Challahs of Love, Holy Hollywood, & Runya's Birthday

Hi everyone,
Thank you to all who made the Sukkot and Simchas Torah holiday celebrations so amazing and memorable. Now that the holidays are all done, it’s back to just the regular craziness of school and midterms. But, don’t worry! We still have plenty of excitement going on. Whether it’s social action (Challahs of Love & Gift of Life), Food for Thought (Holy Hollywood), our signature Shabbat events, learning opportunities or trips, there’s something going on for you to get involved in.
Hope to see you soon! Check out the opportunities below.
Dov and Runya Wagner

1) Challahs of Love – tonight
2) Turn Friday Night into Shabbat – Runya’s Birthday
3) Holy Hollywood – walk “the red carpet” with award winning actor and comedian Shelley Berman
4) Gift of Life – Bone Marrow Registry Drive
5) Last Chance for NY Trip
6) Weekly Learning opportunities – updated
7) Winter Break Ski Retreat
8) Thought for the Week


1) Challahs of Love – tonight
You get just one chance each month for this amazing opportunity. Bake 2 challahs. One for your own Shabbat enjoyment, and the other to be given to a local struggling family.
No prior baking experience necessary!
Learn Runya’s world-famous recipes and methods – not to be missed.

TONIGHT - Thursday, October 19. 7:30 – 9:00 pm at the Chabad House.
Next chance: Nov. 16

Part of our Helping Hands social action series.


2) Turn Friday Night into Shabbat – Runya’s Birthday
Holidays are over. However, our tradition does teach that Shabbat Bereishis (this Shabbat, when we start the reading of the Torah anew) is in many ways the key to the entire year that follows. Find out why, while enjoying the inimitable Chabad @ USC Shabbat experience. Fresh Challah, multi-course home-cooked banquet, amazing energy, and so much more.

In addition, this Shabbat we’re celebrating Runya’s birthday. This is your opportunity to show her your appreciation for all that she does for the USC Jewish community. Please don’t bring gifts on Shabbat, in accordance with the laws of Shabbat observance. But your presence means so much more than your presents.

Friday, Oct. 20
Candle Lighting: 5:56 pm
Services: 6:00 pm
Dinner: 7:00 pm
Cake Cutting: 10:15 pm
Remember, we have a strict “come when you can, leave when you want to” policy!

Saturday, Oct. 21
Discussion on Genesis and the story of Creation: 9:15 am
Morning Services: 10:15 am
Lunch: 12:45 pm
Shabbat ends and Havdalah: 6:50 pm


3) Holy Hollywood – walk “the red carpet” with award winning actor and comedian Shelley Berman
Don’t miss part 2 of our exciting lecture series: Jewish LAS. A Food for Thought event.

Is Hollywood really about Jewish values? What’s it like being Jewish in “the industry”? Does it help, hurt, or neither?
Hear over 50 years worth of Hollywood memories from a true industry legend –award winning actor and comedian Shelley Berman. Whether it’s through his Grammy-award winning comedy recordings, his big-screen appearances in such movies as “Meet the Fockers” and “The Aristocrats”, his roles in such TV hits as Friends, King of Queens, or most recently Curb Your Enthusiasm, or his teaching of humor writing in the MPW program right here at USC, Shelley Berman has done it all. And throughout everything, he has maintained a very clear awareness and connection with his Jewish identity.

Walk down the red carpet, munch away on popcorn, movie treats, and a full salad bar, and enjoy Shelley’s anecdotes, reminisces, and insights.

Due to technical difficulties, we have had to drop Mel Gibson from our list of speakers for the evening….

Tuesday, Oct. 24th. 6:30 pm at the Chabad House. RSVP at www.chabadusc.com or at the Facebook event “Holy Hollywood”.


4) Gift of Life – Bone Marrow Registry Drive
Another Helping Hands social action opportunity.
Do you want to save a life? Maybe it’s a child with leukemia? Or an adult with lymphoma?
You’ll never know if you could have done something, if you’re not in the national bone marrow registry.

Statistics show that it’s most likely for matches to be found for marrow transplants from people with similar ethnic backgrounds. So the more Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews in the registry, the more likely it is that a match can be found when someone from that background is in need. That’s what Gift of Life was founded for. And that’s why we’re doing a drive for Gift of Life this coming Wednesday.

What: Bone marrow registry
Where: In front of the JEP house, at Trousdale and 34th (right near the Finger Fountain).
When: Wednesday, October 25. 11:30 am – 2:30 pm

A cooperative effort between Gift of Life, Chabad @ USC, and AEPi.


5) Last Chance for NY Trip
The trip is awesome. The memories will last a life time. And all it’ll cost you is $200-
Dozens of campuses. Hundreds of students. One amazing weekend!
Thursday, Nov. 2 – Sunday, Nov. 5
www.chabad.edu/shabbaton or contact Chava at frankiel@usc.edu for details


6) Weekly Learning Opportunities – updated
No previous learning experience needed. Join Rabbi Dov for one of these exciting weekly learning opportunities to discuss virtually any topic relating to Judaism.

Monday
Dental School Lunch & Learn: 12:00 pm
Contact uscjewishclub@yahoo.com

Discussion over Dinner in Parkside Restaraunt: 6:00 pm
You bring the topic. Any topic.
Contact Chava at frankiel@usc.edu for details.

Genesis – ongoing text study and discussion @ Tuscany 426: 9:00 pm
Rad, think, talk, and debate about the Biblical story of Creation
Contact Omer at osinger@usc.edu for details.

Tuesday
Law School Lunch & Learn – twice a month
Contact Brian at brianlundin@yahoo.com for details

Kabbalah and Kabob: 6:30 pm once a month
Enjoy BBQ and discussions about the spiritual reality of our world.
Contact runya@usc.edu for details.

Talmud and Tanya: 7:30 – 9:00 pm
Taste the intellectual delight of a page of Talmud, followed by a short reading from the mystical teachings of the Tanya
Contact Rabbi Dov at chabad@usc.edu for details

Wednesday
Medical School Lunch & Learn – twice a month
(Starting Wednesday, November 1)
Contact Rabbi Dov at chabad@usc.edu for details

Thursday
Pizza & Parsha: 12:15 – 1:45 pm
Currently in its 7th year. On Trousdale.

Friday
Making Shabbat: All day
Learn how to cook the delicious components of a traditional Shabbat dinner and help out with the preparations
Contact Runya at runya@usc.edu for details


7) Winter Break Ski Retreat
An opportunity not to be missed. Dec. 24-31. Ski retreat in a beautiful lodge in Running Springs, CA. Women only. Just $50- (plus ski package).
www.winterbreak.info


8) Thought for the Week
This week, we begin reading the Torah anew. The first portion is of course Bereishit -- "in the beginning" -- which relates the story of Creation.

Jack was about to travel for business. A week before he left, he stopped by Yankel the tailor's shop. "I need a pair of pants," said Jack, "but it's got to be ready within a week."
"No problem," promised Yankel. He measured and cut and marked and pinched, and Jack went on his way.
When he came back a week later, he was extremely upset to find that the pants were not yet ready. Having no choice, he traveled off without them. When he returned a month later, he stopped by Yankel's shop again.
"Jack," cried Yankel, "I'm so happy to see you. I just finished your pants yesterday!"
"I don't understand," Jack complained. "G-d created the entire world in just seven days, and it takes you five weeks to make a pair of pants?"
"Aha!" was Yankel's response. "Look at the mess G-d made of the world, and look at these beautiful pants!"

Any talk of creation is often greeted with some comment of this sort. "If there really is a G-d, why is there so much pain and suffering?" "How could G-d exist if there's so much darkness and confusion?" "Where was G-d in the Holocaust, or by 9/11?"
Yet, if you read the story of creation, you will notice an interesting thing. When "G-d saw that the light was good" He did not abolish darkness; He merely "separated between the darkness and the light." Darkness is G-d's creation as well, and it serves a necessary purpose in our world. In order to be fully effective, light must be contrasted with darkness, enlightenment with uncertainty, clarity with mystery, objectivity with subjectivity, rationality with irrationality.
Furthermore, G-d had no intention of giving us a complete and perfect world. Where He to do so, there could be no purpose served by the creation of this world in the first place. Rather, as the verse in this week's portion says, He created a world where man would have a purpose; He created a world which would be in man's hands "to cultivate it and guard it." When there is no choice, actions are meaningless. If I buy flowers for my wife because she has somehow programmed me to do so, she will derive no joy from it. Only if it were my choice, my decision, rendered in a situation where either of the two choices were indeed viable possibilities, does it attain meaning and value.
It is sometimes only the fact that the possibility for darkness exists that makes the light worthwhile and good.
However, we must also remember that our job is to indeed change this phenomenon. Darkness has to exist to give us the choice, but our job is to take that darkness and transform it to light.

The students of the Maggid of Mezeritch (leader of Chassidism about 250 years ago) were sitting around relaxing after a day of intense study. After a few minutes, the conversation turned a bit whimsical.

"If I were G-d," said one, "I would have created the world in such a way as to eliminate poverty."

"If I were G-d," said another, "I would create the world without the ability for evil."

"If I were G-d," said a third, "I would create the world without any pain and suffering."

And so it went, each student choosing a particular area of improvement he would have wrought were he to create the world.

Finally it was the turn of the youngest of the students, Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi.

"If I were G-d," said Rabbi Shneur Zalman, "I would create the world exactly the way He did indeed create it."


Wishing you a week in which you do your part to improve on G-d's creation, not by wishing He had done it differently, but by fulfilling your own personal mission within the reality that does exist.


Rabbi Dov Wagner
Chabad Jewish Student Center @ USC
2713 Severance St.
Los Angeles, CA 90007
www.chabadusc.com
Chabad@usc.edu
213-748-5884
310-801-3142 – cell

“Your next act will change the world. Make it a good one!”