Jewish Center of Northwest Jersey

03/17/2025

Vote your values!

Our “Vote Reform” slate is deeply committed to a strong and secure Israel and strengthening the Israel-Diaspora relationship, working in close partnership with our Israeli Reform Movement. As Reform Zionists, we seek a democratic, pluralistic, and vibrant Israeli society. We believe deeply in Je...

01/27/2025

Never again!

80 years ago today, the Red Army liberated the concentration camp at Auschwitz, unveiling its almost unspeakable horrors to the world.

On Holocaust Memorial Day 2025, we remember the millions of people murdered during the Holocaust and N**i persecution, and also in more recent genocides around the world. This evening at 8pm, light a candle to remember all those murdered for who they were, and stand against prejudice and hatred today 🕯️

📷 George Anthony Fisk for Historic Photographer of the Year 2023

12/03/2024

As we spread love and kindness this season, consider empowering the JCNWJ to continue their vital work by adding them to your giving list. jcnwj.org/6892-2/

10/11/2024

To all my Facebook friends,
May your fast on this Yom Kippur be meaningful to you. May you remember the hungry when you don't eat or drink. May you remember the homeless when you go to sleep under a roof tonight. May you make peace with those who have wronged you and may you make peace with those you you have done wrong to.
Maybe the spirit of peace descend on you and your families and friends. May you find meaning, joy and beauty (Thanks Mike) every day of the upcoming year, May you attempt to be a better person this year than you were last year.
L'Shanah Tovah

10/02/2024

On this, the final day of Elul, we hope to see you at the Jewish Center of Northwest Jersey tonight for Erev Rosh Hashanah, beginning at 7:00.

We will resume tomorrow morning at 10:00, and then again at 10:00 on Friday morning.

A Sweet and Happy New Year to All!

October 2, 2024/29 Elul 5784
Rabbi Michael Churgel

I recently started watching Time Bandits on Apple+, a reimagining of the zany 1981 film. In the opening episode, we are introduced to Kevin, an intelligent and thoughtful 12-year-old boy, and his neglectful parents, who spend most of their time sitting on the couch using their smartphones while the TV plays in the background. This is an all too familiar scene in households across our world.

Not so long ago, in the days before social media, the internet, and mobile phones, human beings communicated directly. We engaged one another through direct dialogue in person, over the phone, or perhaps, through an exchange of letters, not through terse texts, tweets, snaps, and wall posts. When we wanted to share personal information, we did so directly rather than blogging it for the world to see all at once. We received our news by reading the daily paper, listening to news radio, and watching the evening news broadcasts. We trusted these sources. We trusted each other.

Where has that trust gone? Perhaps it disappeared when we stopped connecting with one another directly, paying more attention to TikTok and Instagram rather than giving our full attention and benefit of the doubt to our family and friends, colleagues and neighbors, teachers and mentors.

As Kevin found his way back in time, may we find our way back to those “simpler” times and give our full and direct attention to those people that matter in our lives, and little by little, heal our precious world.

10/01/2024

October 1, 2024/28 Elul 5784
Rabbi Eric Linder

After settling in the land of Canaan, Abraham and his nephew Lot found great success. In fact, they amassed so much wealth that even their animals began to compete over land and resources

The Torah tells us that Abraham approached his nephew. Please let there be no strife between me and you, and between my herdsmen and your herdsmen, for we are brethren (Genesis 13:8).

He proposed a solution:

Is not the whole land before you? Please separate from me; if you take the left, then I will go to the right; if you go to the right, then I will go to the left (Genesis 13:9).

Until recently, I saw this story as one of reconciliation and peace. But now, I find it tragically sad, reflecting an unfortunate reality of our world.

Even in 5784, thousands of years after Abraham and Lot walked this relatively uninhabited Earth, there are still ample resources for humanity. And more than 300 days after October 7, we would consider ourselves fortunate if Palestinians and Israelis could come to the kind of compromise as Abraham and Lot.

But that is not peace. Peace is not deciding: You go your way, I'll go mine. Peace is the realization that your way is mine. I pray that this is the kind of peace that we continue to strive for.

10/01/2024

September 30, 2024/27 Elul 5784
Cantor Laurie Weinstein

The Japanese have an artistic style called kintsugi in which a broken piece of pottery is repaired by mending the areas of breakage with a lacquer dusted or mixed with powdered precious metal…like gold. Why do this? One answer: to embrace the flawed or the imperfect. Healing human brokenness is not as easy as gold dusted glue. However, if I greet the broken hearted with an open heart, couldn’t I begin to see that my neighbor is broken like me? Through this humble act of seeing my neighbor’s struggle, perhaps we begin our narrative there and change our story moving forward. The brokenness has been recognized and repair has begun, all with the strength of humility. Humility is soft, like pure gold and needs a little agent (glue) to bind relationships with strength. Just as kintsugi beautifies broken pottery with a shimmering strand of precious metal, I too can choose to heal the brokenness I witness. I cannot mend brokenness with gold leaf, but I can take strides to bring beauty or better yet, love into the world. I can refrain from negative speech, I can smile at a stranger, I can give of my talents and time, I can be kind. While positive actions take effort, the love and light poured into the world can help to shift perceptions to positivity.

09/30/2024

September 29, 2024/26 Elul 5784
Cantor Joanna Alexander

Dear God,

Why can they not see how wrong they are? Can you not simply bring a miracle to show them your will, to change their ways and help them find the true path?

Dear God, I know I am not perfect, but do they not see the harm they cause to others, the damage to your one and only earth, the pain their stubbornness bears out?

They have such surety in their rightness, such conviction in their narrowness, and such strength in their mindset for the world.

Dear God, can they not see a wider aperture? Can they not see the Godliness in my life, my family, my faith, my desires?

Can they not see that if they would just stop the game of tit for tat, stop the view of a finite pie, stop the limited thinking; can they not see the world we could create together?

Dear God, help me hold up a mirror to them so they will see the limits of their way, help me bring them around to true understanding of Your openness, Your generosity, Your love and kindness.

Help them to see the consequences of their actions, and their narrow definition of rightness.

Dear God, please be a mirror for them, so they may change their ways.

Dear God, Be My Mirror Too.

09/28/2024

On Fridays, we share two Elul Thoughts, out of respect for those of us who choose not to look at social media on Shabbat. We wish you a blessed and restful Shabbat and hope you continue finding inspiration in our Elul Thoughts.

September 27-28, 2024/24-25 Elul 5784
Cantor David Berger

If you've ever been in a beit midrash (a traditional Jewish study hall), you know it's anything but quiet. Unlike a typical Western library, which it might physically resemble with its rows of bookshelves and study tables, a beit midrash is loud and lively. While Western learning often idealizes the solitary scholar, quietly reading and taking notes, the Jewish model of learning thrives on conversation and even confrontation between study partners. A study partner, often called a chevruta (from chaver, meaning “friend”), is also known as a bar plugta – a “sparring mate.” At its core, Jewish study is about the clash of individual understandings of sacred texts, rather than the smooth transmission of preexisting knowledge.

Avot D’rebbe Natan, an early rabbinic text based on Pirkei Avot, says: “When three people sit and engage in Torah together, the Holy Blessed One considers it as if they had become one unified troop (agudah achat) before God” (8:4). This agudah achat is unified not because they all think alike, but because their disagreements and constant sparring lead to a deeper understanding of each other. If only our public, political, communal, and global arguments could achieve the same. Our High Holy Day Amidah prays that all humanity may join together in agudah achat, “a unified troop,” to do God’s will with a complete heart. May we indeed find understanding in disagreement and grow in knowledge and wisdom through holy confrontation and conversation.

++++++++++++

Rabbi Michael Weinstein
Each day of Elul we are given the opportunity to reflect, heal, and change in prep for the High Holy Days and Yom Kippur. We often read Psalm 27 in s’lichot practice:

The first half of the psalm conveys assurance. The second half of the psalm depicts a world opposite. The clear inclusion: the name of God opens and closes the first half.
Throughout the second half, the reader hears the echo of the central term: One. For us as Jews, this is ideal preparation for the work of Elul. Before we can approach repentance or the joy of the Holy Day, we must honestly confront again our own faith and belief.

The psalmist testifies that love of God is achieved through effort, honesty, and open confrontation. The psalm demands oneness, reflecting an integration of difficult circumstances and security. First, we wrestle with our inner strife; only then may we approach our relationships with others. This work is all in the preparation for making things right with God.

Questions we might ask:
How strong and open are our hearts?
How are they blocked by anger, sadness, fear, or shame?
Are our thoughts, feelings, and actions in alignment with our ideals?
How well can we love the ones who are close, or bring closer the ones from whom we’ve drifted away?
Elul is the season of love – a time to reconnect with our best selves and to open ourselves to the God who summons us to a better life.

09/28/2024

September 26, 2024/23 Elul 5784
Rabbi Brad Levenberg

The slow trickle of time has the potential to turn streams into lakes. Consider the story of Mr. Brown, a widower in metro Atlanta, Georgia. He had a dream of a large pond in a recessed part of his property. Tragically, he died before his dream could be realized. The company he hired to design the project was negligent, leaving a hose running as they stepped away from the job. The Brown descendants, grieving their loss, left the property to rest, and the once beautiful landscaping became overgrown. When finally, after 12 years, they had an appraiser inspect the acreage, they found that, due to the hose, rainfall, and a topographical anomaly, the “large pond” had turned into a healthy lake deep and wide enough for paddle boating and fishing.

So it is with the minor rifts that tether us to our upset. Left unchecked, and with the passage of time, such tiny trickles can turn into large lakes or moats. Small breaches in relationships transform into fissures when unresolved. But what a gift we are given with these months of Elul! They offer us a unique opportunity to heal those rifts that we can, to address the hurts that, even if lingering for years, have turned into lakes when they have always been streams.

May we embrace the gift of this time to take the action needed to let go of what we can and, even more bravely, to heal that which we have the power to heal.

09/26/2024

September 25, 2024/22 Elul 5784
Rabbi Stephen Wise

I spent two weeks in Israel this summer. This was my second visit since October 7. The first was to bear witness to the massacre. At that time I noticed a bond of solidarity among Israelis over fighting back against Hamas and rescuing hostages. Grassroots charities sprung up across the country to help take care of others and put aside past grievances. Over the past 8 months that phenomenon slowly eroded with the continued war, despair, and frustrations with the current government. In Tel Aviv we noticed three different protests at the same time a few blocks apart.

While we might not be able to fix the world’s problems, we can find paths towards each other, one relationship at a time. In one particularly emotional moment in Jerusalem, my wife and I helped prepare dinner for a group of soldiers who had finished their army service in Gaza and had a ceremony of closure before going back home. Their deep connection to each other was clear, despite differences of age or political bent. When the commander ended the ceremony by asking for forgiveness for any times he made a mistake and put them in danger, there wasn’t a dry eye. If he could admit to his limitations maybe each of us can find the space to acknowledge we might not always be right and see the goodness in everyone around us, even those we disagree with, and perhaps find ways to rebuild the rifts in our hearts and our country.

09/25/2024

September 24, 2024/21 Elul 5784
Rabbi Rony S. Keller

Elul asks us to physically engage in the daily act of listening to the sound of the shofar.

“The shofar call begins with a tekiah, a long, unbroken blast; progresses to sh’varim, three wailing blasts; and finally reaches the staccato t’ru’ah. But the shofar always returns to the tekiah. That is the growth of a spirit: first holiness; then brokenness, shattering; and finally, a new, stronger wholeness.” (Rabbi David Wolpe – Floating Takes Faith)

As we enter Elul this year and reflect on the last year, it’s obvious that the Jewish world has changed forever. Recalling Rabbi Wolpe’s words, I believe we are still shattered or--at best--simply broken. The events of October 7th and the anti-Semitic and anti-Israel avalanche onto Am Yisrael that has ensued has created a PTSD-like effect for us all. Let’s not pretend that we are ok, because we are not.

Personally, and individually, we’ve felt a sever, a rift. Further, it seems as if we’ve also encountered a rift within the Jewish community. These past months of war have divided us as an am, a people…creating dichotomies asking us to choose between eradicating Hamas and rescuing hostages.

Elul is the deliverer of Tishrei, marking new beginnings. And so, we must use this month to heal our rifts and remember what the shofar teaches, that the blasts begin in wholeness and end in wholeness. Let us fill Elul with listening intensely to the wholeness of the shofar blasts and pray for all rifts to be mended.