This Shabbat's After Birkat haMazon learning at CNS: "Beyond Debt Relief - Netivot Shalom and the Jubilee 2000 Movement"

This Shabbat's After Birkat haMazon learning at CNS:

Beyond Debt Relief - Netivot Shalom and the Jubilee 2000 Movement

Jubilee USA is an interfaith coalition of individual congregations (including Netivot Shalom), national organizations (including American Jewish World Service), and global partners that is working to win shifts to the global financial system that benefit the world's poorest people.  Jubilee has helped to win more than $130 billion in debt relief for developing countries, and is working to change the conditions that keep countries and people poor by addressing key international issues such as tax havens, Vulture Funds, and reform at the International Monetary Fund. Come learn more about the exciting and transformative work Jubilee is doing and how the Netivot Shalom community can participate!

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Rabbi Menachem Creditor
▶menachemcreditor.org ▶netivotshalom.org

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First Kisses, Intimacy, and Eternity

First Kisses, Intimacy, and Eternity
© Rabbi Menachem Creditor

A kiss is not just a kiss, no matter what Herman Humphrey's 1931 famous song "As Time Goes By" suggests.

The touch of someone's lips on your own is incomparable. It is different in kind, not just intensity, from any other kind of physical contact. Chin and hair unpredictably brushing against each other. And the eyes of the other, their very soul, pouring into yours. But that is only part of why "First Kiss" a short video by filmmaker Tatia Pilieva uploaded to YouTube this past Tuesday, is so powerful.

Some of the millions who have watched "First Kiss" shared their confusion after watching the clip, wondering what made it so special. Some viewers could only deride the encounters, based on who the partners were. But some (including me) were brought to tears by the purity of each touch.

We are more than our bodies, more than the chemistry ignited by physical contact. The human need to not be alone is even evident in the beautiful awkwardness captured by Pilieva's couples, strangers she placed in front of a camera, with one simple direction: "Kiss." The beauty of these kisses between strangers is in their hunger for union, for their bodies loving each other, for the intention of the moment, for the bravery of looking another person in the eyes and opening yourself to them.

Yes, some kisses were ravishing. Some were tentative. Some were electric. Some weren't quite smooth. But if the cameras had been off, the very human urge to connect would have still been present. Palpable, even.

It is hard, the French Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Levinas taught, to look directly into someone's eyes, because all of eternity is exposed and offered right there. Tatia Pilieva blessed us when she captured artful glimpses of human beings experiencing fleeting encounters with eternity.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpbDHxCV29A

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Rabbi Menachem Creditor
▶menachemcreditor.org ▶netivotshalom.org

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Netivot Shalom is learning Mishnah!

Announcing: The Netivot Shalom Mishnah Project! Netivot Shalom is learning Mishnah! CNS Members are learning Mishnah, an early Jewish collection (ca. 400 CE)! Learning Mishnah is very accessible, with free online English translations, a variety of books, and CNS members who can help Mishnah-newcomers help find their ways! (Rabbi Creditor is also thrilled to meet with any interested members looking for some guidance!) The commitment is: 1) Go to the CNS Mishnah project googledoc: tinyurl.com/mishnahproject 2) Select one or two units (please enter your name) 3) Commit to approximately 2 hours of reading and reflection by April 14 The Mishnah project is timed to culminate during minyan the morning before Pesach (April 14), when the Siyyum Bechorim (the Fast of the firstborns) takes place. You do not need to attend minyan that morning (7:15 am) to participate in the learning project, though you're welcome to join the celebratory siyyum (completion) that morning! Some places to explore Mishnah Mo'ed online are: 1) An intro to Seder (the Order of) Mo'ed: tinyurl.com/intromoed 2) All of Mishnah Moe'd in English - an free online translation - is here: emishnah.com/moed.html 3) Afikomen Judaica (3042 Claremont Ave., Berkeley): afikomen.com 4) The CNS Library! So, Netivot Shalom: are you ready? Let's learn some Mishnah!

Music can just tear your heart out, remind you just how hard it can beat, and then hold you tight as you regain your breath. #sacredsong

Announcing: The Netivot Shalom Mishnah Project!

Netivot Shalom is learning Mishnah!

CNS Members are learning Mishnah, an early Jewish collection (ca. 400 CE)! Learning Mishnah is very accessible, with free online English translations, a variety of books, and CNS members who can help Mishnah-newcomers help find their ways! (Rabbi Creditor is also thrilled to meet with any interested members looking for some guidance!)

The commitment is:

1) Go to the CNS Mishnah project googledoc: http://tinyurl.com/mishnahproject

2) Select one or two units (please enter your name)

3) Commit to approximately 2 hours of reading and reflection by April 14

The Mishnah project is timed to culminate during minyan the morning before Pesach (April 14), where the Siyyum Bechorim (the Fast of the firstborns) takes place. You do not need to attend minyan that morning (7:15 am) to participate in the learning project, though you’re welcome to join the celebratory siyyum (completion) that morning!

Some places to explore Mishnah Mo’ed online are:

1) An intro to Seder (the Order of) Mo’ed: http://tinyurl.com/intromoed

2) All of Mishnah Moe’d in English – an free online translation – is here: http://www.emishnah.com/moed.html

3) Afikomen Judaica (3042 Claremont Ave., Berkeley): afikomen.com

4) The CNS Library!

So, Netivot Shalom: are you ready? Let’s learn some Mishnah!

Coming Up at Congregation Netivot Shalom! Purim Carnival, Rabbi Jay Michaelson, Dov Elbaum in Conversation w Rabbi Menachem Creditor @ SF Jewish Library, Rabbi Edward Feld, "The Greatest Silence: Rape in the Congo" screening with American Jewish World Service - AJWS, San Francisco, and Pesach learning with Rabbi Shalom Bochner!

Coming Up at Congregation Netivot Shalom! Davening, Megillah Reading, & Carnival! PURIM 5774 @CNS! As Purim falls on Saturday Night (March 15) we'll be holding an adult-oriented (& child-welcome!) Erev Purim at Shul at 8:30pm. Sunday Morning minyan, which also includes Megillah Reading, will take place at 9:30am. Our PURIM CARNIVAL is Sunday, March 16, 11-2:00! COME IN COSTUME  and play brand new carnival games; bounce in a castle fit for a queen (Esther of course!); get a makeover at the Shushan Salon; grab some coffee, hamantaschen, and lunch at the "Morning After" Café; and make your own sundaes featuring Vashti vanilla ice cream! Costume Parade and Megillah stories starting at noon in the social hall.  Save the Date! A CNS Scholar-in-Residence Shabbat with Rabbi Jay Michaelson!   April 25 (Friday Night Davening & Dinner) & April 26th (Drasha and after-Birkat haMazon Learning) Israeli Author  Dov Elbaum  in conversation  with Rabbi Creditor  @ SF Jewish Library! Thursday, March 27, 7pm for more info, visit tinyurl.com/sfvoid Save the Date! Author Rabbi Edward Feld is coming to CNS  Sunday, May 18th, at 9am to speak about his new book  "Joy, Despair, and Hope!"  with support from the  Rabbi Stuart Kelman Liturgy Fund The Greatest Silence:  Rape in the Congo March 20th, 6:30pm Delancey Street Foundation Screening Room   600 The Embarcadero, San Francisco  for more info, visit tinyurl.com/breakthesilenceSF   featuring a panel conversation with Lisa Jackson (filmmaker & producer), Rosalie Nezien (AJWS Program Officer), Rabbi Menachem Creditor, and Nyota Babunga, Communications Officer for AJWS grantee partner Fund pour les femmes Congolaise in the Democratic Republic of Congo.   A Taste of Passover: Leaving Slavery and Celebrating Freedom with Rabbi Shalom Bochner Monday, March 31 7 - 8:30pm    A Pesach How-to for CNS members and friends!

Jews and Gun Violence: An Update

Jews and Gun Violence: An Update
(c) Rabbi Menachem Creditor

The 'best' update when trying to express the current Jewish response to American Gun Violence is this: Jews around the United States have had reignited (for lack of a better phrase) the prophetic aspect of their communal leadership. Rabbis are standing, walking, preaching, and lobbying with interfaith coalitions and political alliances to save lives from the scourge of gun violence.

A hint of the historic social contract between Jews and African-Americans is peeking through once again. We did not fulfill our obligation to stand with our sisters and brothers in Montgomery. The Jewish understanding that the immeasurable work of justice would not be completed in our days has, here and there, concentrated our concern inward, where the impact of our labors is perhaps more immediately recognizable. But Jews know that we dare not turn our windows into mirrors, misperceiving our own needs as all that matters. And, more to the point, that very phrase - "our needs" - has shifted subtly within Jewish organizing yet again. Gun Violence is not "their" problem. There is no "they." Bluntly: The problem is that many Jews in America have become so "white" over the decades that it has taken frequent massacres and multiple daily murders to call us back into the real world, where no person or group is immune to the blood spilled in our streets, where children have easy access to firearms, where the NRA has bought undue influence within our elected leadership, a world in which the social contract Jews must help resurrect is of basic necessity, a world in which "we" are "they," a world in which and every slain (and, please God, saved) child is our own.

It is as if Abraham Joshua Heschel's teaching, that there is "no time for neutrality", has become common sense, as rabbis and others have been shaken from a false sense of security with every shooting. Rabbis are reclaiming their roles as partners in the prophetic American impulse, amplifying the American value of communal obligation over the inadequate and isolating American philosophies self-reliance and rugged individualism.

So is there news? Yes. 33 Divine images are snuffed out every day in America, every day. 7 Newtowns a week, every week. And the Jewish community is committed to doing our part in restoring God's holy and battered image, one saved human life at a time.

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Rabbi Menachem Creditor
▶menachemcreditor.org ▶netivotshalom.org

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