31/12/2023
Rev. Ella Gregory helped develop spiritual programming with the late Interfaith Rabbi NYC - Rabbi David Schaefer for the First Interfaith Synagogue of New York for a number of years. The temple is currently on 'pause" for now, but Rev Ella is keeping this legacy alive with memories and sermons from David to help guide us as we face our daily lives. Thank you Ella. G_d bless and let 2024 be filled with love, faith, friends, family, and fewer challenges to face, as Rabbi David keeps an eye out for us.
Happy New Year! 🎊
Cantor Debbi
POSTING FROM ELLA GREGORY
Rabbi David Schaefer continues to minister to us through his rich, enormous musical legacy, his rabbinic service through the First Interfaith Synagogue of New York, and his exemplary, inspiring, loving way of being. Here is one of his sermons for the New Year:
[Rabbi David:
I have chosen the Torah portion Vayera for a more or less personal reason. It is the Parsha I read for my Bar Mitzvah on November 9th, 1968, fifty-three years ago. (All right...do the math.) But more important, this passage in Genesis serves to illustrate a point I wish to make.
We all know the story of how the patriarch Abraham was visited by three messengers of God, appearing as men. (Some of our Christian brothers and sisters believe that they were the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.) It is also said that they were sent to fulfill one of the most sacred obligations of every faith: Visiting the sick. You see, Abraham had just been circumcised.
Despite the pain he must have felt, Abraham ran to greet the three travelers without knowing them or what their purpose was. He begged them to stop and rest, wash their feet, and have a morsel of bread and some water. Meanwhile, he hurried to prepare an elaborate feast for them: Milk curds and the prime meant of three animals. (Remember, the laws of Kashruth had not yet been codified.) He pressed into service his son Ishmael, to teach the young boy the ways of hospitality.
Abraham taught us in that precious moment what our sages would teach us later: Promise little but do much. He did not know that the three messengers were to give him a gift of greatest importance: Announcing to him that his wife, Sarah, would in the coming year bear him a son, Isaac.
How many times do we "promise little, but do much", especially if it's not in our own self-interest? Or when there's no chance of reward? So many of us go through life content to "pass", not excel. Isn't it our obligation to be members of "The 110% Club"? History teaches us that these are the people who make a great contribution to the world, and the Torah and the Talmud are filled with examples of men and women who have done such.
Let this be our resolution as we count off the days to the New Year. Let us strive to do more than we promise. Let this be our contribution to Tikkun Olam, healing the world, in which we not only exist, but give our all, so we may truly live. ]
WISHING YOU ALL ABUNDANT BLESSINGS OF FAITH, HOPE, LOVE, PEACE, JOY, AND INSPIRATION IN THE NEW YEAR! MAY WE, LIKE RABBI DAVID, STRIVE TO GIVE OUR 110% TOWARD THE HEALING OF THE WORLD!
Ella Gregory
Thank-you, Debbi - and also to you! I'm here for you, to support you from one widow to another, to carry on Rabbi David's inspiring work in whatever way I can, and to help get his extraordinary music out into the world in new venues. 🩷
