For the Sake of Israel – In Community, with Prayer, through Giving

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Dear CBI Family,

These past few weeks have been deeply difficult and disturbing to us all. The recent attacks on major Israeli cities and towns, within the heart of Israel, fill our hearts with anxiety, deep fears, and G-d forbid, a sense of despair. At times like these, our profound connection to community, our ability to pray (humbly and boldly), and our capacity to give radically all become critical means to anchor our aching hearts.

In the coming days (and may these difficult times pass us swiftly!) we will anchor ourselves in these three ways as well.

First, we will anchor ourselves in community by coming together this Shabbat (and throughout this week). I pray that our time together will bring us a sense of comfort, meaning, and hope.

In addition, next Wednesday, our community will be coming together with the rest of our East Bay community in an evening of solidarity. This gathering is being spearheaded by many members of the CBI Family, and we strengthen their hands in this important endeavor.

Second, we will anchor ourselves in prayer. Tonight, during evening services at CBI we will join in reciting out loud the words of the concluding blessing of the Shema, following the teachings of my dear friend and colleague, R. David Wolkenfeld:

“As a shul and a prayer community, it is also important that our love, concern, anxiety, and fear for our brothers and sisters in Israel is demonstrated in our tefilot. This is challenging when we come together on Shabbat since we try so hard to experience the world on Shabbat as if it were already perfected (“me’ein ha’olam ha’ba”) and limit even those prayers that remind us of all that is wrong in the world.

One way to reconcile this tension […] is for the paragraph of “Hashkiveinu” which follows the evening recitation of Shema, to be recited out loud rather than quietly. This paragraph, already part and parcel of the traditional Shabbat liturgy, expresses our hopes and prayers for God’s protection against all enemies, and concludes with a beautiful vision of a canopy of peace descending upon Yerushalayim …”

In addition, during the Shabbat morning services we will continue to focus our prayers on our brothers and sisters in Israel. At this time, I continue to encourage you to join our weekday services (6:30 am for Shacharit and 6:45 pm for Mincha and Maariv) as well.

Third, we will anchor ourselves in Tzedakah. As some of you may know, the OU has been working with youth and adolescent populations in Southern Israel for over a decade, offering daily and weekly programs, clubs, and operations in multiple neighborhoods. Indeed, during Operation Cast Lead, the OU insured counseling services for many thousands of students throughout the south—4,000 in Sderot alone.

At this time, the OU is working with a number of neighborhoods in Ofakim, Sderot, Dimona, Yerucham, Kiryat Malachi, and Kiryat Gat, as well as a number of communities that have been exposed to rockets such as Beit Shemesh. They are currently taking a significant number of kids (younger adolescents as well as high school students) out of these communities and bringing them for multiple day retreats and extended Shabbatonim to the Northern part of the country, which is out of Gazan rocket range. Over the course of these retreats, the kids are being mentored by their advisers, as well as by psychologists and trauma therapists, and enjoying educational sessions with leading educators and quality Rabbeim.

The cost for each retreat up north, after OU subsidies, is $5,000 per bus, i.e. around $100 per adolescent. My hope is that our CBI Family will be able to collect sufficient funds to sponsor an entire bus bySunday evening. Please send in your pledge to Joelle TODAY at office@cbiberkeley.org (mailto:office@cbiberkeley.org) so that we can include you in this important initiative.

As we enter the sacred sanctuary of Shabbat, I pray that each of us seize each of these opportunities in the coming days. May our sense of community, our ability to pray, and our capacity to give, teach us to channel our fears towards greater faith. May the Holy One bless Israel with strength and with peace, and may that blessing of peace spread to all corners of the world.

With faith and with prayer,
R. Yonatan Cohen

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