Ann Arbor Reconstructionist Congregation

Emily Ohl

It’s Shabbat – come meditate

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Words by Anita Rubin-Meiller

In my first week of the Flourish course, a meditation teacher’s training offered by
the Institute of Jewish Spirituality, we were given a text by R. Shalom Noach
Berezovsky. R. Berezovsky identified Shabbat as an ark that enables us to find
refuge from the flood of chaos and overwhelm in the weekday world. He
states…”the deficiency of the generation of the Flood was in its scattered da’at
(awareness, mindfulness) which is the root of all harm…” He suggests we repair
such scattering of da’at through Yishuv hada’at (a settling, calming, centering of
mind). Without this, we are lost, unable to be truly connected to ourselves, or to
the Creator, who “renews our very being from moment to moment.”

Calming, Centering, Connecting through meditation has deep roots in Jewish
practice and is written about by many sages past and present. It is a practice that
is at once simple but difficult, in that it requires compassionate patience with
oneself and the ramblings of our minds that seem determined on scattering our
attention. It is a practice that has increasing benefits over time.

I was first exposed to meditation in a Jewish context in 2019 when I was blessed
to attend a 6-day silent retreat with Rabbi Jeff Roth, Rabbi Sheila Pelz-Weinberg,
Buddhist teacher Sylvia Boorstein, and Zen priest Norman Fischer. Since then, I
have been meditating multiple times a week with Rabbi Roth’s Awakened Heart
Community. While meditation doesn’t necessarily change who you are, it does
impact how much you accept and love yourself as your critical mind calms, as
compassion heightens, as your attention to each moment deepens.

There are many approaches to meditation- from sitting with attention on the
breath; to mentally reciting a word or phrase; to following a guided script that
offers an intention and imagery. Each approach offers the opportunity to bring
your attention inward, to notice what arises in mind, body and heart moment to
moment without getting caught up in it, to perhaps find that precious still point
and rest there for a moment.

I am pleased to be able to offer an opportunity for our community to gather
together to practice for 20 minutes of meditation on the second Saturday of the
month before services. Check the Tuesday mailer for exact times and location.
I hope to see you there.

Exciting Times at Beit Sefer!

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Since returning from Winter Break at the end of January, the Beit Sefer has jumped back into action for the second semester of the school year.

Highlights have included a Tu B’Shvat seder led by Rav Gavrielle, where students and parent guests tried a wide array of fruit and sipped on their four glasses of grape juice.

Tu B’Shvat material continued the following week as students had the opportunity to plant and take home cuttings, allowing them to connect with earth and the cycle of nature.

Currently, the Beit Sefer is preparing this year’s Purim spiel, written by Josephine Speyer and Mollie Meadow. Students will be acting out the story of Esther with a creative twist, and will have costumes and props to match. The performance will be staged on the morning of Sunday, March 16th, during Beit Sefer’s normal class time.

Hamantaschen baking in 2024


Finally, there will be a very exciting Hamantaschen baking party for Beit Sefer students and families at the home of Carol Lessure and Jon Englebert. Email Carol at clessure@gmail.com for more information.

Annual Membership Meeting 5785

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This past Sunday morning, AARC members gathered at the JCC to meet and discuss the state of our congregation and what it means to them.

The first half of the meeting was spent discussing business matters, such as departing (Erica Ackerman, Deborah Fisch, Debbie Gombert, Rebecca Kanner, Keith Kurz) and incoming members of the board (Dave Nelson, Josh Samuel, Robin Wagner), the budget, and other highlights from the past year.

The final half of the meeting was spent on an activity planned by Lisa Wexler, Julie Norris, and Debbie Gombert. Members made pairs, and eventually foursomes and octets, where they discussed what AARC means to them, and notice the themes that came up. Finally, the groups were tasked with making a short poem, song, or human sculpture, that conveyed these themes and ideas.

Near the end of the meeting, each group shared what they had worked on. The results were all unique, and yet each was filled with joy, heart, as well as themes of togetherness, justice, and diversity.

Thank you to all of those who were able to attend and participate!

Beit Sefer’s Mock Kabbalat Shabbat

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After weeks of preparing blessings and ritual objects, Beit Sefer students and their parents gathered this past Sunday to stage a mock Kabbalat Shabbat. Throughout the morning, students braided miniature challah loaves, placed candles in their candlesticks, and filled plastic wine goblets with grape juice.

Rav Gavrielle was gracious enough to lead alongside Head Teacher, Morah Emma Shimovich. The pair, with Emma strumming her guitar, guided families through the blessings and various Shabbat songs and prayers.

The concluding activity allowed students to spend time crafting blessings for their parents, which they then read aloud to the group. We all swayed to our familiar priestly blessing as the morning closed out, and we continued to go about our Sundays.

Many thanks to Rav Gavrielle, Morah Emma, and all of the Beit Sefer families for making our mock Shabbat a success!

On Continuity of Care

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Young Jewish children sit at tables in the childcare center at the Joodsche Schouwburg in the Amsterdam Jewish quarter, 1942. Source: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Hilde Jacobsthal Goldberg

Over the past week, I have processed the election results both privately and in community. I was especially grateful for our Second Saturday Shabbat Service, where I could connect with our community and be held by the sounds of our liturgy. As I parse through my feelings, my worries and fears always come back to the children in my life.

I spend my weekdays in the Duck Room at the JCC, a toddler classroom of 13 brilliant and beautiful souls. I feel so honored to be trusted with their care, to see them forming words and learning how to use their bodies. More than anything, I treasure the deep, loving, trusting connections I have built with them and their families. 

When the Ducks were dropped off last Wednesday, I exchanged quiet looks of sadness, anger, and fear with their parents. A few of them said they wished they could just stay home and be with their kids. I certainly hugged them extra tight throughout the day.

Although it was a sad day for many of the adults, it was business as usual for the toddlers. Their routines and rituals are what keep their world round. I was, and am, grateful to the presence that these children require. They keep me much too busy to allow my mind to wander to matters of dread and despair. 

My thoughts have also been with our class of Beit Sefer students in this time. Their relentless energy, curiosity, wit, talent, stubbornness, and playfulness give me hope and solace. 

We will be staging a mock Kabbalat Shabbat this Sunday, using ritual objects made and decorated by the students, and led by Rav Gavrielle. When the future is unknowable, I hope the practice and passing down of traditions may help us feel rooted in safety and security.

Finally, I think of my niece, at almost three months old, and what the world has in store for her. There are infinite paths of fear and doubt that I could go down. Thankfully, however, there are just as many of strength and perseverance. 

In grieving and in growing, as we stand on this precipice, I come back to the priestly blessing we sing at the end of services. May all of the children in our communities, both near and far, know safety, health, courage, and ease.

Cedar’s D’var Torah

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Words by Cedar Adams

Shabbat shalom and good morning everyone, thanks for coming to my Bar Mitzvah. 

My Torah portion is called Ki Teitzei and is from the Book of Deuteronomy. Ki Teitzei is about laws, containing 74 of the 613 mitzvot. The words ki teitzei mean “when you go out,”  in reference to going out to war and how you should behave if you take captives. The laws in my portion are generally about how to act properly with respect to familial relationships, ethics, sexuality, and forbidden mixtures.

One of the mitzvot with a positive message is that fathers cannot be killed because of their son’s actions, and vice versa. This is a helpful mitzvah because it stops people from being unfairly punished. Another example of a helpful mitzvah is that if you find something lost by someone else in your community then you should bring it back to them, or (if you do not know the owner) keep it at your house until they claim the lost object. The Torah says: 

“If your fellow Israelite does not live near you or you do not know who [the owner] is, you shall bring it home and it shall remain with you until your peer claims it; then you shall give it back.”   (Deuteronomy 22:2)

While many of these mitzvot are helpful, with some it is worth questioning if they are in fact good deeds. 

My aliyah ends with a mitzvah that I struggle with.  Here the Torah tells us that if your son is disobedient, rude, and refuses to change his ways despite parental intervention, take him out to the village elders where you will publicly declare that he is disobedient and ungrateful. Afterwards, all the men in the town will stone him to death. The Torah states: 

“If a householder has a wayward and defiant son, who does not heed his father or mother and does not obey them even after they discipline him, his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his town at the public place of his community. They shall say to the elders of his town … Thereupon his town’s council shall stone him to death. Thus you will sweep out evil from your midst: all Israel will hear and be afraid.”    (Deuteronomy 21:18-21)

This is wrong because nobody deserves to die just for being disobedient. The Torah describes the disobedient son as “wayward and rebellious,” but I would like to question exactly what that means. There are many different reasons for a son to be considered disobedient, and different parents would have different explanations. “Wayward and rebellious” could mean many things, depending on who you ask. For example, a parent might think their child is “wayward and rebellious” for dressing as the opposite gender would, even though today that is normalized. I think a more reasonable solution would be to have someone try helping the son, or having someone help the son and the parents resolve the conflict.

The second mitzvah that I’d like to discuss concerns “The child of the unloved wife.”  The Torah portion states that If you have two sons, one from a loved wife and the other from an unloved wife, and the son from the unloved is the firstborn, you still need to give him double the inheritance of the younger son. This law does not include daughters. The Torah says: 

“If a householder has two wives, one loved and the other unloved, and both the loved and the unloved have borne him sons, but the first-born is the son of the unloved one— then he wills his property to his sons, he may not treat as first-born the son of the loved one in disregard of the son of the unloved one who is older. Instead, he must accept the first-born, the son of the unloved one, and allot to him a double portion of all he possesses; since he is the first fruit of his vigor, the birthright is his due.”  

(Deuteronomy 21:15-17)

Even though they are trying to be fair by making sure the law is followed despite the father’s views on the sons, the biblical law of giving your oldest son double inheritance is unfair because a person shouldn’t get more money just because of birth order and gender. This law is not all bad; it is good to not have favoritism, but I think it would be better if all the children got the same inheritance. The mitzvah protects favoritism in that it says not to give less inheritance to the child of an unloved wife, but reinforces favoritism by stating that the oldest child gets double inheritance.

When we read some of these laws, one might wonder how often they were actually put into place. Right now I’m talking about questionable laws from the past, but there are still many laws today that are worth questioning. For example, there is a lot of fighting right now about abortion. I think in a way it connects to my Torah portion. In my portion there is a law about taking female captives which states that if you go to war and take a female captive you wish to marry, you must cut her hair and let her nails grow out (to make her less attractive), then wait a month to decide whether you want to marry her or not. If you decide to, she will become your wife; but if you decide not to, you send her out on her own (and don’t sell her into slavery). 

Like with anti-abortion laws, the woman has no control over her body and what will happen to her in her future. In the Torah portion, the male captor gets to change her looks and choose the female captive’s future; with abortion laws, primarily male dominated governments are choosing whether females are forced to have children (even though many times they are teenagers, in poverty, or simply don’t want to be forced into parenthood). I think many times when people look back on these old texts and present these wrongdoings, we look at them to judge the actions of our ancestors, while often not observing how this carries over to our lives.

I’d like to thank my family for travelling all the way here and for being such a wonderful and supportive family, especially my grandparents and uncles and aunts and cousins. I’d like to thank my great aunt for being here on Zoom. I’d also like to thank my friends and the congregation for being here. I’d like to thank my parents for always loving me unconditionally and supporting my dreams, no matter what those are. Finally, thank you to the rabbi for teaching me, which I know must have been a lot of hard work. 

Re-Rolling the Torah Together

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Words by Keith Kurz

The Ann Arbor Reconstructionist Congregation met with the Hebrew Day School’s third grade.

In preparation for Rosh Hashanah the Torah needed to be re-rolled from nearly the end to nearly the beginning. Deb Kraus led the third grade class in a prayer for doing the mitzvah.

The students asked good questions and sang songs during the re-rolling. Intermittently Deb stopped the rolling of the Torah to point out many items, including the beginning of each book, the 10 Commandments, the Shima and the place where Avram changed his name to Avraham and Sarai to Sarah. Noah learned to re-roll the Torah and perform hagbah.The Hebrew Day School hopes to have more activities with AARC.

Yom Kippur Workshops

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Workshop #1: Deborah Dash Moore on Mordechai Kaplan 2:00-3:10pm

Workshop #2: Niggun Circle 2:00-3:10pm

In this “workshop” we’ll be calming ourselves down by chanting melodies and prayers that focus on healing.  Interspersed in this, there will be opportunities to share what you need to.  

There’s nothing I’d rather do on a Yom Kippur afternoon (or any other time, TBH!) than sing.  If you are so inclined, please join us. – Deb K

Workshop #3: Listening through Grief in a time of Middle East upheaval: Communal Yizkor 3:15-4:25pm

This is a listening session for anyone who has experienced grief (in the largest sense) related to the Middle East over the past year and wishes to process it as a community as a step towards tikkun olam and personal Teshuva. This will be a space to listen with respect and kindness. Our intention is not to discuss policy, to engage in debate or to challenge each other’s experience but rather to deepen our sense of community. Sign-up now, if you want to reserve a spot. Please arrive on-time. We will be starting promptly.

Welcome Back, Dieve Family!

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We are excited to see Mark, Stacy, Bass & Sappho Dieve back in Ann Arbor from their three year stint in Switzerland. They left in June 2021 just after Bass’ Bar Mitzvah and just as our congregation restarted meeting together outside for services. 

Both Stacy and Mark kept up a steady stream of stories of their Swiss adventures on Facebook that included trying to find challah, chocolate gelt and matzah. They particularly missed decent Mexican food. Along the way, they made some significant friendships from local purveyors of cheese, bread, coffee and wine as well as their neighbors and French teacher. 

The Dieve’s made their way to Switzerland for Stacy’s job as a Strategic Trade Manager for Cisco while Mark continued his work remotely as a certified herbalist and consultant, check his work out at rootedhealth.com. 

They are excited to get back to their home in Ann Arbor and to return to the Jewish community in real life. When you see Bass, ask him about his job and his interest in theater. Sappho is eager to get back to art and learn to play the guitar. 

Besides filling up on library books in English and as much guacamole, salsa and tortilla chips as they could eat since returning stateside, Stacy says “we are so happy to be home and very glad to have our Jewish community again.”  

Join us in welcoming the Dieve family back to town – do provide them with suggestions of new places to try Mexican food, find decent bread and coffee shops that might provide them with a little European experience. Stacy added, “We already miss being able to walk out of our apartment to the local boulangerie and buvette – the Swiss version of lakeside cafe. But mostly it is the people who make the place – and so we are excited to reconnect with all of our friends at AARC” 

Children and Family Programming and Childcare for High Holidays 2024

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AARC offers an engaging and flexible series of High Holidays learning opportunities and services for children and families. To take part, please fill out the Childcare & Children’s Services Signup form below.

Childcare & Family/Children’s Services Signup

High Holidays Family/Children’s Services Schedule

  • Thursday, October 3rd, 2024, 10:30am: Rosh Hashanah Children’s Service at the UU
  • Saturday, October 12th, 2024, 10:30am: Yom Kippur Children’s Service at the UU

If you have any questions about this programming, please email us. We looking forward to sharing this sacred time together!

High Holidays Childcare Signup

  • Childcare is offered for children 2 years of age and older.
  • The childcare room is located in the hall behind the registration table. Vaccinated teens over 12 can be supervised in the teen room across the hall.
  • Both rooms will be staffed by qualified caregivers.
  • Members: Childcare for members who sign up by October 1 is free of charge. Members who do not sign up by the deadline will be asked to pay $10 per child per day. Without advance reservation, childcare will be offered on a space-available basis only. Sign up online below.
  • Non-members: The cost for non-members is $20 per child per day.
  • Payment is due by October 1. Payment can be made by mailing a check or using the Donate link to pay online.
  • Please note that children under 13 must remain in childcare or be supervised by an adult at all times; children are not permitted to roam on their own while on the Unitarian Universalist Congregation premises. Children may leave childcare only if an adult picks them up.