you light a candle, reflect on an aspect of Mentshlekeit: servanthood, honesty, gratitude, generosity, respect…
Do you think you can come up with one for each night? Let’s
pray….
Let’s go up to
Beit Simcha and friends are going
to
I know, I know, we planned a tour
last year, and what happened? Alas, a
lot of people had to back out at the last minute, the cost per person went up,
and yours truly threw up his hands. What
I have learned from this experience is to leave the details of coordinating a
group tour to a professional travel agent.
You can see the difference already when you take see the quality of the
brochure. On the other hand, if you want
to go, it’s time to sign up and get your deposit in! Tourism is picking up in
the holy land, and prices are going up, too!
Want more newsletters?
From now on, you will also be
able to find our newsletters our web site—check it out, at www.beitsimcha.com/newsletter. Which raises some interesting questions for
our readers: Do you want to receive the
newsletter—
·
Via email link only?
·
Via US mail only?
·
Via both email and
·
Neither. Would you like us
to remove you from our mailing lists?
Please bear in mind that email is
free and easier for us to distribute. On
the other hand, we want to encourage those who want to hear from us
regularly. Also let us know which
features of the newsletter you appreciate: announcements of upcoming events or
excerpts from Rabbi Blank's sermons?
Finally, would
you like an electronic version to be longer?
If so, which of the following would you like us to include?
·
Longer versions of Rabbi Blank's sermons (rather than
excerpts)?
·
Rabbi Mark Shulman’s sermons?
·
Articles from other teachers in
·
Recipes from congregational cookbook, Oneg Shabbat (see our
web site for details)?
We would really appreciate hearing from you! Our mailing address and phone number are at
the top of this newsletter. Or send email to beitsimcha
AT gmail DOT com.
Interfaith relationships?
Interfaith dating,
relationships, and marriage is on the rise. In fact about 52% of American Jews marry
outside of their faith. Cultures,
traditions and families are likely to clash.
How this is dealt with can determine the success of the relationship and
the future beliefs of the children, if they have beliefs at all.
At Beit Simcha we welcome Interfaith couples and have much experience in helping
people solve the problems that they face. Some of the
challenges that arise are: How do you
handle the holidays? How do you raise
the children? What about the
in-laws? What is kugel
or gefilte fish anyway?
To help
explore these issues, we have begun an interfaith discussion group in the