We are looking forward to greeting you at our Lag Ba'omer Family Fun Night.
Complete with rides and games, BBQ food, drinks, cold beer, marshmallow roasting and music you can be sure that this will be fun for everyone in your family.
Jteens grades 9 – 12 are invited to join a special BBQ along with volunteer community service opportunity.
Women and Bat Mitzvah age girls get ready for the holiday of Shavuos enjoying an evening of dairy treats and flower bouquets.
Our camp divisions are almost full, with just a few spots still left open.
Fair Lawn Jewish Day Camp offers an awesome summer adventure filled with the best trips and activities friendships, skills building, socializing, and growing in a warm and nurturing environment.
Shabbat Shalom!
Rabbi Mendel & Elke Zaltzman
Directors
Shabbos Times
Friday, May 5 Candle Lighting: 7:39pm
Evening service: 7:30pm
Saturday, May 6 Morning service: 10:00am
Kiddush Brunch: 12:00pm Evening service: 7:45pm
Shabbos ends: 8:44pm
Kiddush sponsored by The Kiddush Fund
Daily Minyan Times
May 7- May 12
Sunday Morning: 8:00am
Monday- Friday Morning: 7:00am
Sunday- Thursday Evening: 7:50pm
A BISSELE HUMOR
Jewish congregation was arguing over whether one should stand or sit during the Kaddish prayer. Half of the congregation said one should sit, while the other half insisted one should stand. Every time the Kaddish was recited they shouted at each other, “Sit down!” “Stand up!” The fighting became so bad that the congregation was split in two, each half contending that they knew the proper tradition.
Finally, the rabbi decided to visit a one-hundred-year old member of the synagogue who was living in a nursing home. He took a delegation from each of the arguing sides with him to see the oldest member of the “shul”. “Now, tell us,” said the rabbi, “what is our tradition?” “Should we stand during the Kaddish?” “No,” said the old man. “That is not our tradition.” “Well, then,” said the rabbi, “should we sit during the Kaddish?” “No,” the old man, “that is not our tradition.” “But we need to know what to do,” said the rabbi, “because our congregation members are fighting non-stop over this. “That,” said the oldest member of the congregation, “that is our tradition.”
WEEKLY eTORAH
When the Jewish people left Egypt they experienced a great leap forward. In a short space of time they progressed from abject slavery to freedom. The Sages tell us they were then faced with a new and important task: to catch up with themselves.
This is one of the explanations of the "counting of the omer" which is observed in the period between Pesach and Shavuot. From the second night of Passover we begin counting, day by day. After seven weeks, forty-nine days, we arrive at Shavuot on the fiftieth day, when the Torah was given at Mount Sinai.
This process of counting the days, one by one, is explained as signifying the attempt to improve oneself in a steady, step-by-step mode. Leaving Egypt was a leap of progress, a breakthrough from the lowest depths. But then there is the need to catch up with oneself, to achieve genuine and permanent qualities as individuals and as a nation.
Otherwise the freedom gained by leaving Egypt might easily be lost: instead of being a slave to the Egyptians, one would become a slave to something else.
Chabad teachings, based on the writings of the Kabbalists, explain that the seven weeks represent seven different aspects of character, the emotional forces which constitute the basic structure of the individual (Love, Severity, Mercy, the desire for Victory, Submission, Dedication, and Fulfillment). The seven weeks provide the opportunity to improve this structure and make it more stable. Only after this period of self-improvement were the Jewish people ready to meet with G‑d at Sinai and to receive His Torah.
This quest applies also to the individual through the ages. After the uplifting experience of Passover, the counting of the omer expresses an attempt to internalize this experience: to change oneself in a genuine and permanent way so as to live up to one's new level of spiritual freedom.
We can also apply this idea to society as a whole in our modern age. Over the past century we have experienced a great leap forward of technological progress which has provided us with many kinds of comfort and freedom. But this freedom and power bear with them a dangerous instability. We see this in the vast horrors of fifty years ago, and also in the social problems of today.
Our modern world, too, needs to "count the omer," to try and move step by step, improving our inner lives, our personal morality, the interplay of our emotions. Do people have freedom, or are they becoming ever more deeply enslaved to their appetites?
Torah teachings give guidance not only on how to run a Jewish home, but also on how to build a healthy and just society. The seven Noahide laws describe how all human beings should seek to live. (The seven Noahide laws commanded by G‑d to all of mankind are: to believe in G‑d [and not to serve idols]; not to blaspheme against G‑d; not to murder [including euthanasia and abortion, unless it is to save the mother's life]; not to steal; not to commit adultery, incest and other forms of personal immorality; not to eat a limb from a living animal; and to set up a judicial [and educational] system to apply these laws in society.] Through applying the boundaries, restraints and positive duties imposed by these laws in the context of modern life we can seek to catch up with our own progress. By attending to our internal structure as human beings, we can prepare ourselves, globally, to meet with G‑d and to discover the truly perfect world promised by the Prophets.
