5101 US-42 • LOUISVILLE, KY 40241 • (502) 423-1818

A Year to Remember

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Dear Friends,

A Year to Remember

We hope and pray you find this message a source of pride and comfort. As we reflect on 2020, we can all agree, it was an interesting and challenging year to remember. Even during the pandemic, The Temple team rose to the challenge and creatively found new and safe ways to create positive, meaningful experiences, for all members of our Temple family.

Here are just a few of The Temple’s achievements:

  • We transitioned from in-person services and classes to Zoom and YouTube within one week. In addition to weekly services and classes, we engaged with our members every month with relevant programming, member bags, meal pick-ups, and more. We added many programs and invited more outside speakers, comedians, and local leaders than ever before.
  • We reimagined our High Holy Day Experience with Member Bags, customized prayer books, a special message from our Governor, and programming for all ages.
  • We worked collaboratively with the other synagogues in town to host a joint Havdallah Hanukkah Celebration, the first of many joint programs to come.
  • We continued life-cycle events and Tikkun Olam projects, following all CDC guidelines. We created a new Mitzvah Makers group and doubled the number of Tikkun Olam projects we normally do.
  • With the help of dozens of dedicated volunteers, we helped members in need with groceries, learn to use Zoom and YouTube, shop online, and get necessary medications and other essentials. We made sure that no member was left behind.
  • We wrestled with difficult questions about race and social justice in our community. Our Adult Education Committee began a monthly Conversation Series to continue the dialogue with partners, experts, and activists in our community.
  • We continued to open our doors and expand our community as 24 new families joined our Temple, and we welcomed back five additional families who rejoined.
  • In order to provide much-needed childcare for our ECEC families, we reopened our preschool during the pandemic while providing a safe educational environment. Our excellence was not missed by the larger community as The Temple Trager ECEC was named Best Preschool in Louisville by The Voice Magazine.
  • Our Religious School went online to continue engaging Temple youth with religious education. Moreover, we are proud that we were one of the few Reform Jewish Religious Schools in North America that not only stayed open virtually but also prolonged the school year to continue enriching our students. From Hebrew classes to baking workshops to Torah lessons, our students continued their education safely at home.
  • Throughout this pandemic, we worked diligently with our Board of Trustees to ensure that our budget and investments are financially strong.
  • We installed a new technology platform to improve back-office efficiencies and provide flexibility for our future.
  • We increased marketing and communications with our members, to maintain continuity for The Temple’s presence, throughout the pandemic.
  • Our maintenance team remodeled several areas of our Temple, thanks to many generous Temple donors. When we welcome our members back, you will be greeted by many enhancements.

Most importantly, we stayed safe and healthy and we will continue to maintain safety standards until we open our doors later in 2021.

Thank you to all of our Temple team members and volunteer leaders for a job well done in 2020 – and thank you to each and every Temple member for your continued support and commitment to our mission to be a center for Reform Judaism in Louisville and beyond.

We wish all our families a happy, safe, healthy 2021!
Rabbi David Ariel-Joel
Rabbi Joe Rooks Rapport
Craig Goldstein
Reed Weinberg

Vayigash (Genesis 44:18−47:27)

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This Week’s Torah Portion: Vayigash – וַיִּגַּשׁ (Genesis 44:18−47:27)

“Then Joseph said to his brothers, ‘Come forward to me.’ And when they came forward, he said, ‘I am your brother Joseph, he whom you sold into Egypt.’”

For twenty years Joseph is in Egypt, Pharaoh (the good and kind one) changed his name, he dressed like an Egyptian, he worshiped the Egyptian Gods, and he blessed God for making him forget his father and his family.

And yet in one moment of seeing his brothers coming near him, he is Joseph again.

Such a powerful statement about our own identity. We try to change; we try to adopt new ways of life and beliefs. But at the end, can we really change who we are? Can we really escape our family roots?

Parsha Vayigash Torah Summary:

Judah pleads with Joseph to free Benjamin and offers himself as a replacement. (44:18-34) Joseph reveals himself to his brothers and forgives them for selling him into slavery. (45:1-15) Although the famine still rages, Pharaoh invites Joseph’s family to “live off the fat of the land.” (45:16-24) Jacob learns that Joseph is still alive and, with God’s blessing, goes to Egypt. (45:25-46:33) Pharaoh permits Joseph’s family to settle in Goshen. Pharaoh then meets with Jacob. (47:1-12) With the famine increasing, Joseph designs a plan for the Egyptians to trade their livestock and land for food. The Israelites thrive in Egypt. (47:13-27) “Then Joseph said to his brothers, ‘Come forward to me.’ And when they came forward, he said, ‘I am your brother Joseph, he whom you sold into Egypt.’” For twenty years Joseph is in Egypt, Pharaoh (the good and kind one) changed his name, he dressed like an Egyptian, he worshiped the Egyptian Gods, and he blessed God for making him forget his father and his family. And yet in one moment of seeing his brothers coming near him, he is Joseph again. Such a powerful statement about our own identity. We try to change; we try to adopt new ways of life and beliefs. But at the end, can we really change who we are? Can we really escape our family roots?

Mikeitz (Genesis 41:1−44:17)

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This Week’s Torah Portion: Mikeitz – מִקֵּץ (Genesis 41:1−44:17)

The story of Joseph and his brothers became a Broadway musical. It shows how dramatic is the story, maybe the biggest drama in Genesis.

In his youth, Joseph is a dreamer, and foolish enough to tell his brothers he was dreaming about being their ruler.

The drama is that by trying to prevent Joseph from fulfilling his dreams, by selling him as a slave, the brothers actually ensured the dreams would be fulfilled.

But there is a much bigger drama in this story. Joseph is the only person in Genesis that manages to change. The annoying spoiled teenager, the dreamer, becomes the saver of the world, and the second in command in the biggest empire in the world. He literally saves Egypt and the rest of the world, including his own family, from famine.

Change is so difficult, especially changing who we are, the way we act, Joseph manages to change who he is, and becomes what he ought to be. He manages to overcome his own faults, and by that he manages to help create a better world!

Parsha Mikeitz Torah Summary:

Joseph interprets Pharaoh’s two dreams and predicts seven years of prosperity followed by seven years of famine. (41:1-32) Pharaoh places Joseph in charge of food collection and distribution. (41:37-49) Joseph marries Asenath, and they have two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim. (41:50-52) When Joseph’s brothers come to Egypt to buy food during the famine, Joseph accuses them of spying. He holds Simeon hostage while the rest of the brothers return to Canaan to retrieve Benjamin for him. (42:3-42:38) The brothers return to Egypt with Benjamin and for more food. Joseph continues the test, this time falsely accusing Benjamin of stealing and declaring that Benjamin must remain his slave. (43:1-44:17)

Vayeishev (Genesis 37:1−40:23)

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This Week’s Torah Portion: Vayeishev – וַיֵּשֶׁב (Genesis 37:1−40:23)

Parashat Vayeishev, begins the Joseph tales and, as it often does, this week’s Torah Portion falls during our celebration of Hanukkah. Generations of rabbis have sought a connection between these tales of Joseph and the Hanukkah story. It is not an easy match. 

Joseph is a spoiled child, favored by his father, dreaming of some future glory and angering his brothers to no end along the way. Joseph is cast into a pit, sold into slavery, and then tossed into prison… only to rise to glory in Pharaoh’s court. Hanukkah is a tale of bravery and self sacrifice, the triumph of the few against the many, the value of independence and the commitment of our people to the service of the One true God. 

The only real connection between the two stories lies in the unlikely outcome of them both.What they have in common is less about the events and more about God’s quiet role within them. The passage of time and the path of history can sometimes be a pretty strange and treacherous journey for us to make. At times we see God’s hand in its direction and at times we can only see God’s hand in its unfolding, but the lessons of Vayeishev and Hanukkah come to teach us that at all times we are cradled in Divine hands, seen and unseen, as we journey forth along our way.

May this Season of Light, and the light of Torah’s learning, carry us always out of the darkness and into the light. And may our journeys bring us wisdom along the path to a brighter day.

Parsha Vayeishev Torah Summary:

Jacob is shown to favor his son Joseph, whom the other brothers resent. Joseph has dreams of grandeur. (Genesis 37:1-11) After Joseph’s brothers had gone to tend the flocks in Shechem, Jacob sends Joseph to report on them. The brothers decide against murdering Joseph but instead sell him into slavery. After he is shown Joseph’s coat of many colors, which had been dipped in the blood of a kid, Jacob is led to believe that Joseph has been killed by a beast. (Genesis 37:12-35) Tamar successively marries two of Judah’s sons, each of whom dies. Judah does not permit her levirate marriage to his youngest son. She deceives Judah into impregnating her. (Genesis 38:1-30) God is with Joseph in Egypt until the wife of his master, Potiphar, accuses him of rape, whereupon Joseph is imprisoned. (Genesis 39:1-40:23)

Vayishlach (Genesis 32:4-36:43)

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This Week’s Torah Portion: Vayishlach – וַיִּשְׁלַח (Genesis 32:4-36:43)

Jacob is left alone, on his journey home, on the night before his momentous meeting with his brother whom he has always cheated and deceived. He wrestles with a man, an Ish, all that night. Neither wrestler can overcome the other, and when the dawn breaks, Jacob receives his new name Yisrael, which will become our name, the name of the Children of Israel forever.

Who was this mysterious wrestler who encountered Jacob in the night? Was it an angel sent by God with the blessing of a new name; was it Esau his brother, come to test him in the night; or perhaps it was all a dream and this is Jacob wrestling with himself, the deceiver he has been and the better soul he knows he can become? All the Torah tells us is that Jacob wrestled with an Ish.

But something about this story sounds familiar. There is another man, another Ish, who Jacob’s son Joseph encounters on a journey of his own. Joseph meets a “man in the field” an Ish Basadeh, who directs him towards his brothers and begins the incredible journey which will lead Joseph to be sold into slavery and cast into prison, only then to rise and become second only to Pharaoh, saving all of Egypt from famine, and bringing his family down to Egypt as well.

Could Jacob’s Ish and Joseph’s Ish Basadeh be one and the same? The mystical mathematics of gematria gives us a clue. Based on the numerical value of the letters of each of the words we can learn: איש (Ish) equals 311 and בשדה (Basadeh) equals 311 as well. A convenient coincidence don’t you see, particularly when you add the Hebrew word for “equals”, שוה (Shaveh) the numerical value of which equals 311 as well.

Jacob encounters a person on his journey to find his destiny. Joseph encounters a person on his journey to find his own. Each of us has encountered such a person who directed us on our own life’s journey. Each of us can be that person for those we meet and those whose lives we touch. Perhaps it was an angel who Jacob wrestled with that night. Perhaps we too are angels, messengers of the Holy One, as well.

Parsha Vayishlach Torah Summary:

Jacob prepares to meet Esau. He wrestles with a “man,” who changes Jacob’s name to Israel. (32:4-33) Jacob and Esau meet and part peacefully, each going his separate way. (33:1-17) Dinah is raped by Shechem, the son of Hamor the Hivite, who was chief of the country. Jacob’s sons Simeon and Levi take revenge by murdering all the males of Shechem, and Jacob’s other sons join them in plundering the city. (34:1-31) Rachel dies giving birth to Benjamin and is buried in Ephrah, which is present-day Bethlehem. (35:16-21) Isaac dies and is buried in Hebron. Jacob’s and Esau’s progeny are listed. (35:22-36:43) This Week’s Torah Portion: Vayishlach – וַיִּשְׁלַח (Genesis 32:4-36:43)