Parashat B’haalotkha
Shabbat shalom! Please join us for our Kaballat Shabbat services, Friday June 1, at the regular time of 7:00 p.m.
Cantor Ben-Moshe’s Weekly Message;
This week we read Parshat B’haalotkha, which begins with a description of the menorah and how it was to be lit by the High Priest every evening. The haftarah echoes the theme, with its own description of the menorah. This haftarah from the Book of Zechariah is also the haftarah for the Shabbat of Hanukkah. The haftarah also deals with a High Priest-Yehoshu’a, who was Kohen Gadol after the return from Babylonian exile. The Prophet has a vision of angels taking filthy clothing from Yehoshu’a and clothing him in clean robes. This is usually interpreted as a symbol for the redemption of the Jewish People from exile, but can also be seen as a symbol of the potential for any of us to find redemption. Our Tradition teaches that no one is beyond redemption, that we are all able, like the High Priests of old, to rekindle light in our lives and the lives of those around us. Shabbat Shalom.
Hazzan Yitzhak Ben-Moshe
Shabbat candle lighting times are at 8: 10 p.m.
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Macrame and Margaritas!
Sunday June 24 @ 4pm @ Beth El
Join the Beth El sisterhood for Macrame making with our wonderful teacher Anat who will show us the ins and outs of this fun craft. And just for fun, we will all be bringing super healthy salads to share and making Margaritas to sip. Open to all! A $5 donation to help cover costs.
WATCH THIS SPACE!
we will also be watching the musical Mama Mia together on June 26 at the home of Juliette and then as soon as Mama Mia, Here We Go Again Comes Out will watch it as a sisterhood!
Sisterhood Book Club.
Judas by Amos Oz –
available in Hebrew and English
Summertime and the reading is easy – or at least incredibly interesting. The sisterhood is reading Amos Oz’s 2016 novel, Judas. We will meet at the end of the summer to have a stimulating discussion, so get your copy soon.
Also, save the date. Our annual “state of the shul” meeting will be held on Sunday, June 10, at 4:30 p.m. followed by a Kosher cookout. We plan to discuss shul business and elect officers for the upcoming year. To nominate a current member as an officer, please send an email to Bob Miller, chair of the nominating committee at bob.miller@milleruniforms.com Nominations should be submitted no later than 15 days before the board meeting. The meeting is open to all – they are always a great deal of fun and very inspiring. We are blessed to be part of this small, yet vibrant and truly chesed filled congregation.
And finally, you all are invited to the Bat Mitzvah of Sara K on the weekend of June 16. Iris and Kevin would be deeply honored to have their Beth El family attend.
Please join Shalom Austin on Sunday June 3 at the Dell Jewish Community Campus for their wonderful and family friendly SPLASH BASH. From 11 to 3. Free and open to the community.
Rabbi Tarlow’s Weekly Parasha:
This week’s parashah (Book of Numbers 8:1-12:16) is called “B’haalotechah.” The name means “when you raise yourself up” and the name teaches us a great deal about its themes.
The parashah is another long section. In this week’s section, we find a weary Moses. He has dealt with non-stop complaining and although the text is terse with its words, the reader gets the sense that Moses is experiencing leadership burnout. It must have seen to him that whatever he did was wrong. Perhaps the pinnacle of this professional weariness is when in 12:1 the text tells us that “Vtidabber Miriam vAharon b’Mosheh al-odot ha’ishah ha’cushit asher lakach…Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woman whom he had married….”
Now Moses must deal with criticism from the two people in the world whom he always thought he could count on, his brother and his sister. Furthermore, it is unclear exactly what the complaints were. Were Moses’ siblings angry at him for ignoring his wife or did she do something wrong? Is this a case of racism or were Moses’ siblings standing up for Tziporah? Is such criticism part of leadership or do we still treat our leaders unfairly?
If we read the text carefully we note that Moses reacts very gently to their criticism. It is as if he is tired, understands that they too may be tired and realizes that often we take out our frustrations and our jealousies on those we love. It must have been somewhat frustrating for Aaron and Miriam to be second to Moses. It is also part of human nature sometimes to hurt those who have helped us most.
The text shows us Moses greatness by the fact that instead of insisting that G-d punish his siblings, Moses’ only words are directed to G-d when he utters the Bible’s first prayer of petition asking healing for his sister Miriam: “El na rfa na la/O G’d, please heal her now.” (12:13
Although the text indicates that G-d punished Miriam for her disloyalty, we have to ask ourselves if Moses was also asking G-d to heal her of her envy and perhaps jealousy. Is the text teaching us that our need to bring down those whom have helped us most is a form of leprosy of the heart? Perhaps that is why this week’s portion is called “B’haalotechah /when you bring yourself up”. It teaches us that our task is to raise ourselves up by what we accomplish rather than by lowering those who seek to help us.
What does this section teach us about our own hyper-politicized world, a world filled with the politics of personal destruction? Are our leaders and media outlets acting more like Miriam or Moses? What do you think?
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