• Remember that the deadline for High Holy Day childcare, Gesher Program, Yizkor (Memorial) Book and Connections Greetings is August 30th.
• Last chance to sign up for the Sisterhood-sponsored Crafts Class,
Wednesday September 10.
Materials need to be ordered, so RSVP to Bernice Gaon (408.269-0131) or the Temple office (408.292-0939 or admin@templesanjose.org) by noon Friday. We need just a few more people to make this work. $10 per person. No glue/non-messy projects!
• Break the Fast sponsorships
For only $72 you can help provide the delicious food for Break-the-Fast after services at the Heritage Theatre. This can also count for your annual Oneg commitment if you wish. Please contact Anita Medeiros (408.773.1410) if you are interested in being part of this.
• New Weight Watchers on Mondays at Temple. Sign-in is at 5:30 PM. Come on down!
UPDATE FOR AUGUST 28, 2008
In this Update:
Upcoming Services
In the Community
- The Eye of Recovery: The 3rd Anniversary of Katrina
sponsored by the JCRC, Sunday August 31, 3:00 PM, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Library, 2nd floor, 150 E. San Fernando St.
- David D’Or concert, Saturday, September 6 at 7 PM, San Jose Center for Performing Arts
- Refuah Shlayma
- Life Cycle
- Torah Portion
UPCOMING SERVICES
Friday, August 29
6:30 PM Kabbalat Shabbat Service: Labor Day Speak Out
Potluck Dinner and Political Discussion following.
Saturday, August 30
9:00 AM Shabbat Morning Minyan led by Bob and Maggie Cant
10:30 AM Noah Rubin will be called to Torah as a Bar Mitzvah
Friday, September 5
6:15 PM Congregational Potluck Dinner (RSVP to the admin office)
7:15 PM Erev Shabbat Family Service
Oneg Shabbat to welcome our new Executive Director, James Perlstein.
Saturday, September 6
9:00 AM Shabbat Morning Minyan
10:30 AM Alicia Blumstein will be called to Torah as a Bat Mitzvah
Friday, September 12
7:30 PM Erev Shabbat Service
Saturday, September 13
9:00 AM Shabbat Morning Minyan
Friday, September 19
6:00 PM Tot Shabbat
7:30 PM Erev Shabbat Service
Saturday, September 20
9:00 AM Shabbat Morning Minyan
10:30 AM Alexandra Schmitt will be called to Torah as a Bat Mitzvah
7:00 – 10:00 PM Selichot: Study Session, Reception, Havdallah and Selichot Service
IN THE COMMUNITY
David D'or Concert
David D’or is a very well known singer in the Israeli and Jewish communities, and this 100% charity event is the wish of David to sing for the peace and love during this age of terrorist and war.
Saturday night, September 6, 2008 @ 7pm
Location: San Jose Center for the Performing Arts, 255 Almaden Blvd., San Jose
Ticket Price: $25, $45, $65, $85, 150. For concert details go to http://www.tcnw.org/daviddor/index.html
Refuah Shlayma
Pearl Solomon
Life Cycle Notifications:
Daniel Hochman, Holocaust survivor and long-time member of Temple Emanu-El until 15 years ago, died August 27, 2008 in Southern California. Survived by his wife Natalia and three children.
Torah Portion of the Week from www.urj.org
R'eih, Deuteronomy 11:26–16:17
Shabbat, August 30, 2008 / 29 Av, 5768
The Torah: A Modern Commentary, pp.1,417–1,450; Revised Edition, pp. 1,255–1,289;
The Torah: A Women's Commentary, pp. 1,115–1,140
Third Haftarah of Consolation, Isaiah 54:11–55:5
The Torah: A Modern Commentary, pp1,604–1,606; Revised Edition, pp.1,290–1,291
D'VAR TORAH |
R'eih: Holy Place, Holy Responsibility, Holy Acts
Lewis M. Barth
Parashat R'eih contains a remarkable richness of diverse biblical materials. It opens with the "blessing and curse" that God sets before the people, based on their choice of following or disobeying the commandments (Deuteronomy 11:26–32). A concern with idolatry permeates the following passages. Chapter 12 states the commandments, the first of which is to obliterate all expressions of idolatry and only to sacrifice and celebrate at "the site that the Eternal your God will choose" (Deuteronomy 12:5). The test for a false prophet and the investigation and punishment of a city suspected of having gone astray after idolatry continue the same theme in chapter 13. Chapter 14 shifts to other subjects: the prohibition against self-mutilation, the biblical basis of the laws of kashrut, tithing so that the Levite, the "stranger, the fatherless, and the widow in your settlement shall come and eat their fill" (Deuteronomy 14:29). Remission of debts in the seventh year, care of the poor,
freeing of Hebrew slaves in the seventh year, and the dedication of the firstborn of cattle and flock to God are the subjects of chapter 15. Finally, chapter 16 provides the command for the Pilgrimage Festivals, Passover, Shavuot, and Sukkot.
So much of this parashah emphasizes the need for difference between the Israelites and their neighbors. Yet two themes stand out that relate specifically to internal matters of the community: (1) the one central place of worship and (2) care for the poor. How the biblical authors bring these themes to our consciousness is a tribute to their rhetorical skill and the diversity of literary methods they employ. Scattered throughout chapters 12, 14, 15, and 16, the Hebrew phrase hamakom asher yivchar Adonai Elohecha, (Deuteronomy 12:18), "the place that the Eternal your God will choose," or variations thereof occur at least fifteen times. Though the author of Deuteronomy doesn't explicitly state the name of "the place," traditional Jewish commentators and modern scholars have identified it as Jerusalem and have noted that the purpose of these references is to centralize the cult in the Temple there. In general, the centralization of the cult has been viewed as a political dimensio
n of the religious program to end local worship and its possible idolatrous implications, or the opposite—the religious face of political decisions. There is another dimension of this effort that is equally important: the need to transfer the identification of "the Eternal" as a desert God associated with Mount Sinai to Jerusalem, Mount Zion, and the Temple.
The repetition of the Hebrew phrase indicating God's choice over and over again raises a simple question: why? Biblical scholars have suggested at least two possibilities: repetition would (1) help obliterate the memory of the Canaanite gods such as El Elyon (a Canaanite deity that gets merged with the Eternal) and Shalem, which are associated with Jerusalem prior to King David's conquest of the city, or (2) provide—through a decision of God—a conceptual alternative for theophany, the notion of a self-revelation of deity associated with a specific place.
A typical example of theophany is the story of the Burning Bush (Exodus 3:1–6); the site, even the ground, becomes holy because God self-revealed there to Moses, as we read in Exodus 3:5, ‘"Remove your sandals from your feet, for the place on which you stand is holy ground!'" Experiences similar to the Burning Bush caused the ancients to revere the place—and theophany was not the original experience of the Israelites in Jerusalem. The biblical authors replaced theophany with rhetorical repetition and added one more dimension—pilgrimage—as a practice to ensure that Jerusalem, Mount Zion, and the Temple would be embedded in the minds of the Israelites as the people's single sacred site.
In contrast to the technique of repetition, the commandment to provide for the poor is made in short paragraphs that end with a statement so true, so real, so powerful, that it immediately embeds itself in our minds: "For there will never cease to be needy ones in your land, which is why I command you: open your hand to the poor and needy kin in your land" (Deuteronomy 15:11).
This verse takes on even greater meaning when it is placed in the context of the passage in which it is found. Traditional commentators long ago pointed out a difficulty in our text in which the previous section begins: "There shall be no needy among you—since the Eternal your God will bless you in the land that the Eternal your God is giving you as a hereditary portion—if only you heed the Eternal your God and take care to keep all this Instruction that I enjoin upon you this day" (Deuteronomy 15:4–5).
Yet a few verses later we find, "If, however, there is a needy person among you, one of your kin in any of your settlements in the land that the Eternal your God is giving you, do not harden your heart and shut your hand against your needy kin" (Deuteronomy 15:7).
We are long past the theological position that "heeding" will automatically bring blessing and recognize that whatever the biblical authors might have meant by the "ifs" of verses 4,5, and 7, they captured the truth as we experience it in verse 11. To repeat, "For there will never cease to be needy ones in your land, which is why I command you: open your hand to the poor and needy kin in your land" (Deuteronomy 15:11).
And we understand that the phrase "in your land" refers not just to the Land and State of Israel, or to wherever Jews live, but to wherever human beings who are poor or needy live.
The authors of our parashah conveyed their messages through repetition and accumulation and single powerful statements. Whatever the literary technique, ultimately we have to decide whether or not to pay attention. Our Torah portion opens and we conclude with these words: "See, this day I set before your blessing and curse" (Deuteronomy 11:26). Shall we too establish a modern, Reform practice of pilgrimage to remind ourselves of our religious connection to the Land of Israel? Shall we continue to be concerned about the poor and the needy among us, even in a very negative economy? The burden of choice is ours.
Rabbi Lewis M. Barth is professor emeritus of midrash and related literature, Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion, Los Angeles, California.
DAVAR ACHER |
Makom Acher
Lisa Tzur
One of our tradition's beloved names for God is HaMakom—"The Place." God is the place where we find solace and comfort. God is the place where we are able to enter into the deepest relationships with our friends and family. This place is where we find a state of absolute peace, consolation, and gratitude for the gifts that we have been given. Yet we are not given automatic admission into this place—as Rabbi Barth articulates, we are told in this parashah that "the Eternal your God will bless you in the land that the Eternal your God is giving you as a hereditary portion—if only you heed the Eternal your God and take care to keep all this Instruction that I enjoin upon you this day" (Deuteronomy 15:4–5). In order to reach this place of perfection, of godliness, we need to keep God's commandments. We need to see our lives as vehicles of truth and compassion, consciously doing righteous acts of tikkun olam wherever we are and whenever we find an opportunity.
But it is more than simply looking for these moments of repair in the world. Just as we are commanded to heal the world, we must not ignore the power of personal healing. The teachings of Judaism give us the ability and the responsibility to literally "choose life"—to look at ourselves as capable of healing in a profound and godly way.
In order to reach "The Place" or to access that divinity in ourselves, we need to make space within our own beings—discarding concepts, notions, or relationships that no longer serve us, making makom (spiritual place) for HaMakom. This work can be painful as we attempt to let go of those narrow places that limit us. To understand this, we need only look to our language and our history. The Hebrew word tzar, spelled tzadi–reish, means "narrow," reminding us of the Israelites' experience in Mitzrayim (Egypt), which stems from the same Hebrew root, mem–reish–tzadi, implying a narrowing of experience. Perhaps, when we get rid of the baggage that narrows our experience, we allow ourselves to ascend into The Place, where our intentions and our actions become interconnected and inseparable, where we truly become at One with the Divine.
Rabbi Lisa Tzur is the rabbi of Temple Gan Elohim in Glendale, Arizona and a registered yoga teacher with Yoga Alliance.
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