Shabbat Candlelighting 9:02 p.m.                                             Friday, June 29, 2012/9 Tammuz 5772
 

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Jewish Federation AGM Features Rabbi Brad Hirschfield
Our Annual General Meeting, which took place last week, featured a presentation by Rabbi Brad Hirschfield, president of the National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership (CLAL). Author of You Don’t Have To Be Wrong For Me To Be Right, Rabbi Hirschfield offers a fresh perspective and voice on the challenges we face as a Jewish people. In addition to being a great storyteller, I believe Rabbi Hirschfield is also one of the great thinkers in contemporary Jewish life in North America.

Rabbi Hirschfield defines the great challenge for Jews today as one of facing freedom. Relative to any past period of Jewish life, we live today with the greatest degree of freedom our people has ever faced. We are free to be Jews, or not. We have a free and democratic Jewish homeland where Jews can exercise sovereign power. We have affluence and influence both respect to our own communal affairs, and beyond. The great question is what we will do with those great freedoms, and how will we use them to marshal vision and resources to make Jewish life and community strong, vibrant and compelling.

In addition to Rabbi Hirshfield’s talk, we dealt with the usual organizational AGM business – reporting on major activities of the past year, reviewing financial statements, and electing directors. I am particularly pleased to welcome new members to our board of directors: Michael Averbach, Raquel Hirsch, Jeffrey Klein, Justine Levenberg and Drory Rozen. They bring great and diverse community and life experience to our board.

I was personally honoured to be recognized for 10 years of service to our Federation and community. Look for my thoughts and reflections on those 10 years in next week’s message.

Touched By History
Yesterday, I had the pleasure of visiting the historic Jewish section of the Mountainview Cemetery for the first time, accompanied by community leader and philanthropist Shirley Barnett. Shirley’s grandfather is among the members of our community’s founding generation buried there. When Congregation Schara Tzedeck purchased land for a new cemetery in New Westminster, the Jewish section at Mountainview (section 7, located near Fraser Street just north of 37th Avenue) fell into disuse, although there is the occasional burial taking place there. It stands today as a remarkable oasis of community history.

During my Cleveland days, I was involved in developing a plan for the care of abandoned Jewish cemeteries – a situation resulting from synagogues merging out of existence. Thankfully that is not the case here. There is some restoration work to be done to address old and worn headstones, but it is well maintained by Schara Tzedeck’s Cemetery Board and the Mountainview Cemetery.

What I saw there was a rich opportunity to incorporate the cemetery into the cultural and educational life of our community. What amazing stories there are about the challenges that the early Jewish residents of Vancouver faced, about the extraordinary leadership that the founders exercised to build this community, and about Jewish burial practices. Along with Shirley, I hope that we will find a way to polish this jewel and bring into the contemporary life of our community.

Parashat Chukat
This week’s comments are paraphrased from a longer commentary by Jerry Silverman, CEO of the Jewish Federations of North America. Purity is an important concept in Judaism, based on frequent references to it in the Torah. In this week’s parasha we are again reminded that we, as the Jewish people, must constantly strive to be pure – both individually and collectively.

An opportunity to become pure is demonstrated in Parashat Chukat, which introduces the concept of the red heifer. Although the red heifer ritual is complex, its intent is quite simple: to purify all those who may have come in contact with the dead.

Today, we are challenged each day to maintain our purity, in both our individual relationships and our collective actions. The opportunities for impurity are vast, especially with a wide array of technology at our fingertips. With the stroke of a key, our impure thoughts become words or images on a screen, and can be shared far and wide.

There is no shortage of opinions in the Jewish community, and we are fortunate to have so many diverse views. But, there is a difference between the purity of creating debate and the impurity of casting stones. Debate solves problems and moves us forward. Casting stones divides us as a Jewish people and sets us back.

We have the ability to bring people together in our communities. Yet, we also have an obligation to be respectful of each other’s thoughts, and to encourage positive, constructive conversation.

Shabbat shalom!

 
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