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Located just three blocks from the Atlantic Ocean in Virginia Beach, we are more of a family than just a congregation. We welcome you to our egalitarian daily evening minyan and Shabbat services, our social activities, our adult education meetings, our youth activities, and our monthly Shabbat dinners. We celebrate our Judaism through Torah, worship, and acts of loving kindness to repair the world. And we love to sing. Please join our holy community!
 Temple Emanuel has
taken a major step
toward enhancing
our spiritual and
musical components
of the Holiday services
by engaging
Cantor Kessler as
our Baal Tefilah –
leader in prayer. We
are grateful for our TE Angels who have
made it possible to bring Cantor Kessler to
Virginia Beach.
anachnu.mp3
ayomhayom.mp3
Hazzan Jack Kessler has been described
as a one-man force of nature in
Jewish music . He was ordained as a Cantor
at the Jewish Theological Seminary of
America, and went on to have a twentyyear
career serving Conservative congregations.
During that time he received a
Master's degree in voice from Boston
Conservatory and pursued studies in
composition in the graduate department
of Brandeis University, where he worked
with Arthur Berger and Harold Shapero,
and Bethany Beardslee at Harvard. A
lyric baritone, he has performed opera,
oratorio, and premiered new works, in
addition to his ongoing career as a singer
of Hazzanut, the sacred cantorial art.
Originally trained as an Ashkenazi Hazzan,
his performance style and original
compositions also embrace Sephardi and
Mizrachi styles.
Hazzan Kessler has lectured and
taught master classes in Jewish music at
New England Conservatory in Boston,
the Academy for Jewish Religion in New
York, and presented many concerts in an
educational format. He is the dean of the
Cantorial department of the professional
training program of ALEPH: Alliance for
Jewish Renewal, and teaches a number of
cantorial students. His current performance
projects are directing, composing
for, and being the vocal lead of the two
touring ensembles ATZILUT--CONCERTS
FOR PEACE, a duet format of
arab and Jewish musicians performing
together, and KLINGON KLEZMER,
which does Jewish music from other
planets.
The Rabbi’s Vision
The list of members stepping
forward to do their part to make
Temple Emanuel a Holy Community
continues to grow. Lynn
Feigenbaum and her
son John, who is also
a member of our
board of directors,
have agreed to assume
responsibility,
beginning this
month, for the publication
of the
Megillah. Consistent
with both Judaism’s
emphasis on preserving
the environment and Temple
Emanuel’s efforts to “green” the
synagogue, the entire Megillah will
now be available online. Thank
you, Lynn and John!
Not having had video games
to play, an internet to surf or email
or text messages to send
when I was a child, my favorite
pastime on a rainy summer day
was to curl up in my favorite chair
with a bowl of popcorn or several
of my mother’s freshly baked Toll
House cookies, and a good book.
My taste in reading was quite
eclectic. It ranged from Bible stories
to Mad Magazine, from biographies
to superhero comic books
and sports magazines. But what I
most enjoyed were stories from
Greek mythology. I was mesmerized
by the heroes and heroines,
and how they responded to the
myriad challenges they confronted
on their life journeys.
Yet while the main characters
in these stories were bigger-thanlife
heroes and heroines, with
virtues and attributes most of us
could only dream of possessing,
the stories often ended sadly or
painfully. The hero or heroine generally
possessed one major flaw or
weakness, an “Achilles heel” that
led to her or his death or downfall.
Thus, this genre of literature came
to be known as Greek tragedies.
The real tragedy, in my opinion,
is not that these mythical
characters possessed a major character
flaw, but that they lacked the
necessary self-awareness to prevent
this flaw from defining who
they were and from overwhelming
their many virtues and positive
traits.
We human beings are not
much different. Despite the many
things that each of us may do well,
we are all still imperfect. We have all
been given free will by God, empowering
us to act either with our yetzer
hatov (our inclination to do good) or
with our yetzer harah (our inclination
to do wrong). Properly exercising
this divine gift of free will
demands that we first become aware
of who we are, of both our strengths
and our weaknesses. Without this
awareness, we take the risk, much
like the Greek tragic heroes and
heroines, of allowing our human
flaws, rather than our attributes, to
define us.
Helping us become more aware
of who we are, of our assets and our
foibles, is one of the primary functions
and goals of the mitzvot, the
613 commandments. In the words of
the great 12th-century Jewish scholar
Moses Maimonides, the Torah and
the commandments are designed to
help refine us as human beings,
prompting us to ask: “How would
God/Torah want me to act in this situation?”
The paramount role of awareness
in cultivating a Jewish spiritual practice,
grounded in love of God and of
our fellow human beings, is also emphasized
in the Jewish practice of
Mussar. The primary or fundamental
soul or character trait (midah) in becoming
a mensch, according to the
Mussar masters, is humility (anavah).
In his book Everyday Holiness, Dr.
Alan Morinis explains that humility
entails an unvarnished and honest
assessment of who we are. Only then
is one able to develop the self-awareness
needed to see ourselves more
accurately, to see ourselves as others
see us.
In Judaism, a tzaddik, a righteous
person, is not a title or a status bestowed
at birth but instead results
from a lifelong pursuit of self-awareness
and commitment to the moral
and ethical values inspired by the
Jewish tradition. With all of us wanting
to become more whole and holy
individuals, what better time than
now – as we enter Elul, the month
that immediately precedes the
Yamim Noraim, the High Holy Days
– could there be to begin this process
of reflection and self-awareness?
Shalom Aleichem! Peace be with
your families and you!
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