Congregation Beth Mordecai
Congregation Beth Mordecai
An inclusive congregation affiliated with the Conservative Movement.
Your Jewish Home for the Soul!
An inclusive congregation affiliated with the Conservative Movement.
Your Jewish Home for the Soul!
June 8, 2016 By bethmordecai no comments.
If something is important, it contributes to your mission, your values, your high priority goals...if we don't have a clear idea of what is important, of the results we desire in our lives, we are easily diverted into responding to the urgent.
(Stephen Covey, Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, p. 151)
[The Sabbath] is a day on which hours do not oust one another...the seventh day is like a palace in time with a kingdom for all. It is not a date, but an atmosphere
(Heschel, The Sabbath, p. 21)
Have you ever noticed that a telephone ring is really annoying? I don't know about you, but whether it's a traditional ring, a screaming ringtone, or a gentle buzz, it doesn't[...]
Category : Bulletin Articles home Rabbi Tag : abraham joshua heschel bulletin message importance June Bulletin quadrant 2 Sabbath Seven Habits of Highly Effective People shabbat Stephen Covey telephone urgency
March 1, 2015 By bethmordecai no comments.
The Dark Exuberance of Purim
Purim is here! So don your Queen Esther costume, eat as many hamantaschen as possible, drink all night, and twirl your grogger in the air. It’s time to celebrate this holiday of marbim b’simhah, of increased joy. So please join us for our celebration of Purim which includes…
A Purim carnival with an amazing magician (Sunday, March 1st 12-3 pm at the JCC in Edison);
Mishloah Manot (Gift Basket) Delivery to Jewish Veterans (Sunday, March 1st 3:30 pm at the NJ Veterans Home and Hospital near Menlo Park Mall);
A special #AskTheRabbi Purim Edition on “Should You Get Drunk on Purim?” (Wednesday, March 4th 12 pm at Menlo Park Mall Food Court);
A Hamantaschen Bake-off and Megillah Reading (Wednesday, March[...]
Category : Bulletin Articles Purim Tag : bulletin bulletin articles carnival fantasy holidays jewishness mityahadim purim revenge
June 3, 2014 By bethmordecai no comments.
*Sermon for Friday night of "Cantor Showcase of Unique Torah" (Shabbat prior to Shavuot) – May 30, 2014
Our Unique and Godly Torah
Rabbi Ari Saks
Some of you may remember a story my father told during my installation on this same bimah over a year and a half ago. I was a little boy in Benton Harbor and my father and I had just come back from shul on Simhat Torah. As we approached home I started making a frantic pointing motion in a not-so-specific direction (with the requisite grunting of a child). So my father, in attempting to respond my neediness, took me on a walk trying to follow my random pointing. Eventually we ended up back at shul where my pointing got[...]
Category : Bulletin Articles Cantorial Showcase Holidays home Rabbi Sermons Shabbat Shavuot Tag : bulletin articles Cantorial Showcase godly holidays neil gillman norman lamm pirkei avot potential rabbeinu yonah rabbi revelation sermons shabbat shavuot unique torah
April 30, 2014 By bethmordecai no comments.
Normally I use this space to talk about a matter or an idea specifically concerning our community in order to reflect on our journey of building our Jewish Home for the Soul. However, this month I feel compelled to speak out on a matter that though not particular to our community affects our identity as a Jewish community. And that matter is the Jewish need to speak out against bigotry, particularly the bigotry espoused by Donald Sterling who is the owner of the professional basketball team the Los Angeles Clippers Donald Sterling, and a man who self-identifies as a Jew. On Sunday, the world heard an audio recording in which Mr. Sterling implores his multiracial girlfriend, V. Stiviano, to “don’t[...]
Category : Bulletin Articles home Rabbi Tag : bulletin articles donald sterling los angeles clippers may 2014
March 4, 2014 By bethmordecai no comments.
Bulletin Article
March 2014
The Healthy Growth of Our Minyan
A few months after my first High Holidays at Beth Mordecai in 2012, I was sitting with our (now) President Norman Silverstein to talk about what was happening in the synagogue. The meeting occurred in the middle of the week after another failure to make a minyan[1] on Saturday morning. As we talked about some of our successes like the Pep Rally, Shabbat by the Sea, the High Holidays, and the Installation, Norman also made a critical point about our minyan. He said that the health of our community is only as strong as our weekly minyan because that’s where we spend the most amount of time together. At the time,[...]
Category : Bulletin Bulletin Articles Rabbi Tag : bulletin bulletin articles growth minyan rabbi
September 24, 2013 By bethmordecai no comments.
During many of my visits to longtime members of our community, there is one refrain that appears over and over again in describing the Jewish community of Perth Amboy: “Our lives revolved around the Y, the Temple, and the Shul.” In the biography of our Jewish community, these three centers of Jewish life referred to separate institutions. Yet as we enter into a period of Jewish renewal with only one institution remaining, the steadfast and eternal values embedded within these three centers remain constant. Whether we view Beth Mordecai more as a “Y,” as a “Temple,” or as a “Shul”, it takes all of them put together to create a Home. A “Y” The[...]
Category : Bulletin Articles History Rabbi
September 12, 2013 By bethmordecai no comments.
Rabbi Ari Saks Congregation Beth Mordecai High Holidays Bulletin Article, 5774 Last Friday, for the second day of Rosh Hashanah, we had a special and unique High Holiday experience that was not the normal, traditional service. The order of the service was different, there was no Torah service, and we had opportunities for discussion and some dancing, in addition to some other innovative methods used to enhance our Rosh Hashanah experience. Overall, the feedback has been that it was a fun and meaningful service. Yet the service would never have been possible if it were not for a combination of a unique quirk of the Jewish calendar and the unique customs in which we observe our holidays. The unique quirk of the Jewish calendar is the existence[...]
Category : Bulletin Articles Passover Rabbi Rosh Hashanah Sh'mini Atzeret Shavuot Simhat Torah Sukkot Yom Kippur Tag : 5774 attendance diaspora etrog halakhah high holidays history innovation israel Jewish calendar jewish law lulav mission lulav and etrog passover pesach pesah rabbi's tisch Rosh Hashanah sh'mini atzeret shemini atzeret simchat torah simhat torah sukkot torah unique high holiday experience Yom Kippur
June 1, 2013 By bethmordecai no comments.
"The purpose of our life is happiness for a simple reason...our existence is based on hope" -the Dalai Lama Hope is one of the most beautiful four letter words written in the English language. It's a word that has inspired political campaigns, social movements, and, as the Dalai Lama points out,[1] our simple pursuit of happiness. It's a word that many of us use when we look into the future and believe in our heart of hearts that the future is going to be better than our past or our present. It's a[...]
Category : Bulletin Articles Rabbi