Parashat Ki Tassa

See you at services at 7 PM TONIGHT!

SAVE THE DATES:

Friday March 9th – Shabbat Across America! Hosted by Congregation Beth El. Join us for a Friday night dinner and services at the special time of 6:30 p.m.

BETH EL SECOND NIGHT SEDER – SATURDAY MARCH 31 AT 6:30 PM. Email us to save your spot!

Cantor Ben-Moshe’s weekly message:

This week we read Parshat Ki Tissa, which begins with the commandment to take the half-shekel poll tax, continues on with the story of the Golden Calf, and concludes with a listing of the major festivals of the Jewish calendar. The story of the Golden Calf of course concludes with God forgiving the People of Israel, and Moshe asking God for a clear sign of Divine favor. God replies with the Thirteen Attributes of God-“Hashem, Hashem, a compassionate and gracious God, patient and abounding in kindness and truth….”. This listing of God’s attributes is central to the liturgy of the High Holidays, when we approach God confident in God’s forgiving nature. Paradoxically, the greatest sin of our ancestors gave us the greatest sign that our trespasses will be forgiven. Contrary to popular prejudice about the Hebrew Bible, our Torah clearly teaches that God is loving, compassionate and forgiving – a great teaching which we, as God’s witnesses, have passed on to the world. Shabbat Shalom.

The BERS will be meeting this Sunday at 10 a.m.

Candle lighting in Austin is at 6:13 p.m.

Enjoy photos of the Purim schpiel, which was super fun. With our deepest gratitude to Shay and Shiry Turjeman for sponsoring the food following the Megillah reading, the amazing Lilia Stan of Happy Tots Face painting, the Cantor for a great reading and to all the wonderful folks who attended!

Sunday school this Sunday at 10 am. Enjoy photos of the children baking with our Chai Mitzvah teens last week. Thank you to Yesenia, Rachel and Claudia!

Dear Beth El Community:

Israeli Ambassador to the United States, Ron Dermer, will be addresses the Austin Jewish community during his first-ever visit to the capital city.

Please join us on March 20 at 7:30pm at Temple Beth Shalom for this important event.

Click here to register for tickets.
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/austin-welcomes-ambassador-ron…

The event is free. Registration is required by March 18.
Tickets must be presented upon entering the event.
For security reasons, no bags or purses will be permitted inside Temple Beth Shalom.

SAVE THE DATE: Congregation Beth El’s 2nd Night Seder.

PASSOVER ACROSS AMERICA!

Saturday March 31 at 6:30 PM.

In partnership with the National Jewish Outreach Program, Congregation Beth El is proud to host a second night seder, open to the Austin Jewish Community. Please RSVP to save your spot for our fun and interactive second night seder, with delicious kosher food, wine and friends. Led by Cantor Ben-Moshe. info@bethelaustin.org

Congregation Beth El Sisterhood Book Club

Join us as we read By Light of Hidden Candles by Daniella Levy.

We will be meeting at the home of Gail Ellenbogen on Wednesday, March 21 to discuss the book and socialize.

The Congregation Beth El Sisterhood invites all Jewish women to join us for any of our events. Please bring a friend. It is our hope to provide programming to bring us all together. For more information about our events and becoming more active, please contact Shereen Ben-Moshe at shereen@homewyrks.com.

Save the dates in April for this very special month of remembrance and celebration at the
Dell Jewish Community Campus.

April 8 at 7 p.m. Yom HaShoah
Holocaust Remembrance.
Please see the trailer.

April 17 at 7 p.m. Yom HaZikaron
Israel’s Memorial Day
Chazzan Yitzhak Ben-Moshe, IDF Veteran, will be part of this moving ceremony.

April 22 at 11 a.m. Yom HaAtzmaut
Israel’s 70th Birthday Celebration.
Beth El will be participating!

Film Screening: Arabic Movie & Q&A w/ Director Eyal Sagui Bizawe
Thursday, February 15
8 – 9:30 PM
College of Liberal Arts Building
Room 1.302B
305 E. 23rd St
The Institute of Israeli Studies hopes you will join them for a film screening of the documentary “Arabic Movie,” followed by a Q&A with director Eyal Sagui Bizawe

One of the most powerful, seminal Jewish thinkers of the 20th century was Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik. He wrote many extraordinary articles and books. Among his best was The Lonely Man of Faith.

In this book, Soloveitchik explores a problem that has much plagued our own society: what causes loneliness in the modern world, and what can be done about it?
Do you feel lonely? If yes, do you wonder why? Do you seek remedies for it? If you don’t feel lonely, do you wonder why so many others do and how they could be helped?

I have endeavored here to bring to the attention of curious people of all faiths prominent Jewish thought on a major topic of great importance in our time.

Of course, there is no real substitute for reading the book. I acknowledge as well, and apologize to both the author and God, for errors committed in the act of in-brief chronicling. But, whether for the purpose of building your interest, giving you fine material for thought and meditation, or paving the way to the world of deeper knowledge, I hope you’ll find true value here.

THE LONELY MAN OF FAITH – JOSEPH B. SOLOVEITCHIK

In our modern world, we are lonely; and it hurts.

1. Modern society is complex, with both good and bad. Among its most worrisome features is its capacity to create a sense of loneliness within us. One often feels like “a stranger in modern society, which is technically minded, self-centered, and self-loving…scoring honor upon honor, piling up victory upon victory, reaching for the distant galaxies, and seeing in the here-and-now sensible world the only manifestation of being.”

2. “I thank God; I enjoy the love and friendship of many. I meet people, preach, argue, and reason, …surrounded by comrades and acquaintances. And, yet, companionship and friendship do not alleviate the passional experience of loneliness which trails me constantly.”

3. Loneliness involves feeling rejected by many, including friends.

4. “I despair because I am lonely and hence feel frustrated.”

Yet, this loneliness drives us to seek God.

1. “I feel invigorated because this very experience of loneliness presses everything in me into the service of God.”

2. “This service to which I…am committed is wanted and gracefully accepted by God…”

There are several steps a person of faith can take to overcome loneliness.

1. First, he/she must “meet God at a personal covenantal level to be near Him and feel free in His presence.”
a) As with Abraham, “only when he met God in earth as Father, Brother, and Friend – not only along the unchartered astral routes – did he feel redeemed.”
b) “When God joins the community of man the miracle of revelation takes place in two dimensions: in the transcendental…and in the human…”

2. Second, prayer is vital. It asks us to “stand before and address ourselves to God in a manner reminiscent of the prophet’s dialogue with God.”
a) “Prayer is basically an awareness of man finding himself in the presence of and addressing himself to his Maker, and to pray has one connotation only: to stand before God… being together with and talking to God.”
b) “The word of prophecy is God’s and is accepted by man. The word of prayer is man’s and God accepts it.”
c) Prayer, though, is not an act we commit alone. “The Foundation of efficacious and noble prayer is human solidarity and sympathy…sharing and experiencing the travail and suffering” of others.
d) “God hearkens to prayer if it rises from a heart contrite over a muddled and faulty life and from a resolute mind ready to redeem this life…Prayer is always the harbinger of moral reformation.”

3. Third, we benefit from faith. The person of faith “finds deliverance from isolation” in the “now, “ which includes both “before” and “after.” The covenantal experience is one that is retrospective in that it “re-experiences the rendezvous with God” (through which the revelation originated). It is also prospective, anticipating the “about to be.”

a) Covenantal people “begin to feel redemption for insecurity and to feel at home in the continuum of time and responsibility which is experienced in its endless totality, from everlasting to everlasting.”
“A person is no longer an evanescent being” but rather becomes rooted in everlasting time, in eternity itself.” He begins to “engage in the great colloquy in which God Himself participates, with love and joy.”
b) Thus, the covenantal person finds redemption…”by dovetailing his accidental existence with the necessary infinite existence of the Great True Real Self.”

We now can find a path forward with both balance and wholeness.

1. We are able to achieve this felicitous result by blending within ourselves and within our communities the attributes and virtues of each of the two Adams we find in study of the Genesis story in the Bible (one in Genesis 1, and the other in Genesis 2).

The first Adam orders his world with dignity, beauty, and creativity. He imitates his Creator by working to make the world a better place. He is one who, for example, “builds hospitals, discovers therapeutic techniques, saves lives,” and, we might add, clicks happily online.
The second Adam wants to know God and have an intimate relationship with the Divine. He strives not so much to hear the “rhythmic sound of the production line,” but rather “the rhythmic beat of hearts starved for existential companionship and all-embracing sympathy…” This Adam feels loneliness when he/she is distant from God or when his/her society is.

2. God, thus, summons us “to engage in the pursuit of majesty-dignity as well as redemption.” “He authorizes man to quest for sovereignty; He also tells man to surrender and be committed.”

3. “Accordingly, the task of covenantal man is to be…in uniting the two communities where man is both the creative, free agent and the obedient servant of God.”
4. We must see and live by “our all-inclusive human personality,” “charged with responsibility as both a majestic and a covenantal being.” Otherwise, we reject “the Divine scheme…which was approved by God as being very good.”

Loneliness for those who resemble the second Adam will remain, though loneliness for most can be relieved.

1. One form of loneliness exists especially for the second Adam when the world (including majestic man) is inhospitable to him and the true message of faith. This loneliness is often the price to be paid by the second Adams when they live true to their mission.
2. Yet, the world is deeply troubled if the first Adam dominates without the influence of the second Adam. “Majestic Adam has developed a demonic quality: laying claim to unlimited power…His pride is almost boundless, his imagination arrogant, and he aspires to complete control of everything.”
3. The answer to our modern condition (its lack of balance, its lack of wholeness, and its loneliness) is to create a true, honored, and respectful place within us and within our society for both Adams.

We can and must rise to meet the challenge.

1. “Majestic man is in need of the redemptive and therapeutic powers inherent in the act of believing which, in times of crisis, may give aid and comfort to the distressed mind.”
2. “To be sure, man can build spaceships capable of reaching other planets without …being awakened to an enhanced inspired life which reflects the covenantal truth. However, the idea of majesty…embraces much more than the mere building of machines, no matter how complex and efficacious.
Successful man wants to be sovereign not only in the physical but also in the spiritual world.”

Please consider a donation to Austin’s friendly neighborhood shul! Your tax deductible donation (T’rumah) helps us immensely. You can sponsor a kidish lunch for $100, co-sponsor Purim or Passover, or just help those in our shul who need an extra hand.
Every dollar does good! Every volunteer is treasured.

Shabbat Times

Come say howdy!