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Thursday September 20, 2007

Letters

Excessive cost

I was struck by one detail of Dan Pine’s Sept. 14 cover story on the costs of Jewish life — what I consider the excessive cost ($15,000) of some b’nai mitzvah.

While big-ticket b’nai mitzvah come as little surprise to many of us, it is distressing when I consider how many families and organizations strain to meet more basic expenses — such as Jewish education, synagogue membership, burials — associated with creating and participating in a vibrant Jewish community.

When families incur large expenses to celebrate their children’s b’nai mitzvah, we are all short-changed. Resources are spent on brief moments rather than on those that could contribute more fully to our community.

Further, those involved in these high-priced events may well experience them as just that: events, rather than as the rich personal, cultural and religious experiences they are intended to be.

Inflated expectations of b’nai mitzvah celebrations are then placed upon other young people and their families, which I believe unnecessarily complicates an already demanding experience.

May we be mindful of how and why we use our resources as we cultivate a Jewish life for ourselves and our children.

Kate Phillippo | Stanford

Investors needed

We recently spent an amazingly positive day at the “To Life!” festival spreading awareness of HaMakom, the Jewish retreat center and campground planned for the Camp Swig site. On the same day we saw Joe Eskenazi’s j. article about the sale of the site.

The article suggested that efforts to keep the site in Jewish hands have failed. Nothing could be further from the truth. On the contrary, there is a plan and a dedicated committee working to purchase the property and develop year-round programming. All

anyone need do is visit www.HaMakomThePlace.com to learn more.

The article should have explained that the URJ has put the property on the market, and they are not particularly concerned with who buys it.

Even with the Naymark Holocaust Memorial nestled at its center, the URJ has made it clear that the purchase can be made by anyone.

Not surprisingly, Catholic, Hindu and Chinese Christian organizations have lined up to view the property.

We put forth this urgent call to action: In order to keep the property in the hands of the Jewish community and bring the HaMakom project to fruition, investors are needed. Please visit us online or call (408) 404-7711 for information.

Scott Guggenheim | Campbell

Diane Marcus | San Mateo

Gary S. Cohn | San Francisco

board of trustees, HaMakom

Modern manna

On Sukkot, the Jewish festival devoted to our offering thanksgiving for the abundance of life, we are reminded that humans are only privileged caretakers of this precious but imperiled planet.

Like the wilderness sukkot of our Israelite ancestors, this Earth is no more than our temporary dwelling, and it is our important responsibility to cherish and care for our planet and all its creatures, as co-workers with God.

The fragile shelter of the sukkah should remind us that we can’t rely on technological advances to save us and we must find a way to live in harmony with nature.

As we decorate our sukkahs with pictures and replicas of fruits and vegetables on our harvest festival, we should consider how future harvests are endangered by global warming, widening water shortages and soil erosion and depletion.

As our Israelite ancestors were sustained with manna, a vegetarian food “like coriander seed,” while they dwelt in sukkahs for 40 years in the wilderness, we should sustain ourselves with tofu, the modern-day manna, and a wide variety of other plant foods, to improve our health and to help move our endangered planet to a sustainable path.

Richard H. Schwartz and Steven Schuster | Staten Island

‘A new Hitler’

I am happy Woody Weingarten has overcome prostate cancer (Sept. 14 j. view). And that he found God again.

I wish I could.

In my book, I explain why I cannot.

“Our mother was 44 and our father 51 years old when they were murdered in Auschwitz in 1944. Where was our God, the God of Israel, when all this happened?

“He would have spared Sodom and Gomorra had there been 10 righteous men among the inhabitants of the two cities. Were there not 10 righteous men or women among the millions murdered in the Holocaust, a crime unparalleled by anything the world had ever witnessed?

“No scourge in history achieved what the Nazis meted out to humankind in the few years of their reign of terror. Did He feel no compassion for ‘His people’ when they cried out to Him while being tortured and put to death in horrible ways? When their last breath was: ‘Sh’ma Israel,’ ‘Hear Israel?’ Not a call for help anymore, but a question: ‘Why?’”

We have a new Hitler in Iran who promises to destroy the Jews. But aren’t we lucky — he can only reach the ones in Israel.

Pardon my sarcasm.

Gershon Evan | San Francisco

Holiday thoughts

Regarding Rabbi Judah Dardik’s requirement for sadness before Rosh Hashanah (Aug. 31 j.), specifically, the thought that “a person cannot see me and live,” I have classed the statement with other apparent conundrums in the Torah.

When taken at its most hopeful, the statement is that “when I die, I will see you.” Especially at this time of the year, my prayers are to a merciful, loving deity. The closing gates, therefore, do not instill trepidation but gratitude for a year of survival and hope for another.

Dwelling on the negative might convince the doubtful that the Creator will punish him if he doesn’t behave, but the rewards of gracious generosity in the image of a loving Creator will do more to encourage my return with willing heart.

Self-flagellation over past “curses” will do little to draw me toward God. The promise of conciliation in the end will do much.

Unfortunately, the final admonition in the rabbi’s column, “to step in and help each other,” especially in such a negative context as he draws, leaves him and us with the truism that “no good deed goes unpunished.”

Bernard A. Goldberg

Sacramento

Still in fear

I’m glad the Germans reopened their synagogue (Sept. 14 j.) 60 years after the Holocaust. Jews in Germany should feel free.

There are a lot of Jews in Germany who still live in fear because anti-Semitism is still there.

In my opinion, German Jews shouldn’t stay in Germany. They should go to Israel and the United States. It’s better to emigrate than stay in a country where Hitler killed six million Jews.

The Russian Jews there should emigrate, too.

Paul Shkuratov | San Francisco

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