Hebrew Lyrics

Transliteration

התקוה

Kol od balevav p’nimah

כל עוד בלבב פנימה

Nefesh Yehudi homiyah

נפש יהודי הומיה

Ulfa’atey mizrach kadimah

ולפאתי מזרח קדימה

Ayin l’tzion tzofiyah

עין לציון צופיה

Od lo avdah tikvatenu

עוד לא אבדה תקותנו

Hatikvah bat shnot alpayim

התקוה בת שנות אלפים

L’hiyot am chofshi b’artzenu

להיות עם חופשי בארצנו

Eretz Tzion v’Yerushalayim

ארץ ציון וירושלים

History

The title of the national anthem, HATIKVA, means “The Hope.” It was written by Naftali Herz Imber (1856-1909), who moved to Palestine in 1882 from Galicia. The melody was arranged by Samuel Cohen, an immigrant from Moldavia, from a musical theme in Smetana’s “Moldau” that is partly based on a Scandinavian folk song.

Hatikva expresses the hope of the Jewish people, that they would someday return to the land of their forefathers as prophesied in the Hebrew Bible. The Jewish people were exiled from Israel in 70 C.E. by the Roman army led by Titus who destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem. During the two thousand years of exile, the Jewish people said special daily prayers for return to Israel while facing the East in the direction of Jerusalem. They celebrated the holidays according to Hebrew seasons and calendar. Zion is synonymous with Israel and Jerusalem.

The Sukkah’s spiritual energy invites the souls of Judaism’s seven great leaders to partake in the divine light on Earth.

And who by fire, who by water,

Who in the sunshine, who in the night time,

Who by high ordeal, who by common trial,

Who in your merry merry month of may,

Who by very slow decay,

And who shall I say is calling?

And who in her lonely slip, who by barbiturate,

Who in these realms of love, who by something blunt,

And who by avalanche, who by powder,

Who for his greed, who for his hunger,

And who shall I say is calling?

And who by brave assent, who by accident,

Who in solitude, who in this mirror,

Who by his lady’s command, who by his own hand,

Who in mortal chains, who in power,

And who shall I say is calling?

The Talmud tells us that the horns of all kosher animals are kosher for shofars, except for the horn of an ox,
which is technically not called a “shofar” but a “keren,” and antlers, which are not considered shofars
(shofar means “hollow” and antlers are solid).

Yet, of all the possibilities, the preferred source for the shofar is the ram, for the following two reasons:
1. It evokes the ram that was offered instead of Isaac, bringing to light the merit of Abraham who was ready to
sacrifice his only son for G‑d.
2. Its bent shape symbolizes the humility we feel as we stand before G‑d.

The primary shofar blowing consists of the following 30 blasts:

Tekiah-shevarim-teruah-tekiah
Tekiah-shevarim-teruah-tekiah
Tekiah-shevarim-teruah-tekiah

Tekiah-shevarim-tekiah
Tekiah-shevarim-tekiah
Tekiah-shevarim- tekiah

Tekiah-teruah-tekiah
Tekiah-teruah-tekiah
Tekiah-teruah-tekiah gedolah (extra long blast)

During the Musaf prayer, we have 7 more opportunities to blow the shofar, producing the following 10 blasts each time:

Tekiah-shevarim-teruah-tekiah
Tekiah-shevarim-tekiah
Tekiah-teruah-tekiah

================

https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/4837/jewish/Shofar.htm

Quarantine

Eavan Boland

1944 – 2020

In the worst hour of the worst season
of the worst year of a whole people
a man set out from the workhouse with his wife.
He was walking—they were both walking—north.

She was sick with famine fever and could not keep up.
He lifted her and put her on his back.
He walked like that west and west and north.
Until at nightfall under freezing stars they arrived.

In the morning they were both found dead.
Of cold. Of hunger. Of the toxins of a whole history.
But her feet were held against his breastbone.
The last heat of his flesh was his last gift to her.

Let no love poem ever come to this threshold.
There is no place here for the inexact
praise of the easy graces and sensuality of the body.
There is only time for this merciless inventory:

Their death together in the winter of 1847.
Also what they suffered. How they lived.
And what there is between a man and woman.
And in which darkness it can best be proved.

“Quarantine” is a political poem written by Irish poet Eavan Boland about the Irish famine of the mid 19th century

URJ blog High Holidays

On Repentance and Repair: A Reform Movement Program for the High Holidays and Beyond

The Reform Movement is coming together to advance our understanding of t’shuvah, particularly in the context of our ethics accountability work, with video resources and a discussion guide that will enhance your congregational, communal, or individual experiences during the High Holiday season of reflection and repentance.

The term Jew is derived from Hebrew יְהוּדִי Yehudi, originally the term for the people of the Israelitekingdom of Judah. According to the Hebrew Bible, the name of both the tribe of Judah and the kingdom of Judah derive from Judah, the fourth son of Jacob.^[48] Genesis 29:35 and 49:8 connect the name “Judah” with the verb yada, meaning “praise”, but scholars generally agree that the name of both the patriarch and the kingdom instead have a geographic origin—possibly referring to the gorges and ravines of the region.^[49][50] The shift of ethnonym from “Israelites” to “Jews” (inhabitant of Judah), although not contained in the Torah, is made explicit in the Book of Esther (4th century BCE),^[51] a book in the Ketuvim, the third section of the Jewish Tanakh.

The Hebrew word for “Jew” is יְהוּדִי Yehudi, with the plural יְהוּדִים Yehudim.^[52] Endonyms in other Jewish languages include the Ladino ג׳ודיו Djudio (plural ג׳ודיוס, Djudios) and the Yiddish ייִד Yid (plural ייִדן Yidn).

The English word “Jew” continues Middle English Gyw, Iewe. These terms were loaned via the Old Frenchgiu, which itself evolved from the earlier juieu, which in turn derived from judieu/iudieu which through elisionhad dropped the letter “d” from the Medieval Latin Iudaeus, which, like the New Testament Greek term Ioudaios, meant both “Jew” and “Judean” / “of Judea“.^[53] The Greek term was a loan from Aramaic*yahūdāy, corresponding to Hebrew יְהוּדִי Yehudi.^[48]

The etymological equivalent is in use in other languages, e.g., يَهُودِيّ yahūdī (sg.), al-yahūd (pl.), in Arabic, “Jude” in German, “judeu” in Portuguese, “Juif” (m.)/”Juive” (f.) in French, “jøde” in Danish and Norwegian, “judío/a” in Spanish, “jood” in Dutch, “żyd” in Polish etc., but derivations of the word “Hebrew” are also in use to describe a Jew, e.g., in Italian (Ebreo), in Persian (“Ebri/Ebrani” (Persian: عبری/عبرانی)) and Russian(Еврей, Yevrey).^[54] The German word “Jude” is pronounced [ˈjuːdə], the corresponding adjective “jüdisch” [ˈjyːdɪʃ] (Jewish) is the origin of the word “Yiddish”.^[55]

According to The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, fourth edition (2000),

It is widely recognized that the attributive use of the noun Jew, in phrases such as Jew lawyer or Jew ethics, is both vulgar and highly offensive. In such contexts Jewish is the only acceptable possibility. Some people, however, have become so wary of this construction that they have extended the stigma to any use of Jew as a noun, a practice that carries risks of its own. In a sentence such as There are now several Jews on the council, which is unobjectionable, the substitution of a circumlocution like Jewish people or persons of Jewish background may in itself cause offense for seeming to imply that Jew has a negative connotation when used as a noun.^[56]

Stolpersteine for the Feder family in Kolín, Czech Republic

Stolperstein installation in AmsterdamBeethovenstraat 55 on 3 October 2018

A Stolperstein is a ten-centimetre (3.9 in) concrete cube bearing a brass plate inscribed with the name and life dates of victims of Nazi extermination or persecution. Literally, it means ‘stumbling stone’ and metaphorically ‘stumbling block’. (pronounced [ˈʃtɔlpɐˌʃtaɪn] (listen); plural Stolpersteine)

The Stolpersteine project, initiated by the German artist Gunter Demnig in 1992, aims to commemorate individuals at exactly the last place of residency – or, sometimes, work – which was freely chosen by the person before they fell victim to Nazi terror, forced euthanasia, eugenics, deportation to a concentration or extermination camp, or escaped persecution by emigration or suicide. As of December 2019, 75,000^[1]Stolpersteine have been laid, making the Stolpersteine project the world’s largest decentralized memorial.^[2][3]

The majority of Stolpersteine commemorate Jewish victims of the Holocaust.^[4] Others have been placed for Sinti and Romani people (then also called “gypsies”), Poles, homosexuals, the physically or mentally disabled, Jehovah’s Witnesses, black people, members of the Communist Party, the Social Democratic Party, and the anti-Nazi Resistance, the Christian opposition (both Protestants and Catholics), and Freemasons, along with International Brigade soldiers in the Spanish Civil War, military deserters, conscientious objectors, escape helpers, capitulators, “habitual criminals”, looters, and others charged with treason, military disobedience, or undermining the Nazi military, as well as Allied soldiers.

Origin of the name

The name of the Stolpersteine project invokes multiple allusions. In Nazi Germany, an antisemitic saying, when accidentally stumbling over a protruding stone, was: “A Jew must be buried here”.^[5][6] In a metaphorical sense, the German term Stolperstein can mean “potential problem”.^[7] The term “to stumble across something”, in German and English, can also mean “to find out (by chance)”.^[8] Thus, the term provocatively invokes an antisemitic remark of the past, but at the same time intends to provoke thoughts about a serious issue. Stolpersteine are not placed prominently, but are rather discovered by chance, only recognizable when passing by at close distance. In contrast to central memorial places, which according to Demnig can be easily avoided or bypassed, Stolpersteine represent a much deeper intrusion of memory into everyday life.

May and June schedule:

On Friday, May 26^th, Shavuot will be celebrated.  Neil will be at the service, Maya will read from the Torah.

Pride Shabbat will be celebrated on June 23^rd at 5:30 PM at Temple De Hirsch – it will also be on Zoom.

There will be a genealogy hybrid presentation on June 19^th at the Alpert’s house at 7 PM.

Annual Meeting:  The annual meeting will be in person and on Zoom on June 25^th.

Holidays for next year:

• Friday, Sept 15^th – erev RH
• Saturday, Sept. 16^th – RH day
• Sunday, Sept. 24^th – Kol Nidre
• Monday, Sept. 25^th – YK day
• Sunday, Oct. 1^st – Sukkot celebration and potluck in the afternoon
• Friday, Oct. 6^th – Simchat Torah
• Wed., Nov 22^nd – Interfaith service at Presbyterian church in Des Moines.
• Saturday, Dec. 9^th – Chanukkah party – 4:30
• Saturday, March 23^rd – Purim celebration 7 PM
• Tues, 4/23 – Community Seder
• Shavuot – to be determined