Chavurah Beth Shalom

04/05/2023

A Passover Message from our Rabbi Nat Benjamin
Pesach: A symbol of remembrance, our homeland, springtime, family, social justice and freedom for all.
Wishing all of our Chavurah Beth Shalom members, friends and family a peaceful and Happy Passover.
A Zissen Pesach,
Rabbi Nat Benjamin

03/23/2023

A community event message from our Rabbi Nat Benjamin :

The Kaplen JCC on the Palisades Community Theater will be presenting the Diary of Anne Frank this evening, Thursday, March 23 as well as this Sunday.
This special event is available to JCC non-members as well as members. Click below to purchase tickets.
Rabbi Nat Benjamin

Presented by the JCC Community Theatre During the N**i occupation of the Netherlands, Anne Frank began to keep a diary on June 14, 1942, two days after her 13th birthday and twenty-two days before going into hiding with her parents, sister, and three other people. Hiding in the sealed-off upper room...

06/03/2022

Tomorrow night began the Jewish festival of Shavuot , marking the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai and is held seven weeks after Passover.
In modern times it is two days of Torah education and the reading of the Ten Commandments and the celebration of Jewish life.

05/03/2022

Memorial prayer for Yom HaZikaron:

El Malei Rachamim, shochein bamromim. Ham’tzei m’nuchah n’chonah Tachat kanfei haShechina, Bmalaot k’doshim ut’horim

K’zohar harakia mazhirim, L’nishmot kol giborei ameinu, Shemasru nafsham al g’ulat artseinu. Ana baal HaRachamim,

Hastirem b’tseil k’nafecha l’olamim, Utzror bitzror hachayim Et nishmatam. Adonai hu nachalatam V’yanuchu b’shalom
al mishkavam V’nomar amen.

Fully compassionate God on high: To the souls of those among our people Who bravely gave their lives for the redemption of our Land,

Grant clear and certain rest with You In the lofty heights of the sacred and pure Whose brightness shines like the very glow of heaven.

Source of mercy: Forever enfold them in the embrace of Your wings; Secure their souls in eternity. Adonai: they are Yours.
They will rest in peace. Amen

Remember our people who could not escape past tyranny and hate; May their memory be more than a distant shadow.

For their dreams left unfulfilled and lives taken too soon: we remember. Remember our brothers and sisters whose sacrifice gave birth to the state of Israel;
May their courage be our inspiration and our strength. For life cut short and vision unrealized: we remember.
The fallen of the Israel Defense Forces, the victims of terror and tragedy;
May their darkness of their loss not obscure the light of peace. They were in love with the land and in love with life. For the agony, the tears,
the mothers and fathers,
For the children who were and for the children yet to be: we remember. Amen

Rabbi Nat Benjamin
Rabbi Nat Benjamin

05/03/2022

This evening will begin Yom Hazikaron, a day we honor the fallen soldiers of Israel.
To allow us all to understand the importance of this day, we share with you the words of Ryan Greiss, originally from Cresskill, NJ. and a veteran of the Israel Defense Forces' Golani Brigade. I was honored to perform Ryan's Bar Mitzvah many years ago and his family were members of our Chavurah for many many years. Thank you Ryan for allowing your moving words to be shared with our Chavurah.

- A lot of Americans think of Yom HaZikaron as Israel's Memorial Day, but it's really so much more than that.
How many of you are soldiers?
How many of your children have you worried would fall on the field of battle?
How many people do you know who have served in the military?
Could you count them on one hand?

In Israel, everybody serves. In Israel, everybody has lost friends and family to acts of war or terror. So in Israel, Yom HaZikaron isn't just a state holiday; it's a national day of mourning.

It's a metaphorical yahrzeit that every single person commemorates together, all at once. When the sirens sound, one at 8 p.m., Tuesday night and the other at 11 a.m.,Wednesday morning, the entire country will literally stand still:
Cars on the highways will grind to a halt and remember all the people who laid down their lives so that they could live free in the Jewish state.

When the siren sounds:
I remember Max Steinberg, usually over a glass of bourbon. Originally from Los Angeles, Max struggled to learn Hebrew but was strong as an ox and never stopped smiling until he was blown up in an armored personnel carrier during Israel's 2014 war with Gaza.
I remember Oron Shaul, another soldier from Golani's 13th Battalion, who was riding with Max and whose body is still being held for ransom by Hamas.
I grieve with my friend Shai Amichai, whose little brother took his own life with his service weapon, and with Mikhael Precel, who'd just walked out of the Sbarro in Jerusalem when it exploded, killing 15 people — including his friend — and wounding 130 — including Mikhael. He was only 16 years old.

After a day full of grief, in a uniquely Israeli way, Yom HaZikaron flows right into Yom Ha'atzmaut, Israel's Independence Day.

It's a doubleheader: Memorial Day and July 4th, one after the other.
We remember the price and then we celebrate the rewards.

This Yom HaZikaron I ask you to remember my friends and all the heroes who paid the ultimate price to preserve the only Jewish state, and I wish you a very happy Yom Ha'atzmaut. -

Thank you Ryan
Rabbi Nat Benjamin
Chavurah Beth Shalom

05/01/2022

Each year on Yom Hashoah six candles are lit in memory the 6 millions Jews murdered in the Holocaust.
Our Rabbi Nat Benjamin led our Chavurah at our evening Shabbat Online Service by reading this verse , a verse read around the country and the world each year.

We Light Our Candles
We light our candles by passing the light of memory and hope from one to another. Let us honor those whose lights were put out, whose dreams, hopes and lives were snuffed out before they even lived, for the one and one half million children.
We light a candle for the untold millions for whom there is no one to mourn, whose entire families were annihilated and who lie in unmarked graves.
We light a candle for those who stood upright while others were bending to unmoral will. For the Righteous Among the Nations who risked and even gave their lives to help their fellow human beings.
We light a candle for those brave soldiers who liberated the camps; who carried the dead and near dead in their arms to a kinder and more humane future and for those who served with the allied forces to put an end to tyranny and oppression.
We light a candle for the nearly six million Jews and for the six million non-Jews who perished in a planned system of human destruction, the scale of which had never before been even imagined.
We light a candle for those who live even now under the yoke of oppression, in places where the threat of genocide is real and ever present.
-Unknown

04/29/2022

Please join Rabbi Nat Benjamin for evening Shabbat tonight.
Prayers and Readings for the Holocaust will be included this evening,, Friday, April 29th at 730pm.
You can join Rabbi Nat Benjamin online via The Chavurah Beth Shalom Zoom Network.

04/28/2022

Join Rabbi Nat Benjamin :
On Yom Hashoah, this annual day of commemoration, we honor the memory of six million Jews murdered during World War II.
Yom Hashoah began last night and ends this evening.

Rabbi Nat Benjamin

04/26/2022

Our Rabbi Nat Benjamin shares this passage from The Gates of Repentance.
Rabbi Nat Benjamin

Prayer For Overcoming Indifference

For the sin of silence,
For the sin of indifference,
For the secret complicity
of the neutral,
For the closing of borders,
For the washing of hands,
For the crime of indifference,
For the sin of silence,
For the closing of borders.
For all that was done,
For all that was not done,
Let there be no forgetfulness
before the Throne of Glory;
Let there be remembrance
within the human heart;
And let there, at last, be forgiveness
When your children, O God,
Are free and at peace.

04/20/2022

Sharing you a few more pics from our 2022 Chavurah Beth Shalom Online Seder hosted by Founding Rabbi Nat Benjamin .
Wishing all of our members, families and friends a Happy Passover.
Rabbi Nat Benjamin

04/19/2022

Scenes from our Chavurah Beth Shalom Online Seder featuring Rabbi Nat Benjamin .

04/16/2022

Happy Passover and thank you so much to those who joined us for our online seder hosted by Rabbi Nat Benjamin
Rabbi Nat Benjamin