A Good Sweet New Year - Gmar Chatima Tova!

October 4, 2014
10 Tishrei, 5774
Shabbat Announcements
Shabbat
Yom Kippur
See Attached Schedule
& Candle Lighting times
A Good Sweet New Year - Gmar Chatima Tova!
May we be signed and sealed in the Book of Life!
Pirkei Avot Ch 1, Mishna 2
‫ עַ ל הַ ּתו ָֹרה וְ עַ ל‬,‫לשה ְדבָ ִׁרים הָ ע ֹולָם עוֹמֵ ד‬
ָ ‫ עַ ל ְש‬,‫ הּוא הָ יָה אוֹמֵ ר‬.‫ִׁש ְמעוֹן הַ צַ ִׁדיק הָ יָה ִׁמ ְשי ֵָרי כְ נֶסֶ ת הַ גְ ד ֹולָה‬
:‫הָ עֲבו ָֹדה וְ עַ ל גְ ִׁמילּות חֲ סָ ִׁדים‬
Shimon the righteous was the remnant of the Great Assembly and he
would say: the world stands on three things – Torah, Avodah/Worship
of God [Prayer] and Chessed/Acts of Loving-Kindness.
Shabbat Yom Kippur
Mincha & Kabbalat Shabbat – 3:00PM
Shabbat Candle lighting – 6:18PM
Kol Nidre – 6:15PM
Shabbat Morning Services – 8:30AM
Rabbi’s Sermon ~ 10:30AM
Yizkor ~ 11:00AM
Open Service 12:00 noon
Mincha – 5:00PM
Neilah - 6:10PM
Shabbat & Yom Tov Ends - 7:16M
Discussions Led by Reb Daniel
After Kol Nidre: Two Little Goats, Two
Little Goats: The meaning behind the Yom
Kipur scapegoat ritual.
4:00PM on Shabbat: A Whale of a Tale: A
discussion on the book of Jonah
This Week
October 5: Sukkah Building – 9AM
October 8-17: Sukkot/Shemini
Atzeret/Simchat Torah
October 9: Youth Sukkah Hop
October 12: Talmud Class– 9AM
Thank you!
Kol hakavod to the following
multiple chai level members for 5775!
Triple Chai Members
Craig Granowitz
Larry Weinstein & Bevery Zagofsky
Michael & Rochelle Zeiger
Double Chai Members
Barry Ginsberg & Lauren Cooper
Gil & Jackie Mayor
Joel Spielman & Leah Gruss
YOM KIPPUR – THE PRACTICES
 No eating and drinking,
 No anointing oneself with
perfumes or lotions,
 No marital relations,
 No washing,
 No wearing leather shoes
 Wear white clothes
The World Is Built
Through Chesed
How can you help?
Please let us know by signing up on the Chesed
Poster Board in the Shul Lobby.
Homebound: The work of this committee is to care for and stay in touch with shul members who are homebound. Committee members
help with gathering groceries, reaching out by phone, providing meals, making in-person visits, and providing transportation to and from the
doctor.
Shiva: This committee is our quick-response team, helping bereaved shul families grieve by providing a meal after the funeral, setting up the
shiva house, and facilitating an as-needed bereavement support group.
Hospitality: Our shul aims to be a welcoming community to help bridge the gap so that visitors and families new to the community feel
embraced. This committee works in concert with the shul’s Membership Committee to formally welcome new families, identifying hosts for
overnight Shabbat guests and Shabbat meals, and checking in by phone with shul members we haven’t seen in awhile.
Tzedakah: This committee supports the Rabbi’s Discretionary Fund by both identifying needs and increasing the Fund’s profile within the
community. This committee will also organize tzedakah campaigns throughout the year.
Emergency: This committee coordinates support and communication with our neighbors and communal friends so that no one in the
community is forgotten during an emergency.
Or are you in need?
Our Chesed Committees can make a difference. Contact the shul
office for more information.
MFJC Sukkah Building Celebration– 5775
Calling all volunteers and all Sukkah Owners
Have your Sukkah built by expert Sukkah
Setteruppers at the MFJC.
We will help you celebrate Sukkah in style! And
we will not be undersold!!
If you are Handy or if you have hands, You can
be a Sukkah SetterUpper
Be part of Sukkah Setup Celebration on Sunday,
October 5th at 9AM at the Shul
Lunch will be served at the Gutkin’s home.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Contact the Shul office – [email protected] to
help build Sukkahs or to have your Sukkah built
Youth Sukkah Programs
Sukkah Decorating
Thursday October 9th @ 5:30PM
Snacks & drinks will be served
$5 per child
RSVP Lisa Gutkin @ [email protected]

Sukkah Hop
Friday October 10th @ 4:00 – 6:00 PM
Enjoy Games, Food and Fun
Meet at Raport Family’s Home
44 Barbara Lane
The Mt. Freedom Jewish Center
Men’s Club presents
Scotch Tasting & Ale Sampling Extravaganza
When: Tuesday, October 14, 2014
Where: Ron Brandt’s sukkah
10 Lord William Penn Drive, Morristown
Time: 7:30 pm sharp
Please join us as scotch mavens, Steve Okin and Joel Spielman, once again select a
sampling of the finest scotches for your drinking pleasure. Steve will also be
demonstrating his culinary skills by providing his now world famous, cold smoked
salmon. As an added bonus, a sampling of beers and ales will also be available for those
who prefer a fine brew.
Don’t miss what is sure to be a memorable and fun filled evening.
$36.00 PER PERSON
RSVP to the shul office at 973-895-2100 or email by October 8th.
Mt. Freedom Jewish Center
Annual Inaugural Sisterhood Sukkah Walk Hop
Tuesday, October 14, 2014
6:30 - Hors D’Oeuvres in the
Raport Sukkah
44 Barbara Drive, Randolph
Dinner in the
Pollack Sukkah
51 Barbara Drive, Randolph
Dessert in the
Spielman/Gruss Sukkah
55 Barbara Drive, Randolph
Don’t miss the fun and bonding with the ladies of MFJC!
Couvert: $36
R.S.V.P. to the office by October 7th
Or email [email protected]
HIGH HOLIDAY SCHEDULE
SERVICES AND CANDLE LIGHTING
5775
1st Night of Selichot
Sat. Sept. 20
Rosh Hashanna
Wed. Sept. 24
Program followed by Selichot
9:00pm
Mincha/Maariv – Eruv Tavshilin
Candle Lighting
6:00pm
6:33pm
Thur. Sept. 25
Shacharit
Shofar Blowing
Open Service
Tashlich – Brundage Lake
Mincha/Maariv
Candle Lighting
Fri Sept. 26
Shacharit
8:30am
Shofar Blowing
approx. 10:30am
Mincha/Maariv
6:30pm
Shabbat Shuva Candle Lighting
6:30pm
Sat Sept. 27
Shacharit
Rabbi’s Shabbat Shuva Discussion
Mincha/Shalosh Seudot/Maariv
Shabbat Ends
Tzom Gedaliah Fast
Sun Sept. 28
Yom Kippur
Fri Oct. 3
Sat. Oct. 4
Fast Begins
Shacharit
Cemetery Visit
Mincha and Maariv
Fast ends
8:30am
approx. 10:30am
11:00am
4:30pm
6:30pm
after 7:32pm
9:00am
11:00am
6:20pm
7:28pm
5:31am
8:00am
10:30am-12:00pm
6:20pm
7:20pm
Early Mincha
Candle Lighting
Kol Nidre
Shacharit
Yizkor
approx.
Open Service
Mincha
Neilah
Shofar Blowing and Yom Tov ends
3:00pm
6:18pm
6:15pm
8:30am
11:00am
12:00pm
5:00pm
6:10pm
7:16pm
HIGH HOLIDAY SCHEDULE
SERVICES AND CANDLE LIGHTING
5775
Sukkot
Sun. Oct 5
Wed. Oct. 8
Thur. Oct. 9
Sukkah Building – Sign Up
Mincha/Maariv – Eruv Tavshilin
Candle Lighting
9:00am
6:00pm
6:10pm
Shacharit w/ Lulav and Etrog
Youth Sukkah Hop
Mincha/Maariv
Candle Lighting
9:00am
4:00pm
6:00pm
7:10pm
after
Fri. Oct. 10
Shacharit w/ Lulav and Etrog
Mincha/Maariv
Shabbat Candle Lighting
9:00am
6:00pm
6:07pm
Sat. Oct. 14
Shacharit
Mincha/Shalosh Seudot/Maariv
Shabbat Ends
9:00am
6:00pm
7:05pm
Shacharit - last Lulav and Etrog
Yom Tov Candle Lighting
Mincha/Maariv – Eruv Tavshilin
6:45am
5:59pm
6:00pm
Hoshanna Rabbah
Wed. Oct. 15
Shemini Atzeret/Simchat Torah
Thur. Oct. 16
Shacharit/Tefillat Geshem
9:00am
Yizkor
approx.
10:30am
Open Sukkah @ the Rabbi’s
After Shul
(Lunch is your last meal in the Sukkah)
Mincha/Maariv
6:00pm
Hakafot Dancing
6:30pm
Candle Lighting
after
6:55pm
Fri. Oct. 17
Shacharit and Hakafot Dancing
Kids Aliyah to the Torah
Mincha/Maariv
Shabbat Candle Lighting
9:00am
11:00am
5:45pm
5:56pm
Sat. Oct. 18
Shacharit – Shabbat Bereishit
Mincha/Shalosh Seudot/Maariv
Shabbat Ends
9:00am
5:45pm
6:54pm
We invite you to
share the Holidays with Us!
Shanah Tovah!
Yom Kippur 10/3-10/4
Kol Nidre @ 6:15 p.m. on 10/3
Services @ 8:30 a.m. on 10/4
Neila @ 6:10 p.m. & Shofar
blowing @ 7:16 p.m. on 10/4
Open Community Services
accessible, friendly & free
Yom Kippur 10/4 @ 12 pm
For information call:
973-895-2100
Rabbi Menashe East
1209 Sussex Turnpike
Randolph, New Jersey
Holiday Youth Programs/Story time
Yom Kippur
Supervised play on 10/3 (6:30-8:30 pm)
and 10/4 (10-12)
11-1:30: program, lunch & story time
Sukkot
10/7 @ 5:30 pm: Sukkah decorating & fun
($5/child)
10/9 @ 4-6pm: Sukkah hop for kids
RSVP & Info: Contact Lisa G. @
[email protected]
MFJC Youth Schedule
October Events









October 3rd &4th – Yom Kippur Youth Program – schedule TBA
October 4th – Open Service – 11:30am
October 5th – Sukkah Building – Lunch at Gutkin Home - 9am
October 7th – Sukkah Decorating – 5:30 - 6:30pm
October 9th Youth Sukkah Hop – Barbara Drive Houses 4 – 6pm
 Pollack, Sweifach, Raport & East
October 11th – Jr. Congregation 10:30am
October 16th – Simchat Torah
o Hakafot with Pinata, candy, flags and ice cream – 7pm
October 17th – Yom Tov – schedule TBA
October 25th – Kandy Kiddush – 11am
Shabbat Shalom
Yom Kippur 5775
Efrat, Israel - The climax of Yom Kippurim is its closing Ne’ilah prayer when the sun is beginning to set, when the day
is beginning to wane and when we are nearing our last chance for the opportunity to receive God’s loving forgiveness for
the year. The excitement of these last moments is palpable within the synagogue. The prayers are at a much higher
pitch and the voices are filled with intensity. During the periods of our national sovereignty, with the closing of the day,
the holy Temple doors would close as well. Post Temple, with the setting sun, the very heavens, the pathway to the
Divine Throne, and the gateway to God seems to be closing. “Don’t lock me out” says the Jew during Ne’ilah. Don’t
close the doors or the gates in my face as long as there is still time, let me come in.
But there is another way of looking at this, a very opposite way. “Don’t lock me in!” cries the Jew during Ne’ilah. Yes,
I’ve been in the Temple, or I’ve been in the synagogue almost the entire day. I’ve truly felt God’s presence and I’ve
truly been warmed by His loving embrace. I feel God’s divine and gracious acceptance and His total forgiveness. I’ve
spent an entire twenty-five hours in His house, in which I’ve seen the sweetness of the Lord and visited in His tent.
But now, as the doors to His house are closing, I don’t want to be locked in. After all, I began this penitential period with
Rosh HaShanah, the day of God’s kingship. The prayers on Rosh HaShanah taught me that God did not choose Israel to
live with Him in splendid and glorious isolation; He chose Israel to be a “kingdom of priest-teachers and a holy nation”
to bring the message of compassionate righteousness and moral justice as a blessing for all the families of the earth. We
are meant to be a light unto the nations, a banner for all peoples.
It goes without saying that we need our moments of quiet contemplation, of anguished repentance and of personal
outpouring to the God who gave us life and Torah. But the ultimate purpose of this day of divine fellowship is for us to
be recharged to bring God’s message to the world, a world crying out for God’s Word of love, morality and peace. We
must leave the ivory tower of Yom Kippur and descend into the madding and maddening crowd in the world all around
us.
And so, just four days after Yom Kippur we go out into the Sukkah; indeed, walking home from the synagogue, one will
be able to hear many people already beginning to build their family Sukkah. And the Sukkah is the next best thing to
living within the bosom of nature, feeling at one with the world around you. The walls are usually flimsy and even seethrough, and the vegetation- roof must enable you to see through the greens up above to the sky. We pray together with
the four species- the citron, the palm branch, the myrtle and the willow which all grow near the refreshing waters of the
earth- and we pray during this week not only for ourselves or for Israel, but for all seventy nations of the world. Indeed,
we are Biblically mandated in Temple times to bring seventy bullocks during the week of Sukkot on behalf of all the
nations of the world.
The Sukkah teaches us one more lesson, perhaps the most important of all. The major place for us to feel God and His
divine presence – after the heavy dose of Yom Kippur – is not in a Temple or a synagogue, but is rather in our familial
homes. In order to go out into the world, we must first go out into our family.
The homes we build need not be that large, that spacious, or that fancy. You don’t need chandeliers in the bathroom in
order to feel the warmth of your home. It can be an exceedingly simple dwelling place but it must have two critical
ingredients. First and foremost it must be suffused with love, love of God, love of family and love of Torah. The meals
must be permeated with gratitude and thanksgiving to the God who gave us food, with words of Torah and with the
realization that it is ultimately not the walls of the home which provide our protection, but it is rather the grace of the
God who gives us life. And the major guests in our home are not to be Hollywood idols or sports heroes. We should
invite into our home the special Ushpizin guests: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Aaron, Joseph and David, Sarah,
Rebecca, Leah, Rachel, Miriam, Devorah and Rut (as you can see, in my Sukkah we add Ushpizot!).
And you will remember that the Biblical reading for Rosh HaShanah, the anniversary of the creation of the world was
not the story of the Creation; it was rather the story of the first Hebrew family, the family of Abraham. Yes, we have a
mandate to teach and perfect the world. But at the same time, we must remember that the first and most real world for
each of us is our own individual family. We must begin the new year of reaching out to the world with a renewed
reaching out to our life’s partners, our children and grandchildren- and then to our neighbors and larger community and
then to include the other and the stranger as well.
Shabbat Shalom and Ktiva V’Chatima Tova.
High Holiday Message – 5775
Dear friends and family from the MFJC community,
The message below are my remarks to the Greater Metrowest community from the ‘From the
Rabbis’ section of the NJ Jewish News. It’s a message that applies to you as it applies to our
fellow Jews in the area. But, please take my call to action more seriously than someone else
might. As community and rabbi, we have a special bond and I pray that we will grow closer
and stronger together this coming year…
If you intentionally opened the ‘From the Rabbis’ High Holiday messages in the NJ Jewish
News, looking for an inspiring message for 5775, you are probably not the person I am trying
to reach. To save you time, please jump to the signature line below. You are one of the lucky
ones! Nothing I write can compare to the blessings and fortunes you already experience from
connection to Judaism and affiliation with the Jewish community. Jewish people everywhere
owe you a debt of gratitude for your contribution to the survival and the unfolding destiny of
the Jewish people.
If, however, you are a searcher or if you accidentally stumbled upon this page, PLEASE
DON’T GO…WE NEED YOU!!! Where have you been? This only sounds desperate because
it is! Friend, our community is falling apart; Jews all over the world are disenchanted; our
connection to Israel is tenuous and ambivalent; the intellectual nobility of Torah study is
tarnished; souls that used to soar from prayer are bored and weary; our frenetic lives make acts
of loving-kindness burdensome.
Things for 5774 years were grim…until now; I know that the year 5775 will be different.
Everything will change or begin to change. This year is a New Year and this year we are filled
with hope. The year 5775 will be different, a banner year for the Jewish people, because
of…You.
Shana Tova; a healthy, sweet and meaningful year for you and your entire family…
With great love,
Gmar Chatima Tova; may you be written and sealed in the book of life!
Rabbi Menashe East