9/11 commemoration, High Holiday class, and Shabbat message

Dear congregants and friends,

Please note that Beth El is participating in a special September 11th commemoration at the JCAA this Sunday morning starting at 9:30 am at the Flagpoles at the Dell Campus.  We hope you will join us and the Austin Jewish community.

Friday night, September 9th, we will hold our regular Friday night services at 7pm.  Again, we welcome you all.

Finally, pease join us next Wednesday, September 14 at 7pm for our High Holiday primer class held at Beth El.  Come with all your high holiday questions or just to learn in this informal class led by Cantor Ben-Moshe.

Cantor Ben-Moshe’s message:   This week’s parashah is Ki Tetze, an eclectic collection of laws, ranging from building codes (houses need parapets around the roofs to prevent people from falling) to laws pertaining to the ethical treatment of debtors and of day laborers.  The concluding ‘aliyah, the maftir, is a bit puzzling, though.  This is the maftir of Zachor, remember.  Remember what ‘Amalek did to us.  The puzzling thing is the end of the maftir.  After God has delivered us from all of our enemies, then we are to destroy the memory of ‘Amalek.  Why would we need to destroy the memory of ‘Amalek?  Presumably, the ‘Amalekites are one of the enemies that would have already been destroyed!  The answer, I think, is that the “memory of ‘Amalek” is a spiritual concept.  We need to destroy the spirit of ‘Amalek, the spirit of hatred and violence that exists in all of us.  We cannot be fully redeemed until that evil spirit is gone from us.  So too, we cannot fully enter the spirit of the High Holidays with hatred and violence in our hearts.  May we indeed destroy the “memory of ‘Amalek” in ourselves and our society.

Shabbat Shalom.

Cantor Yitzhak Ben-Moshe