Dear Friend,
When you give to your Jewish community, 100% of your gift is supporting a bright Jewish future for generations.
Together, we celebrate the joy of Jewish life and bring meaning and purpose into each and everyday.
With your help our holiday celebrations, learning, services and programs, Hebrew School and Jewish Day Camp continue to be the gold standard in Jewish life.
Please take a moment to make a year end contribution in support of the future of your Jewish community.
Thank you for participating in Jewish life at Bris Avrohom of Fair Lawn.
You, your family and your support are the blessing that makes our community!!!
Wishing you a good Shabbos and a Happy and healthy 2022.
Monday, January 17 at 8pm
Join for an evening for women, in honor of Tu B'shvat the New Year for Trees.
Enjoy a live demo by Lina Perchuk, who will make delectable desserts using raw, vegan and natural ingredients.
All participants will make their own assorted chocolate truffles gift box.
All desserts are nut or coconut based, sweetened with natural sweeteners. Dairy, egg, gluten and refined sugar free.
Couvert: $30
Complimentary for Partners in Pride
By reservation only.
Thursdays 4pm- 5pm Geared for boys and girls in grades 6th - 8th, MVP is volunteering and Mitzvah madness, while connecting with other pre-teens and having a meaningful impact!
MVP is open to all junior teens free of charge!
A BISSELE HUMOR
Tony comes up to the Mexican border on his bicycle. He's got two large bags over his shoulders. Joe, the border guard, stops him and says, "What's in the bags?"
"Sand," answers Tony.
Joe says, "We'll just see about that. Get off the bike." Joe takes the bags and rips them apart; he empties them out and finds nothing in them but sand. He detains Tony overnight and has the sand analyzed, only to discover that there is nothing but pure sand in the bags.
Joe releases Tony, puts the sand into new bags, hefts them onto the man's shoulders, and lets him cross the border.
The next day, the same thing happens. Joe asks, "What have you got?"
“Sand," says Tony.
Joe does his thorough examination and discovers that the bags contain nothing but sand. He gives the sand back to Tony, and Tony crosses the border on his bicycle.
This sequence of events is repeated every day for three years. Then Joe runs across Tony one day in a cantina in Mexico.
"Hey, buddy," says Joe, "I retired my job. I know you are smuggling something. It's driving me crazy. It's all I think about ... I can't sleep. Just between you and me, what are you smuggling?"
Tony sips his beer and says, "bicycles.”
WEEKLY eTORAH
Imagine you have been working on the job for years and years. It is hard, manual labor and you are not simply tired but exhausted, demoralized, drained and frustrated. And then, one fine day, some new fellow on the floor stands up and promises a whole new world of equality, rewards and ultimate freedom. Do you believe him or are you beyond hope? Do you dare hold out for a better tomorrow and risk being devastated and cast into despair yet again or do you simply accept your fate and give up dreaming?
So it was with our ancestors in Egypt. They were slaving away all those years when a new face appeared and began making promises. Moses brings a message from G‑d that they are about to be redeemed. There is a Promised Land ahead. All is not lost. There is light at the end of the tunnel.
The Jews' response? And they did not listen to Moses out of shortness of breath and from the hard labor.
One commentary explains that “shortness of breath” shouldn’t be understood only literally. The Hebrew for breath is ruach, which can also mean “spirit.” In other words, they weren’t able to heed Moses’ call not only from physical breathlessness, but because they lacked the spirit. Having suffered in bondage for so long, they no longer had the faith or hope to believe that freedom was still in the realm of the possible. It was simply beyond them. They had lost the spirit.
In the history of Egypt not a single slave had ever escaped. How could an entire nation ever walk free? Moses was a dreamer, they must have thought. It is just not realistic to hold out such high hopes only to have them dashed yet again. And so the people were utterly despondent and spiritless and, therefore, they could not hear, i.e. absorb, Moses’ message.
It happens all too often. People become so set in their mediocrity that they give up hope of ever achieving the breakthrough. Marriages get stuck in the rut of routine and the tedious treadmill keeps rolling along until we lose even the desire to dream. And Israel’s people, even brave leaders, are so despondent from years of war, attrition and terror that they clutch at imaginary straws because, basically, if we are honest with ourselves, they have simply lost the resolve.
I have often quoted a wise proverb heard in the name of the legendary Chasid, Reb Mendel Futerfas. “If you lose your money, you’ve lost nothing. Money comes and money goes. If you lose your health, you’ve lost half. You are not the person you were before. But if you lose your resolve, you’ve lost it all.”
Moses brought new hope to a depressed, dreamless nation. He gave them back the spirit they had lost and eventually, through the miracles of G‑d, the promise was fulfilled and the dream became destiny.
To be out of breath is normal. To be out of spirit is something the Jewish People can never afford. May we never lose the spirit.
