Tikkun Erev Leyl Shavuot 2020
Log onto zoom for all sessions by clicking HERE
or by calling 929-205-6099 for Meeting ID: 787-444-649
INTRODUCTION
I am very pleased to invite you to participate in an extraordinary event that will take place this Wednesday evening on the Shelter Rock zoom platform, one that will involve a variety of rabbinic personalities drawn from the last 40 years of our congregation’s history.
As many of you surely know, we always come together on the first night of Shavuot for a traditional evening of study. This evening, called a Tikkun Leil Shavuot, could obviously not take place in the normal way this year. But moving the event onto the zoom platform and then scheduling it for the evening before the first night of the holiday opened up the possibility of involving individuals who would otherwise not be able to attend. And that is just what happened! I write today, therefore, to announce that we will be joined on Wednesday evening by a cast of characters known to many of you but not seen around Shelter Rock lately: Rabbis Mitchell Berkowitz, Lee Buckman, Mitchell Cohen, David Greenstein, Zevi Lowenberg, Hillel Skolnik, Danielle Upbin, David Weizman, and Jeremy Wiederhorn. Our own Educational Director, Phil Dickstein, will offer two classes designed specifically for our Religious School children. In addition, Rabbi Myron Fenster will be teaching a pre-recorded session that we will all be able to watch and enjoy together.
The program will begin at 7:15 PM and accessed by clicking above.
Our regular Evening Service will be part of the program and will take place in the same zoom room.
The COVID-era has taken so much from us! But it’s also opened some doors that we might not otherwise have thought to step through…and this year’s Tikkun is certainly in that latter category. This promises to be a remarkable evening in every way and I hope to see you all there.
Sincerely and cordially, Rabbi Martin S. Cohen
THIS EVENINGS PRESENTERS:
Rabbi Mitchell Berkowitz
Intern 2014-2017
Rabbi Mitchell berkowitz: Session 2
Tonight’s topic: Yitro: Outsider/Insider
Rabbi Mitchell Berkowitz is the Assistant Rabbi at B'nai Israel in Rockville, MD. He was ordained in May 2017 by the Rabbinical School at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, and served as the rabbinic intern at Shelter Rock Jewish Center from 2014-2017. He holds a Master of Arts in Talmud and Rabbinics from the Graduate School at JTS, and Bachelors Degrees in History and in International & Global Studies from Brandeis University. Rabbi Berkowitz was married in August 2016 to Rebecca Ravski, a teacher, and they are parents to a daughter.
Click HERE for teaching materials
Click HERE for prerecorded teaching
Contact: mhberkowitz@bnaiisraelcong.org
Rabbi Lee Buckman
Intern 1987 - 1990
RABBI LEE BUCKMAn
Tonight’s topic: Rite without Right is Wrong: The Prophet Amos.
Lee was a rabbinic intern at SRJC from 1987-1990 where he benefited from the life-influencing mentorship of Rabbi and Ricki Fenster and the warm and loving SRJC community. Since that time, Lee served as a congregational rabbi in Milwaukee, and in 1999 founded a successful Jewish day high school in Detroit, turned around a failing Orthodox day school in Atlanta, and headed a large 1000-student community Jewish day high school in Toronto. During the journey in the day school world, Lee earned Orthodox semicha. In 2017, he and Rachel fulfilled a nearly lifelong dream and made aliyah and now live in Jerusalem, where Lee heads up Israel’s education division of the Holocaust Claims Conference. Back in the days of SRJC, Lee and Rachel had one son, Ilan, who is now married to Molly; they now have two sons and live in Los Angeles. Their second son, Yoni, lives in Denver and works at a Reform temple as an educator and program director. Noam and Avi, their youngest (ages 26), are twins. Noam is married to Nomi, and they live in Boston. Both are engineers. Avi made aliyah after high school, served in an elite unit of the IDF, and is studying software engineering at Ben Gurion University.
Click HERE for teaching materials
Click HERE for prerecorded shiur
Contact: lee@jedvision.com
Rabbi Martin Cohen
Senior Rabbi 2002 - current
Martin Samuel Cohen was born and raised in New York City, and received his B.A. summa cum laude from the City University of New York, ordained as rabbi at the Jewish Theological Seminary in 1978, and earned a Ph.D. in the history of ancient Judaism from JTS in 1982. After teaching at Hunter College, JTS, and the University of Heidelberg in Germany, Rabbi Cohen became pulpit rabbi in 1986 at the Beth Tikvah Congregation in Richmond, British Columbia, followed in 1999 at Congregation Eilat in Mission Viejo, California. In 2002 he came to Shelter Rock Jewish Center. Rabbi Cohen is also an author and has published two scientific studies in the history of pre-kabbalistic Jewish mysticism, four novels and four books of including Sefer Ha‘ikarim Livnei Zemanenu (in Hebrew), Our Haven and our Strength: The Book of Psalms in New Translation, Siddur Tzur Yisrael, Zot Nechemati for the house of mourning, a children’s book called Riding the River of Peace, and The Boy on the Door on the Ox, an exploration of the relationship between Torah study and service in the congregational rabbinate. He has served as chair of the Publications Committee of the Rabbinical Assembly and has chaired the editorial board of Conservative Judaism. Rabbi Cohen served as senior editor of the The Observant Life: The Wisdom of Conservative Judaism for Contemporary Jews, published in 2012, and the is author of the forthcoming Spiritual Integrity: On the Possibility of Steadfast Honesty in Faith and Worship. An avid amateur pianist and a great lover of dogs, Rabbi Cohen is married to Joan Freeman Cohen, the father of two sons and a daughter, and grandfather to three.
Rabbi Mitchell Cohen
National Ramah Director 2002-Current
SRJC Bar Mitzvah - 1972
rabbi mitchell cohen: session 2
Tonight’s topic: Sources of the name "Ramah" in Tanakh
Mitchell Cohen assumed the leadership of the National Ramah Commission in 2003 after having served for 11 years as the director of Camp Ramah in Canada. Prior to 2003, he served as the founding principal of the Solomon Schechter High School in Westchester, NY. Rabbi Cohen grew up at Shelter Rock Jewish Center, actively participating in junior congregation, USY, and Hebrew High School. After graduating from Brown University, Rabbi Cohen attended the New York University School of Law, and was admitted to the New York Bar in 1984. He spent two years working as a corporate litigator in New York City, and then enrolled in the Rabbinical School of The Jewish Theological Seminary, receiving his ordination in 1990. Rabbi Cohen also spent four years studying at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His parents, Leo and Naomi Cohen ז"ל were founding members of SRJC in the 1960’s. Mitchell has three adult children and currently lives in White Plains with his wife Cari.
Click HERE for teaching materials
Click HERE for prerecorded teaching
Contact: mcohen@jtsa.edu
Philip Dickstein
Education Director 2019- Current
PHILIP DICKSTEIN
Tonight’s topics:
Session 1- RS students & families
To what can we compare the Torah?
Click HERE for teaching materials
Click HERE for teaching materials
Click HERE for prerecorded teaching
Session 2-older students & families
What does it mean to say that people and God are partners in the Torah?
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Click HERE for prerecorded teaching
Philip Dickstein, our current Religious School Director, has been teaching Jewish children for the past 40 years. He has led Day Schools and Congregational Schools. Philip finds joy in working with children as they find their place in the eternal chain of the Jewish people. He has a special interest in helping children love Israel, with her many blessings and many challenges. He has earned degrees in education from JTS, Columbia, and Hebrew College in Boston. He was a mentor at the Lookstein Leadership Institute at Bar Ilan University. He helped write curriculum for several national programs. He participated in the Israel Qushiyot program sponsored by the JEP and the Jewish Agency in Israel. He is married, with three children and two (brilliant) grandchildren.
Contact: rsdir@srjc.org
Rabbi Myron Fenster
Senior Rabbi 1966 - 2002
Rabbi Emeritus 2002- Current
RABBI MYRON FENSTER - Prerecorded - 7:45 pm
Tonight’s topic:
Myron Fenster is rabbi emeritus of the Shelter Rock Jewish Center after serving as its spiritual leader from 1966 to 2002. During that period, Rabbi Fenster played leadership roles in numerous organizations in New York and Israel, including president of the New York Board of Rabbis. After retiring from SRJC, he served as the interim rabbi in Great Neck, East Hampton, and Greenport, in New York. A graduate of Yeshiva of Flatbush, Yeshiva College, and the Jewish Theological Seminary, Rabbi Fenster also studied in the graduate school at Columbia University for a degree in philosophy. He was the first American rabbi sponsored by the Rabbinical Assembly to an Israeli congregation when he served as visiting rabbi to the Moriah Congregation in Haifa in the 1960s. In the Rabbinical Assembly, he served as chair of its Social Action and Israel committees and as editor of Conservative Judaism. He also served with Bishop John McGann as the co-chairman of the Education Committee of the Long Island Holocaust Commission. He has written for several publications, including Newsday, the Jerusalem Post and Hadassah Magazine.
Click HERE for prerecorded shiur
Rabbi David Greenstein
Director Shiluv Project 2004 - 2006
rabbi david greenstein: Session 1
Tonight’s topic: Jonah
David Greenstein serves as rabbi of Congregation Shomrei Emunah, Montclair, NJ. Previously, Rabbi Greenstein was president and rabbinic dean of the Academy for Jewish Religion, a pluralistic rabbinic seminary in Riverdale, N.Y. He was the spiritual leader of the New Hyde Park Jewish Community Center from 1993 until its merger in August 2004 with Shelter Rock Jewish Center. At Shelter Rock, he founded and directed the Shiluv Project, an initiative devoted to developing programs and resources for integrated Jewish living. His work to create an alternative Jewish wedding ceremony was recently affirmed by the Law Committee of the Conservative Movement. His book, Roads to Utopia: The Walking Stories of the Zohar, was published by Stanford University Press in 2014. He was the Daniel Jeremy Silver Fellow at Harvard University for academic year 2018 - 2019.
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Click HERE for prerecorded teaching
Contact: dgreenstein@shomrei.org
Rabbi Zevi Lowenberg
Intern 2017 - 2020
rabbi zevi lowenberg: SESSION 1
Tonight’s topic: A Hopeful Isaiah: The Lessons for a New Rabbi
Zevi Lowenberg, a native of Baltimore, MD, and a die-hard Orioles fan, has served as rabbinic intern at Shelter Rock since 2017. A graduate of West Virginia University, and a 2nd Lieutenant in the United States Air Force, Zevi was ordained last week from the Jewish Theological Seminary. With his wife Jennifer, Zevi will be leaving SRJC to serve our nation as a chaplain in the United States Air Force at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas.
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Click HERE for prerecorded teaching
Contact: zlowenberg@jtsa.edu
Rabbi Hillel Skolnik
Intern 2010 - 2011
rabbi hillel skolnik: SESSION 1
Tonight’s topic: The Power of Voice
Before being ordained at JTS, Hillel served as the Rabbinic Intern and Religious School principal at the Shelter Rock Jewish Center from July, 2010 -June, 2011. Hillel then became the rabbi of the Southwest Orlando Jewish Congregation for seven years before moving to Columbus, OH to become the senior rabbi of Congregation Tifereth Israel. He is married to Rabbi Sharon Barr Skolnik and they have three wonderful children, Dafna (who lived with them in Shelter Rock), Liav and Hadar.
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Click HERE for prerecorded teaching
Contact: hskolnik@tiferethisrael.org
Rabbi Danielle Upbin
rabbi danielle upbin: session 1
Tonight’s topic: Rebel Women of the Bible: Rebecca’s Legacy
Danielle Upbin has been the Associate Rabbi and Prayer Leader at Congregation Beth Shalom since 2005. She also serves as Community Educator for the Jewish Federation of Florida’s Gulf Coast. Originally from NYC, Rabbi Upbin was ordained from JTS in 2002. She is married to Rabbi David Weizman and has many fond memories of their Shelter Rock Jewish Center days.
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Click HERE for prerecorded teaching
Contact: rabbiupbin@cbsclearwater.org
Rabbi David Weizman
Associate Rabbi 2000 - 2002
rabbi david weizman: session 2
Tonight’s topic: Avram the Iconoclast
David Weizman is the Senior rabbi of Congregation Beth Shalom in Clearwater, FL. He was the Assistant Rabbi at Shelter Rock Jewish Center from 2000-2002. Originally from Cleveland, OH, Rabbi Weizman received his ordination from JTS. He is married to Rabbi Danielle Upbin and they have four children.
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Click HERE for prerecorded teaching
Contact: rabbiweizman@cbsclearwater.org
Rabbi Jeremy Wiederhorn
Intern 1997 - 2000
rabbi jeremy wiederhorn: session 2
Tonight’s topic: Aaron: A time to speak, a time for silence, and a time for peace
Jeremy Wiederhorn has been the spiritual leader of The Conservative Synagogue in Westport, CT since 2008. Previously, he served as the rabbi of Midbar Kodesh Temple in Henderson, NV for eight years and was the Rabbinic Intern at Shelter Rock from 1997-2000. He is currently the President of the New York Board of Rabbis.
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Click HERE for prerecorded teaching
Contact: rabbiw@tcs-westport.org