When native Milwaukeean Ruth Leff was a young mother of four, her older sister, Pauline, was confined to a hospital in Madison, with multiple sclerosis.
“My mother went every week to see her, and I had my four angels, but I went when I could. Once it was Chanukah and I wanted to take her something and I got the idea of bringing her a menorah,” said Leff, now of Glendale, in a telephone interview. “She cried when she saw it.”
“I realized then that when [someone is] sick, personal care comes first and religion takes a back seat…. And so it’s been in my mind for many, many years to try to find a way to bring religion to people who are sick at home,” said Leff, now a speech pathologist and founder/president of Crestwood Communications Aids.
That seed in her mind grew to the production at Beth El Ner Tamid Synagogue and recent release of a video that captures Friday night Shabbat services for homebound or ill people.
“She wanted to do something to bring the beauty of the Friday night service to homebound people and people who can’t come to the synagogue,” said the synagogue’s spiritual leader, Rabbi Gideon Goldenholz. “The idea [of making a video] was something that was brewing in Ruth’s mind — she’s been asking me to do it for years,” he said in a recent telephone interview.
So when Leff celebrated becoming a bat mitzvah at Beth El in September 2003, Goldenholz decided that they were going to make the tape.
“She has worked so hard and does so many things for so many people out there and I thought the most significant thing we could do for her was to honor her dream,” he said.
Leff requested that family and friends who were thinking of giving gifts to her — and later to her husband, Aaron, and daughter Barbara, who celebrated becoming b’nei mitzvah in a joint ceremony last January — contribute to the video project instead.
Ruth and Aaron Leff provided the majority part of the funding and gifts from family and friends covered the rest.
Together with congregants who came to participate in a Friday night service on a week night, the Beth El choir, Enid Bootzin and the Jewish Community Chorale, and Cantor Jerome Berkowitz, Goldenholz led the service. Videographer Crin Forbes of Piranha Business Systems filmed it.
“We chopped off certain scenes and then he came back and videotaped our stained glass windows, our tapestry and symbols like the Kiddush cup, the candles, and others, “so you’re listening while these images appear — all kinds of colorful and beautiful sights that are inspiring and uplifting. [The videographer] made a beautiful tapestry,” said Goldenholz.
“Besides [that] we have everything transliterated and the print is in very large letters, of varied colors and shapes,” scrolling across the screen so the viewers can say the prayers along with the congregation in the video.
The film was first screened on Aug. 31 and has since been shown to residents of the Jewish Home and Care Center and Chai Point Senior Living Apartment Complex.
“It brought tears to their eyes. It was really sweet,” Goldenholz said.
Leff is personally distributing the video to Beth El members in various facilities. “I am going to go to all of the nursing homes, assisted living facilities, and hospitals and the members [of Beth El] will get free copies,” she said.
“For the people who can’t go to the temple, we are bringing the temple to them,” she added.
In the meantime, the video can be purchased at the synagogue office for $10, just enough to cover their costs, Leff said. It will also be available for loan at Jewish Family Service’s Pathways to Healing program, according to Goldenholz.
Jean Atlas, a resident and self-described organizer at Chai Point, credits activities director Trish Cohen, for acting on Atlas’ suggestion to show the video there on a Friday night after dinner.
About 40 people gathered in the lobby recently to see the video and “a non-Jewish person set it up and turned it on and off; we didn’t break any rules,” said Atlas.
“[The residents who saw the tape] said it was the most meaningful Friday evening we’ve ever had. We are so grateful to our activities department, Beth El Ner Tamid and to Ruth Leff, the rabbi, cantor, Enid Bootzin, the choir and the chorale and the members of the synagogue. It brought back so many wonderful memories,” Atlas added.
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