Dear friends,

As I am sure many of you have already heard, this morning’s Supreme Court deliberations did not result in any concrete decision. However, the Supreme Court Justices sent a very clear message to the government, strongly advising them to unfreeze the resolution. As Chief Justice Miriam Naor said, “something frozen can also be melted.”

The deliberations this morning lasted for over two hours, during which the Government representatives tried to convince the court that their commitment to building an egalitarian platform was met. The Justices did not accept this argument.

We were prepared for the fact that a final decision would not be made this morning. In any case, we intend to continue our highly intense campaign over the next couple of months. The Supreme Court Justices clearly indicated today that if the government still refuses to implement the resolution, the court will eventually intervene. We have strong reason to believe that this intervention will be in our favor and force the government to do as they agreed upon over a year and a half ago.

There is no doubt that this is a long and daunting process, but we continue believing that in the end, we will reach the “promised land.”

For a more detailed update on today’s proceedings, Click here.

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Gilad Kariv
President and CEO
Israel Movement for Progressive Judaism

The Israel Movement for Reform & Progressive Judaism (IMPJ) is the umbrella organization of all the Reform communities and institutions in Israel.
We seek to integrate Jewish tradition with the realities of modern life, and believe in the right of each individual to shape their own Jewish way of life through a process of study and reflection. The Reform movement emphasizes the commandments concerning relations between humans, religious tolerance, and full equality between women and men in the synagogue and in all walks of life.

Great Falls Inter-Faith Association
August 24th, 2017

Those present:  
Pastor Ray Larson, Benefis Healthcare
Stephen Boyd, GF Hebrew Association  
Rick Allison, Big Sky Baptist
Jim McCormick, Rescue Mission  
Kristy Pontet-Stroop, Alliance for Youth
Tom Moore, GF Public Schools  
Kerry Parsons, CMR
Heather Hoyer, GFHS  
Kathy Schendel, Echoz Pregnancy Care
Renee Phillips, Calvary Chapel of Great Falls  
Dave Strand, Big Sky Baptist Church
Lacey Spencer, United Way  
Beth McKinney, GF Food Banks
David Culpepper, Foothills Cummunity Christian School  
Dave Nordel, City of Great Falls
Gringer King, Family Connections MT  
Focus: Back to School & City Resources
 
Pastor Ray opened with a reading from 1st Corinthians and a prayer.
Back to School with Tom Moore, Drew Uecker, Heather Hoyer, and Kerry Parsons.
Tom – Great Falls Public Schools – This year’s Convocation, the school year kickoff, is at the GFHS Field House, 8am Monday Morning. September 8th, at Paris Gibson is education and training for all the school foodbanks, introducing a software package in the hopes that all the foodbanks will implement it. Each School has unique needs, and most of the schools have expressed interest in partnering with their area churches to assist those needs.

Heather – Great Falls High School – Have need of hygiene items, baby shampoo(non-allergenic) is especially needed, along with toothbrushes. Church partnership is going well, they’ve been working with Pastor Jeff with 2 concepts: Many hands, 2 tons of food being moved to families in need. Also Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter. They spend two days delivering boxes to needy families, in the past they’ve utilized students with adults to drive and deliver food, however, she would prefer the students stay in class so they are always looking for volunteers to help. If interested, Call Heather @ 268-6313.

Caregiver trauma – Teachers get exhausted with all the worry and stress as they care for all the impoverished students, and small encouragement from volunteers means much.

Kerry – CM Russell High School – Welcoming teachers back Monday, 1400 students on Tuesday, the school has already been bustling though with prep for their first ever varsity football contest. Construction is beginning for their new STEM addition and is continuing on other infrastructure upgrades Kerry had a meeting with their partners earlier this week, customer service is a large component of the mission of the school. Many kids in crisis, free and reduced lunch population is smaller than GFHS but still definitely high. Their food pantry is very active. As far as needs, food pantry and hygiene items are always needed, as well as volunteers. Many extra-curricular activities can be expensive, and not all kids can front the expense, they are asked to give scholarships and have set up accounts to help cover the costs. Faculty fatigue will be ever-present; any volunteer help is welcomed. To help, call Kerry Parsons at 268-6241.

Dave Nordel – City of Great Falls – Disaster Preparedness, Emergency Management Passed out books, Schools are very prepared, have excellent ability to handle bad situations. No major disasters have happened in Great Falls for almost 57 years, which is a blessing and a curse, we don’t know how to react in an emergency.

In Great Falls, there are on duty at any given time 12 firemen, 6 police, 3 ambulances, and 2 sheriffs. So only about 23 EMS responders for 60,000 people. That’s not counting everyone coming in from outlying areas seeking help. Because of this, Dave goes throughout the city to educate people about preparedness. Everyone should be able to keep themselves alive for 72 hours without emergency services, and he has a small booklet he hands out everywhere he goes called “Family Preparedness” that lays out everything to do for your family.

He suggests every organization has a disaster preparedness talk, churches would act as a major gathering point, and the more churches are prepared for disasters, the more load they can take off of shelters and hospitals.
Code Red is the vehicle they use to alert people to a disaster, if you have a landline, you are already signed up, if you have a cellphone you can go to https://public.coderedweb.com to sign up, or download the CodeRED app on your smartphone.

Pastor Ray Adjourned the meeting.
Submitted by Stephen Boyd, recording secretary.

Sitting on the lawn of Ashton Elementary School in northeast Idaho, I watched the total eclipse in absolute amazement. Yet, I’ll admit publicly, that for me, the eclipse was eclipsed by a far greater wonder, the birth and adoption of our newborn. It’s been six-plus years since my mom’s passing and, ever since, I’ve been hoping for a baby to carry her name. At the Shabbos Torah reading, after reading the words “in accordance with the blessing of the Eternal, your God, that He has given to you” I had the honor of naming our daughter Chana Laya (She has a registry here.) She is delicious, cute and so lovable. During these “seven weeks of consolation”, I received mine.
Raising a hand-full (literally) of children, is no simple task. Our world is chaotic, winds of secularism and unchecked insanity are blowing strongly, and divisiveness has overtaken our once United States. Nevertheless, we are still capable of raising holy children in the 21st century.

In this week’s Torah portion, Shoftim, we discuss war. The Jewish soldiers are commanded not to fear their enemy, even if seemingly mighty. Soldiers that are unfocused, whether newlyweds, new homeowners, new vignerons and those that are “chicken”, should go home. You don’t want a few distracted soldiers, weakening the entire army. In the pre-war words of the priest “Hear, O Israel, today you are approaching the battle against your enemies. Let your hearts not be faint; you shall not be afraid, and you shall not be alarmed, and you shall not be terrified because of them”.
Sun Tzu writes “Thus the expert in battle moves the enemy, and is not moved by him”. The world is a war zone, and our children must not fear it, must not find excuses to dodge the skirmish, but rather we must inspire, encourage and educate them to know the Art of War. Let’s put secularism on the defense, let’s arm our children with so much Yiddishkait, so much Torah, so much authenticity, giving the enemies of tradition a run for their money. Learn Kuzari, Chovas HaLevavos and Kuntres Umaayon with them, talk to them about what G-d means to you, infuse them with logic and faith, giving them the necessary ammo to decimate the darkness, or at least dismiss the temptation for instant gratification. I pray to merit raising my beloved Chana Laya, with her four amazing siblings, in the ways of their Bubby, my mother of blessed memory, who stared at the world and said, “bring it on”.
Our children need not to fear the world; the world needs to fear them!