Rosh Hashanah
Friday night services, September 7 at the regular time of 7 p.m.
Saturday morning services this Saturday September 8, at 9 a.m. Torah service at around 9:45 a.m. Delicious meat kidish lunch after services generously sponsored by Arthur Gurney, in loving memory of his late mother
Lorraine, may her memory always be for a blessing.
Rosh Hashanah starts Sunday evening, September 9th at 7 p.m.
Check out the HIGH HOLIDAY calendar:
http://bethelaustin.wpengine.com/high-holidays/
Cantor Ben-Moshe’s Weekly Message:
Our parshah this week, Nitzavim, is one of the shortest in the Torah-it is often combined with the following parshah, Vayyelekh-but it is full of meaning, especially at this time of year. Among many other things, our parshah speaks of the return of the People of Israel from exile, to live free once again in our own land. For me personally, there is no time when I miss living in Israel more than at the Holiday Season. To experience the holiest days of the year in the holiest place on the earth is like no other experience. The parshah says that HaShem will “rejoice in you as He rejoiced in your ancestors” as we return to the right path. May we all walk on the right path in this coming New Year, and may we fulfill the words “Next Year in Jerusalem”. Shabbat Shalom, and L’shanah Tovah Nikkatev v’Nehatem, may we be written and sealed for a good year.
Hazzan Yitzhak Ben-Moshe
Shabbat candle lighting times are at 7:28 p.m.
Chazzan Ben-Moshe blowing the shofar for the children of Shalom Austin’s Early Childhood Program, the ECP. Getting ready for Rosh Hashanah with a Tekiah, Truah and Shevarim! Come hear him on Rosh Hashanah where we will be blowing the Shofar 100 times!
Rosh Hashanah begins THIS Sunday evening.
This email includes all of the details and information for the High Holidays. Of course, if you have any questions, please let us know.
We look forward to seeing you!
Seating: If you have a particular seat preference or would like seats reserved, please let us know ASAP.
Parking: Similar to years past, please reserve the places in the front of the building for the elderly and please note that parking should be only on the south side of Dominion Cove. Consider parking at Grace Church around the corner and take a short walk to the building.
Participating: We need people to help with English readings, be ushers, and more. If you would like to help, please let us know.
Costs: As always, there is not a specific charge for the High Holidays and we are not taking tickets, but please be sure to send in your dues. If you did not receive a dues statement or have any questions about your dues, please let us know. You can go to www.bethelaustin.org/donate
to donate or pay dues.
Kiddush: We will have apples and honey cake on the first evening of Rosh Hashanah and kiddushes following services on Monday, Tuesday and Saturday! If you would like to help sponsor or bring something kosher to the Kiddush, please contact us.
We wish everyone a Happy and Sweet New Year. May you all have a year of good health, peace and blessing.
שָׁנָה טוֹבָה וּמְתוּקָה
Dear Beth El Members,
We’d like to personally invite you to attend a major event taking place at the Dell Jewish Community Campus to see Israeli Ambassador to the United States, Ron Dermer, address the Austin Jewish community. This event was previously scheduled earlier this year, and we now have confirmed our new date—the evening of October 9. We are honored to host Ambassador Dermer during his first-ever visit to the capital city. Please join us on Tuesday, October 9 at 7pm at Congregation Agudas Achim for this important event.
Free event
Registration is required by Sunday, October 7.
Register for tickets here: https://ambassadordermer.eventbrite.com
Hurry- space is limited!
Tickets required upon entering the event.
For security reasons, no bags or purses will be allowed inside Congregation Agudas Achim.
Thank you for joining us.
Rabbi Daniel A. Septimus
Chief Executive Officer
Shalom Austin
Jewish Federation | Jewish Community Center
Jewish Family Service | Jewish Foundation
Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks:
The World is waiting for You!
Something remarkable happens in this week’s parsha, almost without our noticing it, that changed the very terms of Jewish existence, and has life-changing implications for all of us. Moses renewed the covenant. This may not sound dramatic, but it was.
Thus far, in the history of humanity as told by the Torah, God had made three covenants. The first, in Genesis 9, was with Noah, and through him, with all humanity. I call this the covenant of human solidarity. According to the sages it contains seven commands, the sheva mitzvoth bnei Noach, most famous of which is the sanctity of human life: “He who sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for in the image of God did God make man” (Gen. 9:6).
The second, in Genesis 17, was with Abraham and his descendants: “When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to him and said, ‘I am God Almighty. Walk before Me and have integrity, and I will grant My covenant between Me and you … I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you throughout the generations as an eternal covenant.’” That made Abraham the father of a new faith that would not be the faith of all humanity but would strive to be a blessing to all humanity: “Through you all the families of the earth will be blessed.”
The third was with the Israelites in the days of Moses, when the people stood at Mount Sinai, heard the Ten Commandments and accepted the terms of their destiny as “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.”
Who, though, initiated these three covenants? God. It was not Noah, or Abraham, or Moses, or the Israelites who sought a covenant with God. It was God who sought a covenant with humanity.
There is, though, a discernible change as we trace the trajectory of these three events. From Noah God asked no specific response. There was nothing Noah had to do to show that he accepted the terms of covenant. He now knew that there are seven rules governing acceptable human behaviour, but God asked for no positive covenant-ratifying gesture. Throughout the process Noah was passive.
From Abraham, God did ask for a response – a painful one. “This is My covenant which you shall keep between Me and you and your descendants after you: every male among you shall be circumcised. You must circumcise the flesh of your foreskin. This shall be the sign of the covenant between Me and you” (Gen., 17:10-11). The Hebrew word for circumcision is milah, but to this day we call it brit milah or even, simply, brit – which is, of course, the Hebrew word for covenant. God asks, at least of Jewish males, something very demanding: an initiation ceremony.
From the Israelites at Sinai God asked for much more. He asked them in effect to recognise Him as their sole sovereign and legislator. The Sinai covenant came not with seven commands as for Noah, or an eighth as for Abraham, but with 613 of them. The Israelites were to incorporate God-consciousness into every aspect of their lives.
So, as the covenants proceed, God asks more and more of His partners, or to put it slightly differently, He entrusts them with ever greater responsibilities.
Something else happened at Sinai that had not happened before. God tells Moses to announce the nature of the covenant before making it, to see whether the people agree. They do so no less than three times: “Then the people answered as one, saying, ‘All that the Lord has spoken we will do’” (Ex. 19:7). “The people all responded with a single voice, ‘We will do everything the Lord has spoken’” (Ex. 24:3). “The people said, ‘All that the Lord has spoken we will do and heed’” (Ex. 24:7).
This is the first time in history that we encounter the phenomenon enshrined in the American Declaration of Independence, namely “the consent of the governed.” God only spoke the Ten Commandments after the people had signalled that they had given their consent to be bound by His word. God does not impose His rule by force.[1] At Sinai, covenant-making became mutual. Both sides had to agree.
So the human role in covenant-making grows greater over time. But Nitzavim takes this one stage further. Moses, seemingly of his own initiative, renewed the covenant:
All of you are standing today before the Lord your God—your leaders, your tribes, your elders and officials, all the men of Israel, your children, your wives, the strangers in your camp, from woodcutter to water-drawer — to enter into the covenant of the Lord your God and its oath, which the Lord your God is making with you today, to establish you today as His people, that He may be your God, as He promised you and swore to your ancestors, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. (Deut. 29:9-12)
This was the first time that the covenant was renewed, but not the last. It happened again at the end of Joshua’s life (Josh. 24), and later in the days of Jehoiada (2 Kings 11:17), Hezekiah (2 Chron. 29) and Josiah (1 Kings 23: 1-3; 2 Chron. 34: 29-33). After the Babylonian exile, Ezra and Nehemiah convened a national gathering to renew the covenant (Nehemiah 8). But it happened first in today’s parsha.
It happened because Moses knew it had to happen. The terms of Jewish history were about to shift from Divine initiative to human initiative. This is what Moses was preparing the Israelites for in the last month of his life. It is as if he had said: Until now God has led – in a pillar of cloud and fire – and you have followed. Now God is handing over the reins of history to you. From here on, you must lead. If your hearts are with Him, He will be with you. But you are now no longer children; you are adults. An adult still has parents, as a child does, but his or her relationship with them is different. An adult knows the burden of responsibility. An adult does not wait for someone else to take the first step.
That is the epic significance of Nitzavim, the parsha that stands almost at the end of the Torah and that we read almost at the end of the year. It is about getting ready for a new beginning: in which we act for God instead of waiting for God to act for us.
Translate this into human terms and you will see how life-changing it can be. Many years ago, at the beginning of my rabbinical career, I kept waiting for a word of encouragement from a senior rabbinical figure. I was working hard, trying innovative approaches, seeking new ways of getting people engaged in Jewish life and learning. You need support at such moments because taking risks and suffering the inevitable criticism is emotionally draining. The encouragement never came. The silence hurt. It ate, like acid, into my heart.
Then in a lightning-flash of insight, I thought: what if I turn the entire scenario around. What if, instead of waiting for Rabbi X to encourage me, I encouraged him? What if I did for him what I was hoping he would do for me? That was a life-changing moment. It gave me a strength I never had before.
I began to formulate it as an ethic. Don’t wait to be praised: praise others. Don’t wait to be respected: respect others. Don’t stand on the sidelines, criticising others. Do something yourself to make things better. Don’t wait for the world to change: begin the process yourself, and then win others to the cause. There is a statement attributed to Gandhi (actually he never said it,[2] but in a parallel universe he might have done): ‘Be the change you seek in the world.’ Take the initiative.
That was what Moses was doing in the last month of his life, in that long series of public addresses that make up the book of Devarim, culminating in the great covenant-renewal ceremony in today’s parsha. Devarim marks the end of the childhood of the Jewish people. From there on, Judaism became God’s call to human responsibility. For us, faith is not waiting for God. Faith is the realisation that God is waiting for us.
Hence the life-changing idea: Whenever you find yourself distressed because someone hasn’t done for you what you think they should have done, turn the thought around, and then do it for them.
Don’t wait for the world to get better. Take the initiative yourself. The world is waiting for you.