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Upcoming Event:

Shabbat - Friday, November 11, 2022, 6:30 pm
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Message From Nora Kancelbaum

This year, you can brighten the holidays for a child in foster care through a gift drive being held by the Cuyahoga County Division of Child and Family Services. The Jewish Secular Community is partnering with the division to collect items to be delivered in time for Christmas. 

There are two ways to contribute. 

1)    Purchase a gift through the Division of Child and Family Services’ gift registry. Choose a gift(s), and you will be directed to either Amazon or Target to complete the transaction. When you are prompted to select a delivery address, be sure to select the address for DCFS Outreach Gift Registry.

You will notice there are many “sensory” items available from Amazon. They are for children who are on the autism spectrum or developmentally delayed.

2)    If you would prefer to buy something locally (and largely less expensive), below is a list of items that you can purchase. Please bring the gift(s) to our November 11 Shabbat program; a container will be available there.

List of Items

Nora Kancelbaum - Community Service Chair

Readings from Yom Kippur

Amy Borkin and her sister Anna

https://anthonywilsonpoetry.com/2011/07/12/lifesaving-poems-prayer-by-marie-howe-2/

Anna

You do not have to be good
You do not have to walk on vour knees
for a hundred miles through the desert
You only have to let the soft animal of your
body
love what it loves
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you
minc.
Meanwhile the
world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the
are moving across the landscapes,
over the praires and the deep trees
the mountams and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean
blue air
are heading home again
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and
cachune
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things


Lynn Salzbrenner

FORGIVENESS

When we forgive, we not only free the other Person from the role of villain, we free ourselves from the role of victim.” Harold Kushner, Rabbi


The inability to forgive often prevents us from moving on in our life. Our anger eats at us, becoming-unhealthy and denergizing. Dwelling on grievances, going over and oyer the crime, is toxic. Bitterness begins to infect our entire attitude. Our brooding gets in lhe way of living a full life.

finding some way to forgive our antagonists is good for them, but even better for us. We need closure because it is important to let go of ourselves as victims. we Io not deny our anger, but we must work through it. The ability to forgive comes from strength not weakness.

Some forgiving is easy. Someone is contrite, realizes a mistake was made, asks for forgiveness and we grant it.  Or, in some instances we ca reframe the event and recognize that what was done to us was not from malice or disregard, but from human weakness and imperfection. However, in some situations forgiveness seems impossible. Fortunately, there are different forms of forgiveness. Forgiveness does not necessarily mean we condone the deed. We do not have to love the person to forgive and we do not have to reconcile either. Forgiveness can be an attitude of the mind that sets us free, rather than a particular action. But if we want to,we can extend the olive branch and renew a relationship.

Affirmation
Today, my forgiving heart dominates my thinking. What grudges am I still holding from the past that I can look at anew and release? 


Cindy Goldberg

The Question 

At the grave, a child

Asks of the flower petals blowing softly 

Are they Grandma and Grandpa? Yes


 
From Terri Perelman-Hall
 
I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do
everything, but still I can do something and
because I cannot do everything, I will not
refuse to do the something that I can do.


Spike Radway

Listen to the Mustn'ts 
Listen to the Mustn'ts child, Listen to the DON'TS
Listen to the SHOULDNTS
The IMPOSSIBLES, the WONTS. Listen to the NEVER HAVES Then listen close to me - 
Anything can happen, child, ANYTHING can be. 
Shel Silverstein 

“We don’t make music––it makes us.”
From How Music Works by David Byrne

We are not secular in the sense that we are indifferent to religion. We are secular because we regard all religions as sacred. We believe in freedom of conscience. Each soul has the right to choose its own path.
Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan (from the Cleveland Cultural Gardens monument)

The true measurement of ones accomplishments is the quality of ones relationships. 
Scott A. Radway 

Steal a little and they throw you in jail. Steal a lot and they make you president.
From Sweetheart Like You by Bob Dylan

If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and deprecate agitation are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. Power concedes nothing without a demand. 
Frederick Douglass 1857 

"It's hard to imagine civilization without onions." 
Julia Child 
 
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