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Exploring Rosh Chodesh

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During our Shabbaton weekend with Rabbi Gabrielle Pescador, she referenced a Rosh Chodesh circle that she has been hosting with Pardes Hannah over the last few years. Rosh Chodesh is a Jewish practice that was not part of my upbringing so I thought I’d do a little research and share it with you!

What is Rosh Chodesh?

Rosh Chodesh is translated as ‘Head of the Month.’ It is an ancient holiday that originated in Exodus marked by the appearance of the New Moon. The holiday was practiced before a formalized calendar was established by confirming the new moon each month. Once a monthly calendar was created, Rosh Chodesh was observed on the Saturday before the new moon by reciting the Birkat Hakodesh after the Saturday morning Torah reading. Some also add extra Rosh Chodesh prayers to the Amidah, Kaddish, and morning prayers.

Feminist History of Rosh Chodesh

Historically women were able to abstain from physical work on Rosh Chodesh. Some believe this was because women refused to give their Jewelry for the formation of the golden calf. Others believe the waning and waxing moon hold significance for a women’s menstrual cycle and the Rosh Chodesh observance is tied to this. In the early 70s groups of women began starting a new kind of Rosh Chodesh circle. In Peninah Adelman’s Miriam’s Well: Rituals for Jewish Women Around the Year, she offers program ideas for groups who wish to build on the Rosh Chodesh tradition as a time for community building and bonding for Jewish women.  Most Rosh Chodesh circle’s organize around mutual interest and ritual practice. Exploring and redefining the relationship between the feminine, the moon, and sisterhood has been a foundation for a myriad of Rosh Chodesh women’s groups over the last few decades.

Rabbi Gabrielle Pescador’s Rosh Chodesh Circle

Rabbi Gabrielle Pescador began a Rosh Chodesh circle through Pardes Hannah while she was studying for her Rabbinic program. Her circles focus around a central theme or teaching connected to the Torah portion for that week. Rabbi Gabrielle is interested exploring Rosh Chodesh as an opportunity to practice Torah reading for our community and deepening our Torah practice. If you are interested in exploring Rosh Chodesh with Rabbi Gabrielle, stay tuned for her upcoming Rosh Chodesh offerings!

Dylan Schnorr’s Dvar Torah

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Shabbat Shalom! My Torah portion is from the book of Numbers. At this point, the Israelites are wandering in the desert. Before this time, the Israelites were slaves in Egypt. They were beaten and made to do harsh physical labor.  Moses then led the Israelites to freedom with the help of God, who rained plagues on Pharaoh which, in the end, forced him to release the Israelites. They fled into the desert and had to leave with their bread unleavened because they were in such a hurry. 

This is the Passover story, the one that most of us are familiar with. My Torah portion takes place after the Israelites have escaped from Egypt. While wandering in the desert, the Israelites eventually ran out of food. When they complained about how they would starve in the desert, God decided to give them Manna. The Torah says that Manna would collect on the ground like dew or frost, and would melt away when the sun heated up. The people would collect it and make bread, and they would have to eat this bread that same day because it would spoil by the next. This made them uncertain about when they would get food. But the Israelites now complained about the Manna, saying that they wanted meat. God then decided to teach them a lesson.  He rained quails on top of them. In the Torah it says that even the people who gathered the least had 10 homers of quail, which is equivalent to 475 pounds, or about 1900 birds. When the people who were complaining ate the meat, they were struck with a deadly plague that killed them. 

My speech today could be about their ingratitude: the Israelites were being ungrateful for the Manna that God gave them. They were getting food from heaven, but they were complaining about not having meat. But I noticed something else in the story about Manna that made me want to talk about a different topic.  This is what the Torah says (and I quote): “The Israelites felt a craving for real food. They wept and said, “If only we had meat to eat! We remember the fish that we used to eat freely in Egypt, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic. Now our throats are shriveled. There is nothing at all! Nothing but the manna to look to!” 

In my opinion their complaining wasn’t just an example of ingratitude. I think it was also because of nostalgia. They were thinking that maybe Egypt wasn’t all that bad.  When they were in Egypt, they would get small worthless fish that the fishermen would throw to them for helping with the nets. But they looked back on it, remembering only times when they got what they wanted, or when they were happy. Perhaps there were things to miss about their time in Egypt, like sometimes getting rewards for their labor, or being able to eat meat. But those times were few and far between, and those small benefits didn’t compare to freedom.  

I think the Israelites were experiencing powerful nostalgia about having left Egypt. In the Oxford dictionary, nostalgia is defined as a sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past. Nostalgia can change your views of the past, especially when the present is so insecure.  I believe the reason that they were yearning for the past was because the present time they were in wasn’t easy, so it made the time before seem better than it was. Life in the desert was incredibly hard and, on top of that, they didn’t really know where they were going and when they would get there. Maybe they missed their small freedoms, like routine, or being in one place. It is possible that in this moment, they looked back and Egypt looked better.

I‘d like to talk today about  how nostalgia can affect us. I think that nostalgia has two sides, a good one and a bad one. On the good side, nostalgia can help in preserving older things, older ways of doing things, like a bar mitzvah, and keeping ways of life that are healthy for you. For example, running because you want the same physical body that you had when you were younger, or going on a diet for the same reason.  Nostalgia can also help you to remember people or events that are dear to you – things you can see in photographs or in memorials, and those memories can motivate you to do similar or better things yourself.

But nostalgia can also have a bad side. It can cause you to hurt yourself trying to do things you could do before, like trying to lift too much weight when working out.  In a broader sense, nostalgia can hurt other people when you try to restore something from the past that might not have been as good as you remember. 

We know that nostalgia can be very intense. It can distort your view of your current situation, or it might change how you look at the thing you’re feeling nostalgic for. Maybe you can even feel nostalgic for slavery, a time that you probably had a bad experience in because the time you are in now is unpredictable, with you uncertain about what will happen next.

I have experienced this type of nostalgia as well. When I was younger, I lived in Massachusetts. I really enjoyed my life there, but eventually we moved here in 2019. The first couple years were rough, I had to deal with COVID shortly after moving. I hadn’t adjusted completely to Michigan, so I missed Massachusetts so much more. I eventually got over it, but I still sometimes look back fondly. Now I’ll be going to a completely new high school next year. This may be challenging, but like the Israelites, I have to focus on the future, not just the past, and keep moving forward.

Something I gained from this Torah portion is that nostalgia can have a big impact, both good or bad, and your perspective on the past can change without you knowing it.  When you remember something, it isn’t always exactly as you thought it was. Human memories can easily be seen in a rosy light.  This is something that the Israelites had to struggle with in the desert.  One way for the Israelites to deal with this nostalgia was to try to remember their goals, and to focus on the future, not the past. Their lives in the desert might be very painful for them.  But, in the long run, it would bring freedom and a better life to their children and grandchildren.  Even when they were nostalgic about Egypt, most of the Israelites went on.  They didn’t get trapped by their memories.  Instead they kept going. This was a good decision, because if they had gone back or stayed in the desert, they would have made no progress. I guess what I’m trying to say is, the Israelites could progress only moving forward and not overly thinking about the past.

Can you think of any  time in your life where you have experienced nostalgia about something that you remember  more fondly than it really was? How might that have affected the way you moved into the future?  

So for me, that is a lesson that my Torah portion teaches.  We shouldn’t forget our past, but we should also look to the future. Thank you

Happy Pride Month AARC!

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As Keshet’s opening Pride Month page says, ‘Welcome, You Are a Blessing!’ Happy Pride to the AARC LGBTQ community and its allies! Pride Month reminds us of the importance of welcoming everyone to the table and celebrating all that they are. This month also gives us the opportunity to shine a light on the LGBTQ community, advocate for them, and honor them. Jewish tradition specifically teaches that the infinite variety and diversity of humanity is a mark of Divine artistry and creativity (Mishnah Sanhedrin 4:5). So we honor you, our LGBTQ community and celebrate you during this very special month!

If you would like to get out and celebrate Pride Month, check out the following events here:

Keshet has a calendar of in person and online Jewish Pride Events.

There are pride events happening all month in Ann Arbor, see the full calendar here!

Here are some resources on some interesting Jewish Perspectives on Pride:

Reconstructing the 10 Commandments

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by Deb Kraus

We gathered after services on Shavuot to reconstruct the 10 commandments.  I’ve been wanting to talk about this for awhile, and Carol let me add a group to the study sessions that Kathryn and Seth were doing.

WE had a multigenerational group: from Odile, celebrating her 76th birthday tonight, to Sidney and Elsie, our young sages.  It was hard to stay on track, but I think we treated everyone according to the commandments we reconstructed beow.

First we talked about the ones that either we had problems with or the ones that while good, probably wouldn’t make the cut of being one of the “ten.”  This included “do not commit adultery,” presumed to have meant something more at the time and presumably there to promote the patriarchy.  We ended up including it under “having ethical relationships.”  In fact, we ended up combining 6-9 into this commandment, after many conversations about when murder, stealing and lying might be understandable, but realizing that this was the underlying principle.

Similarly we had a long conversation about “honoring your mother and father, “both in terms of whether honoring was the right verb and whether mother and father were the right objects of that verb.  It turns out we wanted something that was more inclusive of the powerful mentors and teachers and other elders in our lives, and at one point we decided to include children in here as well.  And then we realized that welcoming the stranger, mentioned 36 times in the torah, might fit in here too, although when I got home and wrote this out, we only had 9 so I gave it its own number.

Sidney, our young sage, echoed (without knowing it!) what Caleb Shoup talked about in his bar mitzvah d’var on this topic several years ago.  How he asked, can you say it’s wrong to have a feeling?  He was referring to “do not be envious of others,” the coveting commandment  He suggested we should focus more on gratitude.  This is how “have gratitude for all you have” came to be part of our 10.

People had problems with the idea of using God’s name in vain.  It was one of those things where it felt too ubiquitous to condemn ourselves for it.  That didn’t convince me, but when Rena said “We should talk about not disrespecting or misusing God,” that resonated with everyone more than anything about language.  It’s Shulweis’ predicate theology once again.  Act Godly!

“Do not make or worship idols” provoked a lot of conversation about how what we pay attention is really what we worship, whether it be money, food, video games, power….so we changed #2 to “Don’t lose sight of what’s important.”

We didn’t mess with the first commandment, figuring that monotheism is too central to Judaism to reconstruct.

Then we turned our attention to what isn’t here and found that we wanted to pay more attention to the earth and all creatures.  And we wanted something about caring for ourselves, which eventually got combined in with Shabbat.

Lastly, “Make liberal use of apologies and work to right your wrongs.”

Here is our list:

1.      I am God.  Don’t’ have any others.

2.     Don’t lose sight of what’s important or worship other things or Gods

3.     Do not disrespect or misuse God.  Act Godly.

4.     Take care of your body, mind and soul.  Have a day of rest to replenish yourself and keep it holy.

5.     Honor your elders, whether they are teachers, parents, elders.  Honor your children.  In fact honor everyone.

6.     Love and welcome the stranger.  Humanize everyone.  Respect individuality and work to have empathy for everyone.

7.     Have ethical relationships.  Treat others how you would want to be treated and don’t treat others how you don’t want to be treated.

8.     Make liberal use of apologies and work to right your wrongs.

9.     Honor the earth by caring for all life’s creatures and the natural world.  Work to repair and tend and heal the world back to its original condition.  Remember there is no “away” and every place is someone’s back yard.

10.  Have gratitude for all you have.

AARC Welcomes Gabrielle Pescador as our new Rabbi!!!

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The Ann Arbor Reconstructionist Congregation is delighted to share the good news that Gabrielle Pescador will be joining us as our new Rabbi beginning July 2023! 

Gabrielle Pescador is a hazzan and soon to be ordained as a rabbi.  She serves as Interim Spiritual Leader of Temple B’nai Israel of Petoskey MI and as guest cantor in synagogues throughout the country.  In 2018 Gabrielle founded and continues to lead the Rosh Chodesh Online Minyan, and is a regular prayer leader and teacher for Pardes Hannah of Ann Arbor MI.  From 2019-2021 she was cantorial soloist for the high holy days for AARC. Gabrielle is a harpist and composer of liturgical music, and considers the harp an instrument of healing.  Before entering the ALEPH Ordination program, Gabrielle spent several years working on documentary films and community art projects focused on issues of social justice. 

Gabrielle’s motivation for becoming a rabbi stems from a deep desire to serve, particularly by helping people find meaning through engaging in Jewish life.  She sees many pathways to meaning-making in Jewish tradition – through prayer and celebration of Shabbat and holidays, through the study of Torah, Jewish thought and Jewish history, through Jewish art and creative ritual, and through the many expressions of tikkun olam.  

Gabrielle is excited to join our diverse and vibrant community and to work with all of our members and learn together. Her goal is to lead through collaboration. Gabrielle says,  “I am so  moved by the heart and soul and enthusiasm of the AARC members, and so impressed by their curiosity, knowledge base, lay leadership, artistic contributions and strong volunteer presence. There is so much richness here and so many interesting people.  I can’t wait to get started and do Jewish together.”

The AARC community  is so excited about what she brings to our congregation and is looking forward to her rabbinic leadership. Many thanks to the Search Committee for their time, dedication that made this possible.

Over the coming months we will be planning opportunities to get to know Gabrielle and introduce her to our community. More details to come!

Isaac Meadow Presents Benefit Concert for Ukraine  

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   Isaac Meadow, of the Ann Arbor Reconstructionist Congregation, will present a humanitarian aid benefit concert for Ukraine on Thursday, June 15, at Zion Lutheran Church in Ann Arbor, at 6:00 p.m. The concert will feature music by multiple composers, played upon the piano and the organ in the church’s main sanctuary. Admission will be by free-will donation.

      The concert will be performed as a “mitzvah project” ― a community service associated with Isaac’s Bar Mitzvah.  Isaac was inspired to take on this particular effort by the confluence of compassion, love of music, and familial ties to Ukraine. 

      At the age of five, when Isaac first received money as a present, he wanted to give it away to a beggar he met in the streets.  In the following years, he has remained empathetic to people in distress, particularly the homeless. When Isaac started following the news of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, he knew he wanted to act. “I was horrified,” he said, “particularly by the violence against children ― children being killed, or forced from their homes.” A benefit concert, he thought, might be a way for him to raise money to help.

      Isaac has a long-standing love of music. He has studied the piano since the age of five under the tutelage of Renée Robbins, and recently has started to study the organ with Carol Muehlig. He is looking forward to an intensive organ study at Interlochen fine arts camp later this summer. He has played piano for the Ann Arbor Reconstructionist Congregation’s High Holidays services, and looks forward to serving the congregation musically again in the future. The concert will feature pieces that Isaac has learned especially for the occasion, as well as several pieces that he has been playing for longer. The concert will also include a brief demonstration of the types of sounds and musical techniques achievable on the piano and organ.

      Isaac’s family has a current connection to Ukraine because Isaac’s grandmother befriended Vladimir Sayenko, now a Ukrainian lawyer, when he was studying at the University of Michigan in 1993 and 1994. Sayenko later hosted Isaac’s grandmother, and mother on a visit to Goroshina (alternatively, Horoshyne), the Ukrainian village Isaac’s great-great-grandfather fled in the early 1900s to come to the United States.

      All proceeds will go to “Breathe” (Ukrainian: “Dyhai”), a charity originally founded in 2020 to provide equipment for hospitals in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Since Sayenko is an associate of one of Breathe’s founders, Isaac looks forward to keeping a close conversation going about the charity, and to seeing the good that the benefit concert proceeds will be able to accomplish. Thus far, Breathe has provided supplies to Ukrainian hospitals, winter clothing for the elderly, and electronic chargers and other equipment to families, for lighting, communication and for continuing children’s education in the wake of wartime disruptions. Isaac said, “It’s really good to be able to help people – even from so far away!”

Shavuot 2023!

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AARC will celebrate Shavuot this year in combination with our normal Fourth Friday Shabbat Service on May 26th, 6:30-8pm at the JCC of Ann Arbor. The shabbat service will by hybrid in person and on Zoom. If you would like to attend the service online and do not receive our mailers, please email us for the Zoom link.

The service will be followed by in-person potluck dinner and mini Torah study workshops at the JCC. Everyone is welcome!

We invite you to bring something from your yard or home such as flowers, greenery cuttings, asparagus, or spinach that are among our first harvests here.

Please also bring your vegetarian, nut-free dish to share at the potluck. For Shavuot,  Dairy (or dairy-like) desserts are always popular, or you might feature ancient “first fruits” that included wheat, barley, grapes, figs, pomegranates, olives, and dates in your dish.  

This service will include Shavuot songs and readings and Torah-related drash with leadership by Carol Lessure, Seth Kopald and Kathryn Kopald.

If you are unable to make our Shavuot gathering or would like additional Shavuot opportunities, Unbound Judaism will have an online Shavuot offering. You can find out more about it here!

Beit Sefer Mitzvah Day at the Humane Society!

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The AARC Beit Sefer religious school spent a super fun Sunday morning at the Humane Society learning about the Jewish value of taking care of all earth’s creatures. Guided by the Humane Society staff, the students learned about the mission of the Humane Society as well as what it means to be a good caregiver to your animals. Part of the kids service project was to spend time with the animals, reading to them and keeping them company. They took turns in the cat rooms and the dog rooms sitting by the animals cages, calmly reading to them and showing them the pictures. The animals really liked it!

In preparation for this Mitzvah Day, the students baked and sold kosher style dog and cat biscuits to members of the congregation. The students used the proceeds from the sale to give a donation to the Humane Society. Families also brought blankets and towels as a donation to the facility.

It was a lovely morning and such a joy to watch the kids spread their love to all of the creatures at the Huron Valley Humane Society!

Counting the Omer between Passover and Shavuot

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One of the ways that my children were taught to calm down and take a break when they were processing their feelings was to count. Count 5 things you can see, 4 things you can hear, 3 things you can tough, 2 things you can smell, one thing you can taste. Or count your fingers and your toes while taking deep breaths. There are many ways that marking the passage of time, either by minutes or days, can make us feel calm, connect us to our bodies, and help us to feel a part of something larger than ourselves.

Counting the Omer began as an agricultural holiday that has its roots in the first barley offering and the first wheat offering in the Temple Era. The observance was a way of offering prayer for a good harvest. As Jewish civilization transitioned out of the temple period, counting Omer moved into an exercise to mark the passage of time between Passover and Shavuot. It is an existential exercise that asks us to reflect on the movement from enslavement, to liberation, to the giving of Torah both in the liturgical sense an also the change in perspective within our minds. The omer is counted every day for 7 weeks, ending with the holiday of Shavuot.

In Michigan, we’re far away from the wheat and barley harvests of Israel, as well as far from the experience of being enslaved. But as spring unfolds for us, counting the omer can help us shake off the stiffness of winter and recommit to the work of tikkun hanefesh (healing the soul) and tikkun olam (healing the world). 

Some resources for counting the omer: