SCOUT SHABBAT, WEEKEND SERVICES, PURIM AND MORE:
We’d love you to join us for Friday Night Services February 24, at the special time of 6:30 PM. It’s also Scout shabbat so please come one and all as we honor our Austin and Beth El scouts. Jay Rubin, former CEO of Shalom Austin and avid historian will deliver a lovely Dvar Torah. A delicious pasta dinner will be served immediately after services.

Shabbat morning services are this Saturday February 25 at 9 AM, with the Torah service at around 9:45 and children’s story time and services with Morah Shereen Canady at 10:30. We gratefully acknowledge Hal and Elaine Jacobs for generously sponsoring a special kosher meat kidish in honor of Elaine’s birthday. Mazal tov dear Elaine and Ad 120! Thank you to you and Hal for all you do for our shul and community!

Sunday school THIS SUNDAY morning February 26. We’re gearing up for a fun-filled Purim class!

Candle lighting in Austin is at 6:09 PM

***Cantor Ben-Moshe’s Message

This week we read Parshat Mishpatim, and the special reading for Shabbat Sh’kalim. Mishpatim begins with the words “Ve’eleh hamishpatim”-“And these are the laws”. Our parshah is a direct continuation of Revelation at Mt. Sinai. The seemingly mundane laws, civil and criminal, contained in our parshah are no less important than any other mitzvoth. The Torah concerns itself with building a righteous society, so all of our actions, no matter how “secular”, are spiritually important. Let us commit ourselves to conducting all of our affairs in a way that befits our status as a “kingdom of priests and a holy people”. Shabbat Shalom.

Hazzan Yitzhak Ben-Moshe

***Sunday school this Sunday at 10 Am – Lots of Purim fun and even Hamentaschen baking with Rachel Union.

SISTERHOOD PERSONAL ORGANIZATION CLASS ON MARCH 4 at 12:30 PM :

We are so excited that Jennifer Lava, Professional Organizer Extraordinaire (and productivity consultant), is going to hold a fun class just for us at Beth El. Jennifer is a past president of the National Organization of Professional Organizers, has had her articles in many magazines like Consumer Reports and Family Circle and has such a creative and innovative style. Please check out her website : www.jenniferlava.com
The class is Sunday March 5 at 12:30 – right after Sunday school at Beth El.
PLEASE INVITE YOUR FRIENDS. Bring a kosher dairy or parev snack to share and come get organized! And if you are super organized already, well just come and hang out with us! Please send your RSVP to info@bethelaustin.org

Beth El Purim Party: Saturday March 11 at 7PM

HOLD THE DATE for an exciting Purim party, an energetic Megillah reading with our very own Hazzan, music with Los Klezmeros and face painting with professional face painter Lilia! So much fun for he whole family – young and old. Please don’t miss!

JFS Passover Food Drive

We are seeking the following items to be donated to families for Passover:
Matzoh, Gefilte Fish (jars), Matzoh Ball & Soup Mix, Horseradish (jars), Macaroons, Candy Fruit Slices, Cake Mixes
Ritual Items such as:
Haggadahs, Matzoh Covers, Kiddush Cups, Candlesticks, Shabbat Candles

Donations can be dropped off in our donation boxes
at the ECP and JCC Welcome Desk or the
JFS Office 11940 Jollyville Rd. Suite 110 S Austin, TX 78759

From the Jewish War Veterans:

Please join us as my Honored Guests, to our next JWV Lunch and Meeting: Sunday, March 19th at 10 am – Austin JCC, Room 150-D
Your service to our country is very much appreciated and will be recognized at the meeting. No obligation to join the JWV. Wives and Children are welcome. Rabbi Dan Millner will be speaking and he is in our reserve armed forces as a chaplain. He is a very dynamic speaker – You will not want to miss this.

Free Film Screening & Program: ‘Denial’

Monday, March 6, 6:30 PM
Co-sponsored by Shalom Austin, the Austin Jewish Film Festival, The Harry Ransom Center and Schusterman Center for Jewish Studies, the 2016 movie, Denial, will be screened and followed by a discussion with Professor Robert H. Abzug, Director of the Schusterman Center for Jewish Studies. This event is free and will take place at the JCC Community Hall. All are welcome.

Rabbi Peter Tarlow from the Center for
Latino-Jewish Relations.

This week’s parashah is called “Mishpatim.” You will find it in the Book of Exodus 21:1-24:18. To a great extent, this week’s section is the mirror image of last week’s parashah. Last week we studied Yitro, a parashah filled with broad general concepts/theories of law. Although general concepts are essential, they must be fleshed out with detail. To think without detail is to never realize a goal, to think only in detail is to lack a goal.

This week’s section takes us from the macro level to the micro level, from the general to the specific. Mishpatim is not like other ancient Middle Eastern systems of law. For example, the parashah begins with the question of “avdut” meaning: “slavery” or “indenture servitude.” Not only does this week’s code begin with the rights of a slave, but quickly progresses to one of the stranger sections of the code. In chapter 21, verses 5-6, the reader learns that if the slave is set free but chooses not to accept his freedom, then his master is to “bring him to a door and pierce his ear with an awl..” How come? Such a position seems to be counter intuitive and even if the slave did not want to leave his wife and/or children, once free there was nothing from preventing him from earning enough money to buy his loved ones out of slavery and give them their freedom.

Perhaps the answer is found in the fact that we tend to read the word “avdut” too narrowly. In its broadest meaning, avdut may not only refer to bodily servitude but also to a state of mental stagnation. Is the text pointing out that far too many people fear accepting the price of freedom, personal responsibility? How many people seek eternal childhood; how many of us choose the “imprisonment of certainty” over the “exhilaration of exploration?” How many of us are “stuck” (slaves to) in a job because we prefer to be in “comfortable pain” rather than the uncertainty of freedom?

We can link the word “avdut” to another Hebrew word ‘hitmakkrut” (addiction) which is derived from the verb “lhitmakker” meaning “to sell oneself.” The slave sold himself to the comfort of certainty and the addict has sold himself to the comfort of his or her addiction. In other words, an addiction is the act of selling oneself into the “slavery of desire and paid for by the loss of self-control.”
Unfortunately, too many of us seek the certain and the comfortable, rather than the challenge of personal growth. How many prefer the comfort of slavery instead of trials and tribulations of freedom? How many prefer someone to tell them what to do, then to make a choice and then accept the consequences of their actions?
To be free is to judge oneself, to face the challenges of life, to explore the depths of our souls and to have faith in the future. In that sense, the pursuit of ignorance is the desire to stay a slave. How many desire to construct the walls of our mental imprisonment and avoid being free? Do you？

Please join us for Friday Night Shabbat Services TONIGHT February 10, at the regular time of 7:00 PM. Songs, friends and joyful prayer will greet you.

Shabbat morning services are THIS Saturday February 11. We will have a children’s Tu BE Shevat story time and snack at 10:30 as well as a delicious kosher lunch following services. Please join us for this special Shabbat Shira! Thank you Toda Raba to Barry and Audrey Mann who are kindly sponsoring the lunch in gratitude for their recent amazing visit to Israel. We can’t wait to hear all about it.

Sunday school THIS SUNDAY morning February 12 at 10 AM.

Only a couple of weeks away – Friday February 24, we will proudly host Scout Shabbat for the Austin Jewish Community. Join us as we honor Beth El and Jewish community scouts at Scout Shabbat. Services will be at 6:30 PM followed by a fun pasta dinner. Jay and Carol Rubin will be our special guests.

Candle lighting in Austin is at 5:52 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 Shabbat is Shabbat Shirah, the name we give to the Shabbat on which we read Parshat B’shallah, the parshah that includes Shirat Hayam, the Song of the Sea. The Torah teaches that Moshe and Miriam led the Israelites in song as they celebrated the defeat of the Egyptian army by floodwaters at the Sea of Reeds (The Great Bitter Lake, on the edge of the Sinai Peninsula). Interestingly, the Torah introduces the Song with the words “Az yashir Moshe uv’nei Yisrael”-“Then Moshe and the Children of Israel *will sing*”. The Song at the Sea was merely the first of many songs that our People have sung, and will continue to sing into the future. May our voices always be lifted in song to the God who delivered our refugee ancestors, and who continues to support us and all other refugees today. Shabbat Shalom.
Hazzan Yitzhak Ben-Moshe

HOLD THE DATES: Special events at Beth El.

On Friday February 24 February, Jay Rubin, former CEO of Shalom Austin and avid historian and his wonderful wife Ms. Carol will come to Beth El! Jay will give our Dvar Torah and celebrate Scout Shabbat with us.

In March we will welcome Rabbi-Cantor Marie Betcher, who among other things is a Police Chaplain, ordained Rabbi and Cantor, as well as a former Opera Singer.

Also coming up in the Spring, Ami Pedhazur, UT Professor in Israel and Diaspora Studies will give a guest talk at Beth El on the 50th Anniversary of the Six Day War. Date to be confirmed.

Join us for Scout Shabbat, Friday February 24 at 6:30 PM. Show your support for Jewish scouts in Austin, including several girls in our own shul! Jay and Carol Rubin will also be our special guests as we celebrate shabbat with our wonderful Scouts.

SISTERHOOD PERSONAL ORGANIZATION CLASS COMING ON MARCH 4 at 12:30 PM – Please join us as Jennifer Lava,
Professional Organizer & Productivity Consultant and volunteer with the Austin Jewish Business Network comes and helps us GET ORGANIZED.

Happy February birthdays to Shiry Turjeman, Rachael and Arie Stavchansky, Barry Mann, Gregg Philipson, Sara Koeller, Marina Garfield, Carol Rubin, Mirit Solomon-Shimony, Tamar Zohar and Elaine Jacobs. Please shoot us an email if we don’t have your birthday and it’s this month!

Check out the Friday night tunes on our website:
http://bethelaustin.wpengine.com/education-2/kabbalat-shabbat-songs/

http://bethelaustin.wpengine.com

And please donate generously to your shul! A Jewel in the Austin Jewish Community.
www.bethelaustin.org/donate

Community News:

FAMILY FUN DAY AT THE ECP:
Spend an exiciting morning with our community to enjoy many interactive games, rides and activities. Money will be raised through wristband sales and sponsorships. . #ECPFun17

Austin Jewish Business Network:

On Tues, February 21st, 2017 “Starting a Nonprofit Business in Austin”, Joshua Levy.

To RSVP and for complete details of all AJBN Meetings and Events go to: http://www.meetup.com/Austin-Jewish-Business-Network/

Rabbi Peter Tarlow’s weekly Parashah – from the Center for Jewish Hispanic relations:
The parashah for this week is: “B’Shlach”. You will find it in The Book of Exodus 13:17-17:16. This parashah covers a great many historical events. It take the reader, from our leaving Egypt and Pharaoh’s regrets through the Red Sea’s parting, the giving of manna, the people’s first “revolt” against Moses’ leadership and ends with the beginning of the eternal wars with/against Amalek.
The section is ripe with ethical questions many of whose answers still allude us. For example, the sensitive reader is bound to ask such questions as: Was the parting of the sea a necessity or an unfortunate ambush? Were the people ungrateful and is ingratitude a normal part of political life? Should we expect people to thank us for what we do, or do we do for others simply because such actions are the right thing to do?
Despite the moral uncertainties within this week’s parashah, there seem to be a several unifying sub-themes. One of these sub-themes may be that timing has a major role in how we live our lives. Just as Ecclesiastes would note many centuries later, when we chose to do something may be as important as what we do. Thus, in this week’s section we note that there is a time for crying out and a time for action; that G’d can make suggestions to us, but in the end only we can do for ourselves.
We note this emphasis on timing in Chapter 14 of Exodus where G’d in frustration says to Moses at the shores of the Red Sea: “Ma tizak Elay; daber el bnei-Yisrael vYisa-u!/Why are you still crying out to me?
Almost like a frustrated parent whose children are adapt at procrastination G’d chastises Moses stating: Address the nation (people of Israel) and get going (across the sea)!” (14:15). The text all too plainly is telling us that at some point the talking has to cease and the action has to begin, that we can mull over an issue for ever, and in the end, what counts is not what we say but rather what we do. This principle is true both in our personal lives and in our national political life. How often are we experts in making excuses for simply not beginning? How many of us, and our politicians, seem to know how rationalize a lack of action?
How many of us need G’d to remind us, to stop talking and do more? How often are we so caught up in our non-stop analyzing of situations that we end up doing nothing? In this week’s parashah G’d teaches us that at some point all of us have to put our foot into the sea, and begin to cross it.
B’Shalach reminds us that the person of faith is a person of action, while the person without faith often fails to translate his/her thoughts into actions. This week’s parashah then may be as much a challenge as a history, reminding us that all of the knowledge in the world is worthless if it does not lead to actions. What do you think?