Open the cover of a book and enter a wonderful, magical place. Books hold stories. They are a gateway to distant lands and varied experiences. Books can open the mind to new ideas. Jewish books are filled with prayer or poetry, philosophy or history, or even stories and tales with themes familiar or brash.
Visit the B'rith Kodesh Library. This resource holds some of the best of Jewish printed learning and thought. With gratitude to Shelley Weinstein for keeping the library filled with current books and magazines, and enduring thanks to Nettie Sheiman and her team of volunteers, our Feinbloom Library is there for you.
Your own personal collection may include old and damaged prayer books and other sacred literature. At TBK, we've set aside a room called a geniza, a room for a worn-out siddur, other sacred books and even ritual objects such as an old, tattered tallit. Every few years, we burying the contents in our cemetery as a sign of reverence and respect.
We consider books, especially books with prayers and reference to God, as sacred vessels to be treated with respect. But books are not the only sacred vessels found at TBK. In a few days, our Religious School will begin for the year. Our precious vessels, our kids, will stream into the school building to be nurtured and filled with a love of Jewish learning. They may have had a great Jewish summer camp experience at Seneca Lake or Camp George. Perhaps they even had the chance to visit Israel on a family trip or NFTY program. Whatever their summer pathway, they stand at the gates of learning, religious school and youth group, waiting to be filled with Jewish knowledge and culture, experience and thought.
There are more sacred vessels in our midst!
In a few day, the Sanctuary and Wolk Family Center will be filled, a vessel overflowing, with members of the TBK Congregation. As we begin the new Jewish year, we gather to affirm our faith, to ask friends and family forgiveness, and to begin again the cycle of our years and lives.
In a good book, in an engaged and enthused student, in the gathering of the entire Congregation that is B'rith Kodesh, I wish you a abundance of vessels overflowing with goodness, and a sweet New Year.
Do you have any information about this Ner Tamid? After we found it in the basement, congregant Jack Kosoff rewired and cleaned it up for CHEP (Cuban Humanitarian Educational Project). Now it is in the synagogue in Guantanamo, Cuba. Thanks to TBK member Barry Steinberg (at left) for helping perform this amazing mitzvah.