Letter to the Congregation from Rabbi Weininger

Dear Adath Community,

There are no words to capture these last 36 hours in Israel, and the dread we feel in Minnesota. The massacre by Hamas terrorists has left devastation in its wake; the kind of living nightmare that grows as we learn of more wounded, more dead, more kidnapped, and those whose status is still unknown. Horrifying images and unimaginable stories have emerged, and they have upended celebrations of Shabbat and festival for Jewish communities across the globe.

While so much seems beyond our control, how we choose to gather and give will help us hold one another in the uncertainty. We also know that in the darkness we catch glimpses of light. We felt such glimpses this morning at Adath’s Simchat Torah services. We welcomed our kindergartners and first graders for Consecration and honored our daily minyan volunteers, while we added a special selection of Israeli music to each hakafah (circling of the sanctuary).

We will gather as an Adath community for a community-wide solidarity event on Tuesday, October 10 at Beth El Synagogue: 5225 Barry St W, St. Louis Park, MN 55416. Doors will open at 5:30pm, and the event will start at 6pm. Our TEN@Adath (Teen Education Network) program will not meet for regularly scheduled classes but instead attend this event. Please make every effort to join.

Please also donate to the best of your ability to the Jewish Federation’s Israel Emergency Fund that has a $200,000 matching gift to support those in need or to New Israel Fund’s Emergency Action Plan to protect an Israeli civil society that is vital, safe, and strong. 

As we think about ways to support Israel as a community, please consider your own spiritual practice of reciting Psalms, including 120, 121, 122, 126, 130, and 140. They can be found on pages 447 and 450-451 in our Siddur Lev Shalem. A journey through the psalms is a journey through resilience, dread, and hope. If this time feels like a rollercoaster, the psalmist helps us hold on with compassion to experience all of the ups and downs and to know we are not alone in the course of Jewish history. 

I write as one of your rabbis, and also as the proud brother of a lone solider. My brother Dan made aliyah in 2011 and devoted over two and a half years to IDF service before beginning his path to the rabbinate. My brother is now a husband and a new father, and one of hundreds of thousands of Israelis who have been called up to reserves. I ask you to keep him in your prayers: Daniel Tal ben Yitzhak v’Henya. Your outpouring of support and care means more to my family than words can capture. Like me, so many of you have family and friends in Israel and have spent time traveling and living there. Your loved ones are in my prayers too. 

My colleagues Rabbi Kravitz and Hazzan Dulkin join me in expressing all of these sentiments and sending our love. We care about each one of you and our beloved eretz Yisrael.

Love, 
Rabbi Aaron Weininger