I would like to share with you the gist of an annual phone conversation I have with a Jewish woman who lives in a very rural part of Louisiana. She is an older woman, who does not have access to a car and very limited access to the internet. The people around her know she is of Jewish persuasion and some of the respect her for it. However many of them are suspicious at best and at worst relentlessly try to “save her soul.”
Without a community and without access to communications technology, she has very little opportunity to interact with Jews or get first hand Jewish inspiration. She heard about Chabad and got on our mailing list. She calls once a year to thank us for the calendar and other literature that we mail to her. They are her lifeline to anything Jewish. In addition to the publications that we mail out each year (calendar, holiday guides, family magazines etc.), I have started to send her a few books and articles each year so that she would have more Jewish material to read.
Over the years people have indicated that perhaps it was time to move on from publications such as the calendar as everyone has a computer and a phone that gives them access to the info. When I hear that I think of the lady in the story above. If we stopped printing and mailing the calendar, she would lose her sole Jewish exposure, from which she draws her Jewish learning and inspiration.
In addition, despite the increased popularity of digitized information such as books, newspapers, prayerbooks, etc., as long as Jews keep Shabbat there will always be a need for the printed word, including our calendar. I am gratified when I walk into a house or business and I see the Jewish Art Calendar hanging and being used. I am happy to receive phone calls asking me about some of the information that is shared on the calendar pages each year.
Once again we are going to print with our annual Jewish Art Calendar. This is made possible by your support through ads and tributes. Use the calendar to reach over 2600 homes and businesses to whom the calendar is mailed. You can advertise a business, honor a loved one on a Yahrtzeit, birthday or anniversary, or send greetings to the community for the new-year. We need your support to make sure that people like the lady on the phone, and everyone else who enjoys and uses it, receive their calendar. Please see below for the ad rates and support the publication.
Want to also highlight an event coming up in just over a week. During this time of mourning for the destruction of our Holy Temples, it is customary to find valid reasons to temper the mourning with celebration. One of those is a Siyum – the conclusion of a volume of the Talmud. On Sunday night, July 23 at 8 PM, we will be holding a Siyum at Chabad Uptown. Max Chiz and I are getting set to conclude the Tractate Erachin and we invite the community to participate in our joy and the celebration of the Torah. Following the Siyum and evening services, refreshments will be served in honor of the occasion.
Shabbat Shalom
Rabbi Mendel Rivkin