Dear Congregants and friends,
Please join us tonight, Friday January 9th at 7pm for our weekly Kabalat Shabbat services – filled with song and meaningful prayer as well as some wonderful folks.
Tomorrow morning at 9am, we continue our weekend services with Shabbat morning services, followed by the Torah service, Dvar Torah by Rabbi Gisser, children’s story time and a lovely kidush at the end.
Sunday morning we are excited to restart our Sunday school classes at 10am.
Wednesday evenings we continue our evening services and classes:
Please join us tonight at 7:30 pm for the start of Rabbi Gisser’s six week course on the Jewish concepts of Death and Afterlife. The class is free and open to the community.
There is no greater question in life than that of death. This course will explore some of the Jewish concepts of death and the Olam HaBa, the world to come, and will be sure to change the way you look at life. Please plan to come at 7:00 pm for Maariv services before the class.
Sisterhood events for January include:
Let’s Welcome the New Year with the upcoming events for January 2015 with a bang!
REMINDER: Sunday, January 11, 2015 – It has been requested that we have another Mahjong Class. 12:30 – 3:00 pm – we will be having an informal get together and have a “Mahjong 101” Class as well as play other games. No children this time.
We will be meeting at Juliette Meinstein’s home. E-mail us for address.
Please RSVP to Elaine Jacobs at (jaqel@yahoo.com) or 512-261-0112 by Friday, January 9, 2015. Please bring a healthy dairy, parev desert or little nosh (like cut up fruit, veggie plate, cheese platter, etc.) if you can.
Sunday, January 25, 2015 – after Hebrew/Sunday School, a sewing arts and crafts class will be held, at Beth El, where we will learn how to make Matza covers for Pescah. This class will start at 12:00 noon.
Please RSVP to Elaine Jacobs at (jaqel@yahoo.com) or 512-261-0112 by Wednesday, January 21, 2015. Please bring a healthy dairy, parev desert or little nosh (like cut up fruit, veggie plate, cheese platter, etc.) if you can.
Rabbi Tarlow’s weekly parasha:
This week we begin the Bible’s second book. In English the book is known as Exodus, named after the fact that to a great extend the book deals with Israel’s liberation from slavery and its return home to the land of Israel. In Hebrew the book has a different name: shmot, meaning “names”. Some have argued that what distinguishes a slave from a free man or woman is the fact that slaves, almost as pets, are given names. To be a slave is to be nameless, to live at the will of one’s master. Slaves have no past or future. To be a slave is to live in an eternal present, each day is the same and when the slave stops producing then the master may discard his (her) slave at will. Perhaps this is the reason that the Ten Commandments place such emphasis on the concept of Sabbath. To celebrate a Sabbath is to celebrate one’s control of time, to realize that life is more than mere labor, to create a crossroads between dignity and eternity.
Shmot begins then with names, but is there an irony in the book? Despite the fact that the second book of the Bible begins with names, we note that there are no women’s names present. Is it that the names mentioned are names from the past and thus in a subtle way the text is indicating that a new beginning is to take place, that women will now not only have a role in history but will enter into its pages? Although women played significant roles in Genesis, does Exodus indicate a shift, that women would now play a significant role in the liberation story? Is their absence then one of oversight or intentional, does it act as the bridge to freedom not only for men but also for women?
Throughout the Exodus tales, however, women play either primary roles or secondary roles in the liberation story. Some of the leading women in the Exodus story are Shifrah and Puah, the nurses who stand up to Pharaoh’s planned genocide, Miriam, Moses’ sister who hides him from Pharaoh, Pharaoh’s daughter who raises Moses, and Tziporah who saves her husband Moses from a near fatal encounter with G’d.
Without these women’s deeds Israel never would have won its freedom from Egypt. The text does not tell us why women’s names are not included in the first chapter. Is it that until Sinai women were not only mere slaves, but also second class slaves? Is it that those who do are often left out of history, or is the text teaching us that there are always people behind the scenes who permit the principal actors of history to perform? Is the text teaching us that when we study history we need to look at not only who is named but also who is not named?
Why do you think? What does the absence of these women’s names teach us about how we understand our past and shape our future?
Cantor Ben-Moshe’s weekly message – Last week we read in Parshat Vayiggash of Joseph and his family, of their reunification after many years. Joseph of course shows the moral courage that sustained him through the long years of being cut off from his family-he refuses to avenge himself on the brothers who sold him into slavery in Egypt. His brother Judah also shows strength of character, as he repents fully for selling Joseph and offers himself in order to save his brother Benjamin from a similar fate. These two, Joseph and Judah, became the progenitors of the two most important tribes of Israel. May the moral strength of our ancestors continue to inspire our deeds in our own days. Shabbat Shalom
