Updates on the Annual meeting – parashat BaMidbar

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tewlvetribesFriday Night Live at 7 PM TONIGHT Friday May 26, please join us for genuine prayer, beautiful songs and an uplifting service.

Shabbat morning services TOMORROW, May 27. We will have our shabbat services from 9 AM, with the lovely Torah service at around 9:45 AM and a children’s service with Morah Shereen at 10:30. Delicious kidish lunch served immediately after, this week including healthy salads, bagels and lox and cheesecake in honor of Shavuot. HUGE thank you to the Jacobs family for sponsoring the kidish.

We want to wholeheartedly congratulate Yosef on being the new president of Beth El (see below for what was truly a heartening and inspiring annual meeting).

Have a very meaningful Memorial day. We salute the men and women who served to protect our country and note with awe that we are the “land of the free because of the brave”.

Candle lighting in Austin is at 8:07 PM

Cantor Ben Moshe’s Message

This week we begin the reading of Sefer B’midbar with the parshah of the same name. The parshah is concerned with numbers-which gives the Book its English name. Specifically, the Torah gives us the numbers of the men in the camp eligible for military service, and of Levites eligible for work in the Mishkan. Counting and numbering are of course very prominent in Jewish Tradition-we count the hours in the day to determine when to perform certain actions, we count the days of the week, years in the Sabbatical cycle, and we are coming to the end of the counting of he ‘Omer. However, we should recognize that our ability to quantify things is limited. The Torah and the Prophets often rhetorically ask if we are capable of counting the sand on the shore or the stars in the sky-obviously to indicate that we cannot. We are limited, finite beings, and only God has the ability to know and number all things. Our task is to do what is within our abilities with an attitude of humility (and a sense of humor). Shabbat Shalom and Hag Shavu’ot Sameah.

Hazzan Yitzhak Ben-Moshe

What an absolutely inspiring annual meeting last week! Thank you to all who came and made it so special. The love and dedication of members old and new was just beautiful. The meeting as always was filled with laughter, a few jokes and of course a couple of reports on the state of the shul, which thank goodness is good! Much was accomplished this year, but much more remains to be done in coming years.

Kevin stepped down as president after many years of tireless devotion. He noted that Beth El has truly made him a better person and has been nothing but a blessing for him and his family. He has seen the kindest and most generous people imaginable; has seen people through joys and through sadness and above all has been part of a truly beautiful congregation. Kevin will continue to be just as active in his new role as treasurer, but Yosef will now take the mantle of president. Yosef and Claudia are raising their three lovely children at Beth El and have been on the board for several years. They are tireless in their devotion and enthusiasm and always have a smile on their faces. We wish Yosef much nachas in his new role. The congregation is truly appreciative of the board. PLEASE watch this space next week for Yosef’s message and a list of the board.

We had a very special end of year celebration for the Beth El Religious School BERS! The children learnt an Israeli Shavuot song “Saleynu” and danced it joyfully. They also each received class photos and a beach ball and had all their friends sign it. Ms. Carol Rubin ended our class with a sing a long outdoors which was just amazing. Thank you again to our dedicated teachers, sweet children and wonderful parents. Sunday school resumes Sunday August 27. Have a great summer BERS. Tell all your friends about this one of a kind school – we are growing and are even adding a Hebrew immersion class for native Hebrew speakers.

Behar – Behokotai and annual meeting

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Friday Night Live at 7 PM this Friday May 19. Songs, prayers, friends old and new. We can’t wait to see you.

Las Sunday Funday of the semester this Sunday May 21. Ms. Carol Rubin is our special guest . Lots of fun planned – lots of learning accomplished!

THIS SUNDAY: Our annual “state of the shul” meeting will be held on Sunday, May 21, at 4:00 PM followed by a Kosher cookout. We plan to discuss shul business and elect officers for the upcoming year. Lots of great things happening at Beth El. Thank you to Barry and Audrey Mann for sponsoring the cookout.

Shabbat morning services as per our schedule of second and fourth shabbats are on the following dates – May 27, June 10, June 24, July 8 and 22, August 12 and August 26.

Candle lighting in Austin is at 8:03 PM

Cantor Ben Moshe’s Message
This week we conclude the reading of Sefer Vayikra, the Book of Leviticus, with the combined parshot of B’har/B’hukkotai. B’har begins with the description of the Sabbatical Year, which occurs every seven years, followed by the Yovel, the Jubilee year after seven times seven years. We are now getting to the end of the counting of the ‘Omer, when we count the forty-nine days between Passover and Shavu’ot. Shavu’ot is a kind of reset-when we changed from a rabble of escaped slaves into a nation with a code of Law. At Sinai, we all stood equally to receive Torah. Similarly, the Yovel is a reset to that equality-when accumulated property is redistributed to its original owners, and all once again have equal opportunity. The Torah teaches that we should all stand equally before God, and that we should do what is in our power to ensure that equality. Let us always be mindful of that goal. Shabbat Shalom.
Hazzan Yitzhak Ben-Moshe

 

MELTON GRADUATION CEREMONY 2017
Celebrate Adult Jewish
Learning and congratulate
the Melton graduating
class of 2017!
Toast and reception to follow
Tuesday, May 23, 2017
7:00 PM
JCC Community Hall
7300 Hart Lane
Please RSVP to:
Lisa Quay
lisa.quay@shalomaustin.org
512-735-8086

SAVE THE DATE FOR SPLASH BASH AT THE J!
Sunday June 4 from 11 to 3. Everyone is welcome at the J.

“If Your Brother Becomes Impoverished”
by Rabbi Ephraim Z. Buchwald

In parashat Behar, the first of this week’s two parashiot, Behar-Bechukotai, we encounter the mitzvah requiring Jews to redeem the land of fellow Jews who become impoverished.

The Torah, in Leviticus 25:25 states, כִּי יָמוּךְ אָחִיךָ וּמָכַר מֵאֲחֻזָּתוֹ, וּבָא גֹאֲלוֹ הַקָּרֹב אֵלָיו וְגָאַל אֵת מִמְכַּר אָחִיו , If your brother becomes impoverished and sells part of his ancestral heritage, his redeemer who is closest to him, shall come and redeem that which his brother sold.
Rashi citing the Sifra indicates that one may not sell his ancestral land (patrimony) unless he becomes totally impoverished, and even then should not sell all of it.

According to the Talmud in Kedushin 21a, a dispute is recorded whether the Torah requires the relative to redeem the land or urges the relative to redeem the land. All agree, the closer the relative, the greater the responsibility. However, since all Jews are related, going all the way back to Jacob, the responsibility to redeem the land ultimately, applies to all Jews. (See Behar-Bechukotai 5769-2009).
Rabbi Chaim Dov Rabinowitz in Da’at Sofrim, notes that the sages attribute the poverty requiring the sale of the land, to the sin of not keeping the sabbatical year, Shemita–failing to allow the land to lay fallow during the seventh year. For this sin, the landowner may have to sell his property, including his land and his house. He may even have to sell himself–to serve as a Hebrew slave, or even as a slave to a gentile.

Says Rabbi Rabinowitz, even though the suffering is a result of Divine decree, the Torah insists that every Jew must be merciful, and stand at the side of those who are poverty stricken and redeem their land.
Rabbi Yaakov Filber in his volume Chemdat Yamim, cites the interpretation of the Or HaChaim on this verse who interprets it homiletically. If a “man” has no redeemer, is a reference to G-d. If no Jew sufficiently motivates the people to repent and G-d is left with no redeemer, then G-d must find His own way, and lift His hands. The Jews will receive punishment while in exile, until such time as they recognize the need to repent and serve G-d. Only then will they be returned to their ancestral patrimony.

Rabbi Filber quotes the work of Rabbi Issachar Shlomo Teichtal, “Aym Ha’Bah’nim S’may’chah,” אֵם הַבָּנִים שְׂמֵחָה , which was written as a response to the Satmar Rebbe’s strong objections to the establishment of the State of Israel. Rabbi Teichtal writes that the punishment that the Jewish people experience, is G-d’s way of arousing people to return to the Holy Land. He quotes Rabbi Simcha Bunim of Peshischa, who cites the verse in Song of Songs 1:4, מָשְׁכֵנִי אַחֲרֶיךָ נָּרוּצָה , “drag me after you and we will run together.” Explaining that there are two ways of taking ownership of an animal: the first is to call the animal to follow; the second is to beat it with a stick, as it runs in front of the master.

Rabbi Teichtal declares that if the People of Israel heed the voice of G-d calling them to return to the Land of Israel, G-d will lead the people to the land and they will follow without pain or suffering. However, if the people fail to listen to G-d’s beckoning, then they will suffer greatly from the beatings of the enemies, until there will be no escape except to the Land of Israel.

As we approach the celebration of the 50th year of the unification of the Holy City of Jerusalem, the message of return should be ringing in our ears. Although it is difficult for many of us to leave the comforts of the diaspora and relocate to Israel, there are important steps that can be taken to show our unrequited love for the land. Among the important gestures are supporting charities and institutions in Israel, vacationing in Israel more frequently, encouraging our children to study and to even live in Israel, buying a second home and investing in business in Israel.

These steps, although limited, will serve as a strong indication of our sincerity and our willingness to place the land of Israel and the City of Jerusalem at the forefront of our joy, “Ahl rosh simcha’tay’noo,” עַל רֹאשׁ שִׂמְחָתֵנוּ.
May you be blessedSplash-Bash-2017-600px.jpghar sinai

Uplifting services – Parashat Emor

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Professor Pedhazur and TzahiFriday Night Live at 7 PM
this Friday May 12. Songs, prayers, friends old and new. We can’t wait to see you.

Shabbat morning services this Saturday May 13 at 9 AM,
with the Torah service at 9:45 and children’s story time/services at 10:30 with our special Morah Shereen. Lunch immediately following services.

No Sunday Funday this Sunday May 14. Happy Mother’s Day!!!

SAVE THE DATE: Our annual “state of the shul” meeting will be held on Sunday, May 21, at 4:00 PM followed by a Kosher cookout. We plan to discuss shul business and elect officers for the upcoming year. To nominate a current member including yourself as an officer, please send an email to Bob Miller, chair of the nominating committee at bob.miller@milleruniforms.com. Lots of great things happening at your neighborhood shul. Thank you to Barry and Audrey Mann for sponsoring the cookout.

Cantor Ben Moshe’s Message

We read in the this week’s parshah, Emor, about a commandment which we have been observing for the past month-the mitzvah of counting the ‘Omer. Our parshah tells us to bring an ‘omer, a sheaf of barley, to the Sanctuary every day for seven weeks, beginning from “the day after the sabbath”. The Sages interpreted this to mean the day after the first day of Passover, and the forty-nine days were to correspond to the forty-nine days between the Exodus and Revelation at Sinai. Thus the Festival of Shavu’ot, Weeks, originally the festival of the wheat harvest,became the Festival of the Giving of the Torah. Our Tradition has always linked the cycles of nature with the cycles and events of Jewish history. The physical and the spiritual are one to our way of thought-not either/or, but both/and. Perhaps this is one of the secrets of our survival over the millennia, through many hardships. Shabbat Shalom.

We wish all our amazing teachers a Happy Mother’s day. Shereen Ben-Moshe, Iris Daniel, Anat Inbar and Maya Amos. And of course, to Cantor Ben-Moshe a Happy Father’s day in June. The children and all of us greatly appreciate your devotion and talent every Sunday morning.

Pictured are Chazzan Ben-Moshe and Professor Ami Pedahzur. Thank you to Ami and Galit Pedahzur from the Schusterman Center for Jewish studies.

We are truly grateful to Ami and Galit for coming last week, and to Professor Pedahzur for giving such an interesting talk about the Six Day War. We were absolutely enthralled.

We also want to thank our shabbat shefs, spearheaded by Yafit Aviv for the authentic falafel dinner served after shabbat services. What a treat.

MELTON GRADUATION CEREMONY 2017
Celebrate Adult Jewish
Learning and congratulate
the Melton graduating
class of 2017!
Toast and reception to follow
Tuesday, May 23, 2017
7:00 PM
JCC Community Hall
7300 Hart Lane
Please RSVP to:
Lisa Quay
lisa.quay@shalomaustin.org
512-735-8086

SAVE THE DATE FOR SPLASH BASH AT THE J!

Sunday June 4 from 11 to 3. Everyone is welcome at the J.

Parashat Hashavua from Rabbi Jonathan Sacks:
The Duality of Jewish Time.

Alongside the holiness of place and person is the holiness of time, something parshat Emor charts in its deceptively simple list of festivals and holy days (Lev. 23:1-44).
Time plays an enormous part in Judaism. The first thing God declared holy was a day: Shabbat, at the conclusion of creation.
The first mitzvah given to the Jewish people as a whole, prior to the Exodus, was the command to sanctify time, by determining and applying the Jewish calendar (Ex. 12:1-2).
The prophets were the first people in history to see God in history, seeing time itself as the arena of the Divine-human encounter. Virtually every other religion and civilisation before and since has identified God, reality and truth with timelessness.
Isaiah Berlin used to quote Alexander Herzen who said about the Slavs that they had no history, only geography. The Jews, he said, had the reverse: a great deal of history but all too little geography. Much time, but little space.
So time in Judaism is an essential medium of the spiritual life. But there is one feature of the Jewish approach to time that has received less attention than it should: the duality that runs through its entire temporal structure.
Take, for instance, the calendar as a whole. Christianity uses a solar calendar, Islam a lunar one. Judaism uses both. We count time both by the monthly cycle of the moon and the seasonal cycle of the sun.
Then consider the day. Days normally have one identifiable beginning, whether this is at nightfall or daybreak or – as in the West – somewhere between. For calendar purposes, the Jewish day begins at nightfall (“And it was evening and it was morning, one day”). But if we look at the structure of the prayers – the morning prayer instituted by Abraham, afternoon by Isaac, evening by Jacob – there is a sense in which the worship of the day starts in the morning, not the night before.
Years, too, usually have one fixed beginning – the “new year”. In Judaism, according to the Mishnah (Rosh Hashanah 1:1), there are no less than four new years. The first of Elul is the new year for the tithing of animals. The fifteenth of Shevat (the first according to Bet Shammai) is the new year for trees. These are specific and subsidiary dates, but the other two are more fundamental.
According to the Torah, the first month of the year is Nissan. This was the day the earth became dry after the Flood (Gen. 8:13)[1]. It was the day the Israelites received their first command as a people (Ex. 12: 2). One year later it was the day the Tabernacle was dedicated and the service of the priests inaugurated (Ex. 40: 2). But the festival we call the New Year, Rosh Hashanah, falls six months later.
Holy time itself comes in two forms, as Emor makes clear. There is Shabbat and there are the festivals, and the two are announced separately. Shabbat was sanctified by God at the beginning of time for all time. The festivals are sanctified by the Jewish people to whom was given the authority and responsibility for fixing the calendar.
Hence the difference in the blessings we say. On Shabbat we praise God who “sanctifies Shabbat”. On the festivals we praise God who sanctifies “Israel and the holy times” – meaning, it is God who sanctifies Israel but Israel who sanctify the holy times, determining on which days the festivals fall.
Even within the festivals there is a dual cycle. One is formed by the three pilgrimage festivals: Pesach, Shavuot and Sukkot. These are days that represent the key historic moments at the dawn of Jewish time – the Exodus, the giving of the Torah, and the forty years of desert wandering. They are festivals of history.
The other is formed by the number seven and the concept of holiness: the seventh day, Shabbat; the seventh month, Tishri, with its three festivals of Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and Sukkot; the seventh year, Shemitah; and the Jubilee marking the completion of seven seven-year cycles.
These times (with the exception of Sukkot that belongs to both cycles) have less to do with history than with what, for want of a better word, we might call metaphysics and jurisprudence, ultimate truths about the universe, the human condition, and the laws, both natural and moral, under which we live.
Each is about creation (Shabbat, a reminder of it, Rosh Hashanah the anniversary of it), divine sovereignty, justice and judgment, together with the human condition of life, death, mortality. So on Yom Kippur we face justice and judgment. On Sukkot/Shmini Atseret we pray for rain, celebrate nature (the arba minim, lulav, etrog, hadassim and aravot, are the only mitzvah we do with unprocessed natural objects), and read the book of Kohelet, Tanakh’s most profound meditation on mortality.
In the seventh and Jubilee years we acknowledge God’s ultimate ownership of the land of Israel and the children of Israel. Hence we let slaves go free, release debts, let the land rest, and restore most property to its original owners. All of these have to do not with God’s interventions into history but with his role as Creator and owner of the universe.
One way of seeing the difference between the first cycle and the second is to compare the prayers on Pesach, Shavuot and Sukkot with those of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. The Amidah of Pesach, Shavuot and Sukkot begins with the phrase “You chose us from all the peoples.” The emphasis is on Jewish particularity.
By contrast, the Amidah for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur begins by speaking of “all You have made, all You have created”. The emphasis is on universality: about the judgment that affects all of creation, everything that lives.
Even Sukkot has a marked universalist thrust with its seventy sacrificial bulls representing the “seventy nations”. According to Zechariah 14, it is the festival that will one day be celebrated by all the nations.
Why the duality? Because God is both the God of nature and of culture. He is the God of everyone in general, and of the people of the covenant in particular. He is the Author of both scientific law (cause) and religious-ethical law (command).
We encounter God in both cyclical time, which represents the movement of the planets, and linear-historical time, which represents the events and evolution of the nation of which we are a part. This very duality gives rise to two kinds of religious leader: the prophet and the priest, and the different consciousness of time each represents.
Since the ancient Greeks, people have searched for a single principle that would explain everything, or the single point Archimedes sought at which to move the world, or the unique perspective (what philosophers call “the view from nowhere”) from which to see truth in all its objectivity.
Judaism tells us there is no such point. Reality is more complicated than that. There is not even a single concept of time. At the very least we need two perspectives to be able to see reality in three dimensions, and that applies to time as well as space. Jewish time has two rhythms at once.
Judaism is to the spirit what Niels Bohr’s complementarity theory is to quantum physics. In physics light is both a wave and a particle. In Judaism time is both historical and natural. Unexpected, counter-intuitive, certainly. But glorious in its refusal to simplify the rich complexity of time: the ticking clock, the growing plant, the ageing body and the ever-deepening mind.

Please consider donating to your congregation at
http://bethelaustin.wpengine.com/donate/

Parashat Tazria-Metzora – Patience, empathy and care

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Professor Pedhazur tazria-metzora-torah-readingHope you had a fantastic week! Friday April 28, at the regular time of 7:00 PM we’ll have our song filled and inspiring Kabalat Shabbat.

Shabbat morning services as per our schedule of second and fourth shabbats are on the following dates – May 13, May 27, June 10, June 24, July 8 and 22, August 12 and August 26.

Sunday Funday this Sunday April 30 at 10 AM. NOW enrolling for next year! Tell your friends about our one of a kind school, where children learn in a natural and holistic way and always with yidishkeit ! Our team of teachers and clergy is unbelievable and the children truly develop a love of Judaism.

We would also like to sincerely acknowledge Tam for her amazing gardening class with the kids last week and Joakin and Yesenia on the stellar job they did beautifying the front yard.
We are having a class on leading Mussaf, the additional prayers following the morning shabbat and festival services. The first class will start on Wednesday May 3 at Beth El at 7:00 PM and be taught by Cantor Ben-Moshe. The class is open to all so please let us know if you are interested and let your friends know.

Our Annual Meeting is Sunday May 21 at 4 PM. Come be a part of this beautiful congregation and find out all the latest happenings. See why people view this shul as a family and community of caring people. Everyone makes a difference!

Professor Ami Pedahzur Special shabbat speaker Friday May 5!

Come and hear Professor Pedahzur who will give a fascinating talk about his latest research into the Six Day War in Israel on it’s 50th anniversary. You will be sure to hear some amazing and little known facts and definitely be inspired. Professor
Pedhazur is the Arnold S. Chaplik professor in Israel and Diaspora Studies and
Professor in Government at the University of Texas.

Candle lighting in Austin is at 7:49 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 double parshot of Tazri’ah/M’tzora’ which talks about the disease of Tzara’at, usually translated as leprosy. Our Sages interpreted this disease as a punishment for lashon hara’, speaking ill of someone. This disease was actually regarded as somewhat of a blessing-it was an immediate outward sign of one’s wrongdoing, which could then be atoned for and corrected. Too often, we are unaware that we ourselves are engaging in lashon hara’, and blind to the damage that our words can cause. Let us rather engage in lashon hatov-good speech. May our words only promote love and harmony among people. Shabbat Shalom and Hag Ha’atzmaut Sameah, Happy Israel Independence Day.

Hazzan Yitzhak Ben-Moshe

We certainly had a meaningful Earth Day last weekend at Sunday school. The children learnt how to rehabilitate plants with Ms. Tam and each child was given one to take home. They re potted, trimmed, planted herbs and really learnt a great deal. Huge Toda Raba to Ms. Tam for her time, donation of plants and amazing enthusiasm.

Parshat Tazria-Metzora: The burden and gift of empathy
BY RABBI NOAH ZVI FARKAS | APR 26, 2017 |

For the past eight years, I have led a study group for physicians. Every few months, we get together for good food, some wine (OK, lots of wine) and to discuss issues like medical ethics.
About three years ago, several of the sessions clustered on the idea of whether doctors could have empathy toward their patients. As one of the doctors wrote to me: “Can you (should you) act empathic when you don’t feel it? Is it okay not to feel it? How can you feel it in every encounter when you see 25 patients, one after the next, day after day?”
This week’s double portion, Parashat Tazria-Metzora, very subtly raises these same questions. Of all the weekly readings, these two in the book of Leviticus are by far the most medical, dealing with topics like afterbirth, seminal discharges, skin eruptions, burns and sores. How do we make sense of these conditions? How do the rabbis understand them?

To begin, it is necessary to make an apology. For hundreds of years, religious scholars and rabbis have associated the theology of sin and guilt with that of disease. Often, in order to make a moral point about gossip or some other social ill, rabbis link this section in Leviticus with the text in Deuteronomy where Miriam criticizes Moses and then is struck by a skin eruption. Their conclusion tells us that to be declared tameh (literally unclean) is the same as being unfit ethically. To be sick is to be wrong, and to be debilitated makes you an abomination to both your fellow human beings and to God.
When we graft morality too heavily onto purity and wellness, we cause more suffering while ignoring the sanctity of the sick. To be unclean is not to be immoral.
One does not have to go far to see the danger in this thinking. How many would-be mothers are made to feel that something is morally wrong with them if they cannot bear children? How many people who have cancer feel that it’s a punishment for some unknowable crime?
When we graft morality too heavily onto purity and wellness, we cause more suffering while ignoring the sanctity of the sick.
Learning with my congregation’s doctors made it clear to me that they share much with the ancient priests of Israel, actually. The priests of our far-reaching past were twice burdened, first by God to be the caretaker of the Divine-human connection through the rituals of the Mishkan (Tabernacle), and again by the people themselves, who presented to the priest all manner of physical ailment. The same is true for the doctor who embodies the knowledge of science and then takes that knowledge and encounters real people.
Where they intersect the most is in the realm of human connection, the critical role of empathy. The parallels between doctoring and priestly work, the heady stuff of bearing witness to the most profound moments of human suffering, find their greatest expression in the empathic need for mutual recognition.
The word “patient” comes from the Latin meaning “to suffer.” The patient suffers and wants to be seen as a validated person in the eyes of the sacred authority. The priest/doctor can give validation through empathy, while feeling that they have been given a gift by being cum pati, with those who suffer, for their own life has been validated as consequential. Such is the dual gift-giving of being in service to one another and why the rabbis caution us to treat the sick with dignity and honor, for it is at the foot of their bed when we visit with care and love that God’s presence resides (Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh De’ah 335).
Lastly, we know from Leviticus itself what role empathy plays out in the act of holiness. The central theme of the Holiness Code, found a few chapters later, is that empathy itself leads to holiness. “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18) is one of the great cornerstones of Western morality.
This plays out nicely with those who have been healed from their sickness. After the priest sees them and welcomes them back to the community, a sacrificial rite is performed. The patient is brought to the literal center of the community and anointed in the same manner with the same rituals that anoint the High Priest over the people. Both priest and patient are bound together in this ritual of mutuality.
The ethical stance on sickness found in our Torah is not to see how the ill are immoral, but how those who suffer illness provoke us to become more moral by responding to their suffering in the same manner as the priest — with empathy, patience and care.

Bringing on the Light of Shabbat

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Let’s bring on the light of shabbat with your friendly neighborhood shul! TONIGHT Friday April 21, at the regular time of 7:00 PM  we’ll have Kabalat Shabbat. Shh – a couple of birthdays may also be celebrated.

   
Shabbat morning services this Saturday April 22 at 9 AM, with the Torah service at 9:45 AM. There will be an exciting and interactive children’s story time at 10:30 AM with Shereen Ben-Moshe and a kidish lunch immediately following services which will include Bob’s famous Hungarian cholent.  Thank you to Jared and Gracie for generously sponsoring the kidish.
 
Sunday Funday this Sunday April 23 at  10 AM. We will be doing planting activities in honor of earth day!
 
We are having a class on leading Mussaf. The first class will start on Wednesday May 3 at Beth El at 7:00 PM and be taught by Cantor Ben-Moshe. The class is open to all so please let us know if you are interested and let your friends know.  
 
Professor Ami Pedahzur Special shabbat speaker Friday May 19! 
 

Come and hear Professor Pedahzur who will give an fascinating talk about his latest research into the Six Day War in Israel. You will be sure to hear some amazing and little known facts and definitely be inspired. Professor

Pedhazur is the Arnold S. Chaplik professor in Israel and Diaspora Studies and

Professor in Government at the University of Texas.
Special Community Events:
Community Yom Hazikaron Commemoration:
Sunday April 30 at the JCC from 7- 8 PM. There will be a moving commemoration of Israel’s fallen soldiers and defenders. Our very own Chazzan Ben-Moshe who served in the Israeli Defense Forces will be participating. Please join us.
 
COMMUNITY YOM HA’ATZMAUT FAMILY CELEBRATION:
Tuesday May 2, 5-7 pm JCC Community Hall.
Please join the Austin Community for a huge celebration of Israel Independence day. Tons of activities, food for sale, and much much more.
28 Israeli-themed activities like: Agam-inspired art, mud face painting, play-inspired shuk shopping, vegetable harvesting, dancing with Israeli lags and music, and MUCH more.
An authentic dinner: Falafel, Shakshukah, Israeli salad, Tehini and Humus, pitas and chocolate balls for desert.To purchase tickets go to: www.shalomaustin.org/israelindependence
 Professor Pedhazur
Candle lighting in Austin is at 7:45 PM
Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks’ Weekly Parasha:
The Light We Make.
The great moment has come. For seven days – beginning on the 23rd Adar – Moses had consecrated Aaron and the priests. Now, on Rosh Chodesh Nissan, the time has arrived for Aaron to begin his service, ministering to the people on behalf of God:
It came to pass on the eighth day, that Moses called to Aaron and his sons, and the elders of Israel, and he said to Aaron, take a young bull for a sin offering, and a ram for a burnt offering, without blemish, and offer them before the Lord.
What is the significance of the “eighth day,” the phrase that gives our sedra its name?  To understand the profound symbolism of the number eight, we have to go back to creation itself.
In the beginning, when all was “waste and void,” God created the universe. Day by day, the world unfolded. First, there were the domains: light and dark, the upper and lower waters, sea and dry land. Then there were the objects that filled the domains: the sun, moon and stars, then the fish and birds, and finally the land animals, culminating in mankind. Then came Shabbat, the seventh day, the day of limits and of holiness, on which first God, then His covenantal people, rested in order to show that there are boundaries to creation. There is an integrity to nature. Everything has its proper place, its ecological niche, its function and dignity in the totality of being. Holiness consists in respecting boundaries and honouring the natural order.
Thus, the seven days. But what of the eighth day – the day after creation? For this, we have to turn to Torah she-be’al peh, the oral tradition.
On the sixth day, God made His most fateful decision: to create a being who, like Himself, had the capacity to create. Admittedly, there is a fundamental distinction between human creativity (“something from something”) and Divine creativity (“something from nothing”). That is why human beings are “the image of God” but not – as Nietzsche argued – gods themselves.
Yet the ability to create goes hand in hand with the ability to destroy. There cannot be one without the other. Every new technology can be used to heal or harm. Every power can be turned to good or evil.
The danger immediately becomes clear. God tells the first man not to eat of the fruit of one tree. What kind of tree it was is irrelevant; what mattered was its symbolic function. It represents the fact that creation has boundaries – the most important being the boundary between the permitted and forbidden. That is why there had to be, even in paradise, something that was forbidden.  When the first two human beings ate of the forbidden fruit, the essential harmony between man and nature was broken. Humanity lost its innocence. For the first time, nature (the world we find) and culture (the world we make) came into conflict. The result was paradise lost.
According to the sages, this entire drama took place on the sixth day.  On that day, they were made, they were commanded about the tree, they transgressed the command and were sentenced to exile.
But in compassion, God allowed them a stay of sentence.  They were given an extra day in Eden – namely Shabbat. For the whole of that day, the sun did not set. As it too came to a close, God showed the first human beings how to make light:
With the going out of the Sabbath, the celestial light began to fade.  Adam was afraid that the serpent would attack him in the dark.  Therefore God illuminated his understanding, and he learned to rub two stones against each other and produce light for his needs.
This, according to the sages, is the reason we light a havdalah candle at the end of Shabbat to inaugurate the new week.
There is, in other words, a fundamental difference between the light of the first day (“And God said, Let there be light . . .”) and that of the eighth day. The light of the first day was created by God. The light of the eighth day is what God taught us to create. It symbolizes our “partnership with God in the work of creation.” There is no more beautiful image than this of how God empowers us to join Him in bringing light to the world. On Shabbat we remember God’s creation. On the eighth day (motsei Shabbat) we celebrate our creativity as the image and partner of God.
To understand the full significance of this story, we have to go back to one of the great myths of the ancient world: the myth of Prometheus. To the Greeks, the gods were essentially hostile to mankind. Zeus wanted to keep the art of making fire secret, but Prometheus stole a spark and taught men how to make it. Once the theft was discovered, Zeus punished him by having him chained to a rock, with an eagle pecking at his liver.
Against this background can we see the revolutionary character of Jewish faith. We believe that God wants human beings to exercise power: responsibly, creatively, and within limits set by the integrity of nature. The rabbinic account of how God taught Adam and Eve the secret of making fire is the precise opposite of the story of Prometheus. God seeks to confer dignity on the beings He made in His image as an act of love. He does not hide the secrets of the universe from us. He does not seek to keep mankind in a state of ignorance or dependence. The creative God empowers us to be creative and begins by teaching us how. He wants us to be guardians of the world He has entrusted to our care. That is the significance of the eighth day. It is the human counterpart of the first day of creation.
We now understand the symbolic significance of the eighth day in relation to the Tabernacle. As we have noted elsewhere, the linguistic parallels in the Torah show that the construction of the mishkan in the wilderness mirrors the Divine creation of the world. The Tabernacle was intended to be a miniature universe, a symbolic microcosmos, constructed by human beings. Just as God made the earth as a home for mankind, so the Israelites in the wilderness built the Tabernacle as a symbolic home for God. It was their act of creation.
So it had to begin on the eighth day, just as Adam and Eve began their creative endeavour on the eighth day. Just as God showed them how to make light so, many centuries later, He taught the Israelites how to make a space for the Divine presence so that they too would be accompanied by light – God’s light, in the form of the fire that consumed the sacrifices, and the light of the menorah.  If the first day represents Divine creation, the eighth day signifies human creation under the tutelage and sovereignty of God.
We now see the extraordinary and intimate connection between four themes: (1) the creation of the universe; (2) the building of the sanctuary; (3) the Havdalah ceremony at the end of Shabbat; and (4) the number eight.
The story of creation tells us that nature is not a blind struggle between contending forces, in which the strongest wins and power is the most important gift.  To the contrary: the universe is fundamentally good.  It is a place of ordered harmony, the intelligible design of a single creator.
That harmony is constantly threatened by humankind.  In the covenant with Noah, God establishes a minimum threshold for human civilisation.  In the covenant with Israel, he establishes a higher code of holiness.  Just as the universe is the home God makes for us, so the holy is the home we make for God, symbolized first by the mishkan, the Tabernacle, then the Temple, and now the synagogue.
And it begins by the creation of light. Just as God began by making light on the first day, so in the ceremony of havdalah we make light on the eighth day, the start of human creativity, and in so doing we become God’s partners in the work of creation. Like Him, we begin by creating light and proceed to make distinctions (“Blessed are you . . . who makes a distinction between sacred and profane, light and darkness . . .”). The eighth day thus becomes the great moment at which God entrusts His creative work to the people He has taken as His covenantal partners. So it was with the Tabernacle, and so it is with us.
This is a vision of great beauty.  It sees the world as a place of order in which everything has its place and dignity within the richly differentiated tapestry of creation. To be holy is to be a guardian of that order, a task delegated to us by God. That is both an intellectual and ethical challenge: intellectually to recognise the boundaries and limits of nature, ethically to have the humility to preserve and conserve the world for the sake of generations yet to come.
In the midst of what can sometimes seem to be the dark and chaos of the human world, our task is to create order and light.
Special Community Events:
Community Yom Hazikaron Commemoration:
Sunday April 30 at the JCC from 7- 8 PM. There will be a moving commemoration of Israel’s fallen soldiers and defenders. Our very own Chazzan Ben-Moshe who served in the Israeli Defense Forces will be participating. Please join us.
 
COMMUNITY YOM HA’ATZMAUT FAMILY CELEBRATION:
Tuesday May 2, 5-7 pm JCC Community Hall.
Please join the Austin Community for a huge celebration of Israel Independence day. Tons of activities, food for sale, and much much more.
28 Israeli-themed activities like: Agam-inspired art, mud face painting, play-inspired shuk shopping, vegetable harvesting, dancing with Israeli lags and music, and MUCH more.
An authentic dinner: Falafel, Shakshukah, Israeli salad, Tehini and Humus, pitas and chocolate balls for desert.To purchase tickets go to: www.shalomaustin.org/israelindependence