Come to services TONIGHT Friday March 31, at the regular time of 7:00 PM . We are thrilled to have Rabbi-Cantor Marie Betcher come and deliver an inspiring D’var Torah!

Sunday Funday this Sunday April 2 at 10 AM. Lots of learning and research in collaborative groups this week. Their work will be on display during Passover.

Sunday April 8 we will do a major Passover cleaning at Beth El. Please help if you are able.

And Passover is around the corner. We are hosting a second night seder at Beth El Tuesday April 11 at 6:30 PM. With a delicious kosher for Passover meal and Hazzan Ben-Moshe leading, you surely can’t miss this event. Please send us your RSVP as soon as you can as we get full and we’ll save a spot for you. Please also consider a donation to help us sponsor the event. We are also accepting kosher for Passover wine, grape juice, matzah and gelfite fish. The event is open to you and your friends in the Jewish community.

Coming soon… we are doing a class on leading Musaf. The class will start in May so watch this space.

Candle lighting in Austin is at 7:31 PM

Friday January 6, Rabbi Daniel Septimus CEO of the Austin JCC will likewise be our guest speaker at Beth El.

Cantor Ben Moshe’s Message
This week we begin to read the Book of Leviticus, Sefer Vayikra, with the parshah of the same name. Vayikra is sometimes called “Torat Hakohanim”, the Torah of the Priests, as it deals mainly with sacrifices and the laws of purity. Interestingly, this was the first part of the Torah taught to young children in Eastern Europe. While we would tend to start children with the stories in Genesis and Exodus, the thinking of our ancestors was “let those who are pure (children) deal with matters of purity (the Temple Service). Of course, one could only offer sacrifices in a state of purity. While we no longer sacrifice animals as part of our worship of God, let us always strive to approach worship with the purity and innocence of children, in that state that R. Abraham Joshua Heschel called “radical amazement “. In so doing, we will keep ourselves and our service to the Eternal One fresh and young. Shabbat Shalom.
Hazzan Yitzhak Ben-Moshe

HOLD THE DATES: Guest speakers at Beth El.

TONIGHT, Friday March 31, we welcome Rabbi/Cantor Marie Betcher who will talk about the great work she does as a Police Chaplain. This event was rescheduled from last month.

HAPPY MARCH MADNESS BIRTHDAYS:
Jared B, Richard E, Allene N, Morah Lital, Mike and Morris S, Eden B, Barbara S, Sasi A and Liam J. We love you guys! Mazal tov and until 120!

Passover Learning and Preparation at Beth El’s Religious School this Sunday April 2.

This coming Sunday we will continue what we started last Sunday with our BERS kids. We will take a deeper look into Pesach and its traditions. The children will be divided into mixed-aged groups and each team will research an aspect of Passover, create a project, and then present it. These projects will be on display for our Annual Congregational Seder.
We hope all our BERS families will join other BE families and friends for an interactive, meaningful, and fun seder led by Cantor Ben-Moshe on the evening of April 11.

Sisterhood Passover and Shabbat shefs!

** We’ll meet next Tuesday and Thursday at 11 AM at Beth El. Please come if you can help with preparing for Passover. A mitzvah worth doing. We have a lot to get ready. Mega thank yous already to Michelle, Claudia, Yesenia and Joakin, Doris and Herschel, Elaine, Iris, Lori and Dave……… your name here!

Come to services TONIGHT Friday March 24 , at the regular time of 7:00 PM and end the week on a great note!

Shabbat morning services are THIS Saturday March 25 at 9 AM. We will have the Torah service at around 9:45 and a lovely children’s service at 10:30 with our wonderful Morah Shereen Ben-Moshe. There will be a delicious meat kidish and cholent immediately following services. HUGE Toda Raba to Bev Golden for sponsring the kidish in honor of her son Jacob’s completion of Air Force Training. Mazal Tov to Jacob!

Sunday Funday this Sunday March 26 at 10 AM. If parents or congregants would like to come and help with Passover cleaning, please plan to stay.

Sunday April 8 we will do a major Passover cleaning at Beth El. All hands on deck as we make the shul sparkle.

And Passover is around the corner. We are yet again hosting a second night seder at Beth El Tuesday April 11. With a delicious kosher for Passover meal and Hazzan Ben-Moshe leading, you surely can’t miss this event. Please send us your RSVP as soon as you can as we get full and we’ll save a spot for you. Please also consider a donation to help us sponsor the event. We are also accepting kosher for Passover wine, grape juice, matzah and gelfite fish.

Candle lighting in Austin is at 7:27 PM

Friday January 6, Rabbi Daniel Septimus CEO of the Austin JCC will likewise be our guest speaker at Beth El.

Cantor Ben Moshe’s Message
This week we read the combined parshot of Vayak’hel-P’kudei, as well as the special reading for Shabbat Hahodesh, the Shabbat closest to the New Month of Nissan. Vayak’hel and P’kudei close out the Book of Exodus by detailing the construction and assembly of the Mishkan, the Holy Tabernacle. The Torah repeats itself in describing all of the components of the Mishkan and how they were put together-perhaps as a way of imprinting the image of this remarkable structure upon us, who now live three millennia after it was replaced by Solomon’s Temple, itself now a memory.
Jewish Tradition and practice have moved on since the time of the Mishkan. We have evolved past the slaughter and burning of animals as a means of drawing close to God (the word for sacrifice, קרבן, is from the Hebrew root meaning “close). Nonetheless, we retain the memory of these things-we do not forgot from where we came, and we honor our ancestors even as we do things differently than they did. Ultimately, the goal is the same-whether through sacrifices in the Mishkan and the Temple, or through prayers in the synagogue, we seek as a community to draw close to the Divine which is the source of our being. May we always seek for God, wherever our paths take us. Shabbat Shalom.
Hazzan Yitzhak Ben-Moshe

HOLD THE DATES: Guest speakers at Beth El.

NEXT FRIDAY, Friday March 31, we welcome Rabbi/Cantor Marie Betcher who will talk about the great work she does as a Police Chaplain. This event was rescheduled from last month.

Ami Pedhazur, professor at UT Austin, will also be giving a special talk about the six day war in the Spring.

HAPPY MARCH MADNESS BIRTHDAYS:

Jared B, Richard E, Allene N, Morah Lital, Mike and Morris S, Eden B, Barbara S. We love you guys! Mazal tov and until 120!

Sunday school this Sunday March 26. We have missed all our BERS and look forward to resuming Sunday Funday with our super teachers and Cantor.

Sisterhood Passover and Shabbat shefs!

** We’ll meet next Thursday at 11 AM at Beth El. Please come if you can help with preparing for Passover. A mitzvah worth doing. We have a lot to get ready.

RABBI PETER TARLOW OF THE CENTER FOR LATINO JEWISH RELATIONS: WEEKLY PARASHA
This week we read the Book of Exodus’ final portions, a double Torah portion: Parashat Vayakel (Exodus 35:1-38:20) and Parashat Pkudey (Exodus
38:21-40:38). Traditionally, readers have viewed these final chapters of Exodus as some of the most difficult parts of the book. Yet beneath the text’s surface, the careful reader can grapple with some of political science’s most important principles. If we move beyond the details and concentrate on the principles, then we soon see that these issues are very much with us today.
A summary of these final sections presents to us two overarching philosophical issues.
The first issue is: how does leadership translate ideas and concepts into the pubic domain? In other words, there is a difference between talking and doing, between being destructive and constructive. In the case of Exodus we note that until now the dialogue concerning the building or the Mishcan (Tabernacle) has been between G’d and Moses. Now it becomes Moses’ task to “translate” this vision to the nation, to go from the talking to the doing.
The second political issue that these sections raise is: how does leadership chose between two conflicting “goods”? The choice between “good” and “evil” is not difficult, but when the choice is between “good” and “good,” then the problem becomes much more profound. The text notes that in the case of having to choose between “good” and “good” at least one “good” is sacrificed for the other “good”. How do we protect the individual when these needs place a society in danger? The Bible illustrates this dilemma in the debate over should there be Tabernacle construction on Saturday. The text calls both goals “kadosh/holy”, both are Divinely mandated, and both serve a greater good. The question then is should the nation delay the Tabernacle’s construction to honor the Sabbath? It is not hard to make a case for both sides of the argument. How does the text solve the problem?
Perhaps one clue is in the order that these two concepts have been given in the Torah. Note that over the past few weeks we have seen the following literary plan: Tabernacle Construction then the Keeping of the Sabbath (Shmirat-Shabbat) then the Golden Calf Crisis followed by additional laws regarding the Keeping of the Sabbath and finally once again laws concerning the Tabernacle’s Construction.
Reviewing the order we note that the building of the Tabernacle is always furthest from the Golden Calf. Is this order a message teaching us the principle that “materialism not controlled by spirituality becomes idolatry”? The text makes it clear that the work (melachah) on the tabernacle is to be stopped in honor of the Sabbath. Is the Torah teaching us that we humans are often so interested in the material that we forget the spiritual side of life?
How often do most of us sacrifice the spiritual for material wealth? In a sense this section forces us to ask questions such as, how do we resolve two conflicting political goods? When do we sacrifice one good to uphold another?
These are hard questions that touch the very root of our civil society. In a strange way, these two difficult portions, which seem at first to be bogged down in detail, summarize the ethical lessons of one of the world’s greatest pieces of literature: “Sefer Shmot/The Book of Exodus”. What conflicting “goods” are there in your life and how do you resolve the conflict?