Neve Shalom Jewish Prison
Outreach Program
Benefit Concert
Sunday, June 13 @ 3 PM
Central Reform Congregation
Waterman and Kingshighway, St. Louis
Ashamed of My Past -- a performance piece featuring
rabbi jsg and his contenticle of intentional musicians
and stories from the Other Side.
New Year’s Message
Jewish Prison Outreach
We at the Jewish Prison Outreach, a joint project of the Rabbinical Association
of St. Louis, Jewish Family and Children’s Service, and Congregation Neve
Shalom, want to remind you that we are thinking of you at this time of
the year, and wishing you an optimistic new year, good and sweet, dependable
and true.
As I am writing this, we are moving to the end of the Hebrew month of
Elul and the beginning of Tishri, which means Rosh Hashanah, the new moon
of Tishri. My favorite teaching on this time of the year has to do with
the moon as metaphor for what we learn during these days of awe.
We are taught that on Rosh Hashanah, we draw something new into the world,
entirely new, something that has not been here before. There is so much
hope in that. Whatever it is that we are drawing into the world, it is
like the moon – difficult to discern at the new moon. It takes a few weeks
for that newness to reveal itself fully, like the moon, until the full
moon of Sukkot.
Every year we are learning something new, every year we are drawing something entirely new into the world. How we draw it in is through some common ways, some uncommon ways. Some common ways are these: prayer, acts of kindness, through our giving natures. Some uncommon ways are these: patience, faith, belief that even though the rewards may not be clear, they are present. Something good and beautiful and new and hopeful will follow whatever the circumstances.
This year as in all years we are praying for peace, we are anticipating it, waiting for it, a kind of active sense of waiting. We are always hopeful. We believe in the future, it’s as dependable as the moon. Every month the moon appears in outline at the beginning of the month, every month the moon plumps into fullness by the fifteenth of the month, every month it shrinks again in the cycle. Dependable and true, like the wisdom we are drawing down.
Let us hear from you, a good and sweet year,
Rabbi James Stone Goodman
For Jewish Prison Outreach
Some of the prisons I have visited
have a large common room
with vending machines
where I sit with the prisoners.
In some I am separated
by thick windows
with telephones
like in the movies
we are five or six feet away from each other
we speak by telephone.
Our group
Jewish Prison Outreach
we are getting started
we are compiling a list of prison contacts
we are asking our contacts
to instruct us:
how can we help?
We do as we are
Instructed.