Share your synagogue with your friends who are not yet members.
- the annual Swim Party and BBQ at the JCC on Sunday, August 17,
sponsored by Brotherhood and WOTE,
- the next fabulous Rock Shabbat on Friday, August 22, and
- a “getting to know us” brunch on Sunday, August 24 at 10:00 AM.
Call the administrative office for more information…and bring a friend!
>> If your email address changes, please let the office know so we can update our records.
>> If you know of someone who could use a friendly phone call from the Caring Committee, or a ride to services, please contact Dan and Shirley Lee, sabl@sbcglobal.net.
UPDATE FOR JULY 10 2008
In this Update:
- Upcoming Services
- Auxiliary Events
- WOTE Comedy Sportz night, Saturday, August 2nd
- Brotherhood: Havdallah, Dinner and a Movie, Saturday, August 23rd
-
- In the community
- Refuah Shleymah
- Torah Portion
UPCOMING SERVICES
Friday, July 11
6:30 PM Kabbalat Shabbat Service, led by Brotherhood
Due to the weather and air quality, Friday’s service will be in the Benefactors Room.
Saturday, July 12
9:00 AM Shabbat Morning Minyan, led by Linnea and Ken Abrams
Friday, July 18
6:30 PM Tot Shabbat and Kabbalat Shabbat Service
led by Cantor Intern Meeka Simerly
Potlucks for both groups follow services:
Tot Families on playground between Temple House and Education Bldg; everyone else in the BFR. If it’s too hot, we will make sure that everyone can eat inside.
Saturday, July 19
9:00 AM Shabbat Morning Minyan, led by Rebecca Bronstein and Jonathan Hirshon
Friday, July 25
6:30 PM Kabbalat Shabbat Service, led by the Temple Emanu-El Singers
Saturday, July 26
9:00 AM Shabbat Morning Minyan, led by Bob and Maggie Cant, with Sid Rosenberg reading Torah.
Return to top
TEMPLE AUXILIARIES…
WOTE
Thursday, July 17 - Dinner and a Meeting at 6:00 PM
Friday, August 1 – WOTE Shabbat on the Patio
Saturday, August 2 (note new date) a group outing to COMEDY SPORTZ:
WOTE is sponsoring a special family event on Sat. August 2, 2008 at ComedySportz, 288 South 2nd St., corner of 2nd and San Carlos, in the Camera 3 building. Parking will be validated. If you would like to eat at the theater, food is available in the lobby cafe before and after the performances at reasonable prices ranging from $3.00 to about $10.00 for hotdogs, salads, soups, or sandwiches.
Family showtime is 7:00 p.m. ending about 8:30 p.m.
Tickets are $15.00 for adults and $12.00 for seniors and children.
Theater hold 100 patrons. First come first served. We will be reserving a section of the theater in order to sit together.
RSVP by July 26 so we can reserve seats ~~ send your checks made out to WOTE to
Estelle Kadis
130 E San Fernando St.#415
San Jose CA 95112
Questions? Contact Estelle at 408 293-8084 or email: Kadis@sbcglobal.net
You can look up the information for the program at www.comedysportzsanjose.com or call them at 224-0842.
Thursday, August 14 – Dinner and a Meeting (in the Cottage)
Let Rita or Anita know if you want to help with the Yom Kippur Break-the-Fast
WOTE & BROTHERHOOD
Sunday, August 17 –
TEMPLE SUMMER BBQ
swimming, water slide, and BBQ with friends
at the Addison-Penzak Jewish Community Center
on Oka Road in Los Gatos
from 11-3pm
Sponsored by Brotherhood and Sisterhood
Brotherhood will BBQ again
We provide the main course, chips, drinks and paper goods.
You bring a side dish or dessert to share.
RSVP to Bernice Gaon at 269-0131. Need RSVP to ensure enough food.
$5 per person or $20 per family
Pay at pool or send check to temple.
Return to top
In the Community:
Everyone has the right to be...
SAFE AT HOME
It's Jewish Heritage Night at the ballpark again--come schmooze with us!
Monday August 25, 2008
Join us for the pre-game dinner...
5pm - Dinner at Gordon Biersch. Includes 3 hours of free parking.
Co-hosted with the Jewish Community Federation of San Francisco , the Peninsula, Marin, & Sonoma Counties
Or meet up with us at the game...
7:15pm - SF Giants vs. Colorado Rockies
Includes view section seat, "Go Giants" custom Jewish Heritage Night scarf, and a "Safe at Home" Shalom Bayit tote bag
Join our fabulous contingent at the game AND support everyone's right to be SAFE AT HOME!
Tickets: $45 ~ Dinner & Game discount package; $20 ~ Game only; $30 ~ Dinner only
Don't miss this fabulous and fun community event!
Order tickets now- space is limited. Reserve by July 25th at (510) 451-8874 or info@shalom-bayit.org
Shalom Bayit
Ending Domestic Violence in Jewish Homes
````````````````````````````````````````
Look for the details on offerings from Jewish Studies Program at San José State University in the August Connections.
or contact: Victoria G. Harrison, Program Coordinator
victoria.harrison@sjsu.edu ~~ 408-924-5547
````````````````````````````````````````
Refuah Shleymah – we pray for the following congregants – that they will be returned to good health in short order so they can resume a full life with their loved ones.
- Arthur Cagan
- Gerald Prizant
- Eva Stanley
- Henry Thailer
- Joelle Wolf
Torah Portion of the Week Parashat Balak, Numbers 22:2−25:9
from www.urj.org
D'VAR TORAH |
Balak: Is the Ass a Prophet or is the Prophet an Ass?
Carol Ochs
The absurd image of Balaam's donkey turning around and berating her master for thrice beating her makes this portion memorable. We learn that in so doing, the donkey is merely trying to save her own life:
When the ass now saw the angel of the Eternal, she lay down under Balaam; and Balaam was furious and beat the ass with his stick.
Then the Eternal opened the ass's mouth, and she said to Balaam,"What have I done to you that you have beaten me these three times?" Balaam said to the ass,"You have made a mockery of me! If I had a sword with me, I'd kill you." The ass said to Balaam,"Look, I am the ass that you have been riding all along until this day! Have I been in the habit of doing thus to you?" And he answered,"No."
Then the Eternal uncovered Balaam's eyes and he saw the angel of the Eternal standing in the way, his drawn sword in his hand; thereupon he bowed right down to the ground. The angel of the Eternal said to him,"Why have you beaten your ass these three times? It is I who came out as an adversary, for the errand is obnoxious to me. And when the ass saw me, she shied away because of me those three times. If she had not shied away from me, you are the one I should have killed, while sparing her." (Numbers 22:27–33)
We can sigh with amusement or with resignation when tradition tries to account for this prophetic donkey in terms of a miracle executed before the seventh day of Creation. But there is a much more serious agenda at work in this portion.
Parables are unnerving experiences that are meant to change us, not to reassure us, as John Dominic Crossan explains in chapter three of The Dark Interval: Towards a Theology of Story ([Polebridge Press: Sonoma, CA, 1988], pp. 52–60). Crossan provides two examples of parables in the Tanach: the Book of Ruth and the Book of Jonah. In both cases, normal expectations are turned on their heads. Jonah upends the prophetic tradition by fleeing his mission, and while the evil city of Nineveh repents beyond all expectations, Jonah ends up pouting. Here prophecy relates not to the accuracy of predictions but to repentence. The Book of Ruth actually attacks the postexilic call to abandon foreign wives and children. Ezra's decree (Ezra 9:1–2) that the people of Israel have gone to foreigners, among them the Moabites, and"have taken their daughters as wives for themselves and for their sons," is directly countered by the repeated stress that Ruth is a foreigner, a Moabite, and the ancest
or of both David and the Messiah.
Balak must be read in the light of Crossan's call to examine how our expectations of prophecy are overturned. Balaam goes against our first expectation, that a prophet described in the Torah is necessarily an Israelite. It goes against our second expectation, that a prophet should be holy. Indeed, Balaam is sufficiently evil that his death is singled out for mention in Numbers 31:8. And Moses blames him having others induce the Israelites to trespass against the Eternal (Numbers 31:16). Finally, we expect a prophet to be more perceptive than an ass, but in this story, Balaam is not.
The message of this portion is anti-prophetic, as it implies that anyone can prophesy, even an enemy of Israel like Balaam, and even his she-ass! So the people of Israel are not to prophesy. The argument is not that divination is false but that it is not permitted: we are meant to trust God and not try to control or foresee the future.
Prophecy has a long religious history, from the attempts in many pagan religions to read the entrails of sacrificed animals to predictions down through the ages that the end of days will come on a certain day. As Jews, we are challenged to find the deeper meaning of our esteemed prophets. They are not important because they foresee that the Temple would be destroyed but because they remind us of our deepest identity and truest calling. Religion is not about prognostication but about transformation. The prophets' gift has been to sustain a vision of when we will finally live our own calling: when the law will be written on our hearts, as Jeremiah eloquently expresses, in the words of God (Jeremiah 31:33–34):"I will put My Teaching into their inmost being and inscribe it upon their hearts. Then I will be their God, and they shall be My people. No longer will they need to teach one another and say to one another, ‘Heed the Eternal'; for all of them, from the least of them to the
greatest, shall heed Me. . ."
We learn the lesson that we should not examine the pedigree of a prophet, be it pagan chief, four-legged animal, or swirling tea leaves. We need only examine our own hearts and see if they are awakened and enlivened in our quest for God.
Dr. Carol Ochs is director of Graduate Studies and adjunct professor of Jewish Religious Thought at Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion in New York.
DAVAR ACHER |
Parashat Balak
Ellen Weinberg Dreyfus
The haftarah for this portion is the first layer of commentary. Micah uses the image of Balak and Balaam to illustrate his point that God will ultimately triumph. He argues that the people of Israel need to turn away from their reliance on military machinery and useless idols. Rather than hearing true prophets, they practice sorcery and heed soothsayers. When Micah reminds them,"My people, remember what Balak king of Moab planned, and how Balaam son of Be'or answered him" (Micah 6:5), the message is clear: God has a special relationship with the Israelites, but they must behave in a manner that is worthy of God's blessing.
Micah, the prophet, uses the anti-prophetic story of Balaam to illustrate the true purpose of prophecy—to encourage the people to reject what is superficial and false. Balaam offers up bulls and rams on successive altars as he attempts to heed the bidding of Balak, who hired him. Micah asks,"Should I come before God with burnt offerings, with yearling calves? Would the Eternal be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousand rivers of oil?" (Micah 6:6–7).
He answers his own question as he urges the people to live up to their ideals with a simple prescription:"It has been told you, O mortal, what is good, and what the Eternal requires of you—Only this: to do justly, and love mercy, and walk humbly with your God" (Micah 6:8).
When our Rabbis chose this haftarah to accompany this portion, they intentionally took us from the ridiculous to the sublime. The images in the parable of a talking donkey, a prophet-for-hire, and a frustrated king create the anti-prophetic message to which Dr. Ochs refers. But the haftarah gives us prophecy from a master, as Micah defines the essence of the religious quest:"to do justly, and love mercy, and walk humbly with your God."
Rabbi Ellen Weinberg Dreyfus is the rabbi of B'nai Yehuda Beth Sholom in Homewood, Illinois. She is vice president of the Central Conference of American Rabbis.
)