Welcome to Congregation Ner Tamid! Be a part of our Family! Call 415-661-3383 to be put on our Mailing List or for Membership Information. PERSONAL EVENTS IN OUR SYNAGOGUE FAMILY Yom Huledet Same’ah! ~ Happy Birthday Wishes to: Hella Weiss (10/29); Rabbi Moshe Levin (10/31) ••• UPCOMING EVENTS ••• Wednesday, November 5, 7 PM: Painting Class with Al Bernzweig Thursday, November 6, 9:30 AM: Torah Study Breakfast Club, hosted by Mike Lips. All welcome. Thursday, November 6, 7 PM: Four Synagogues Introduction to Judaism rotating class. Ongoing Thursdays. Contact Rabbi Levin. Thursday, November 13, 7 PM: 1st Ner Tamid Young Adult Havurah Wine & Cheese Social. Information on Ner Tamid’s Facebook page. THE NEW YORKER on “October 31st” with Rabbi Moshe Levin Miryam Raphael (10/31); Henry Wartens (10/31) Slava Yasnovsky (11/01); Lillian Volansky (11/03) David Volansky (11/09); Bianca Hirsch (11/11) ~*~*~~*~*~*~ ~*~* Happy Anniversary Wishes to: Susie & Aaron Straus (10/28); Karen & Chuck Amital (11/14) ~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~ REFUA’H SHELEMA ~ We wish a recovery to: Rose Goldkind; Charles Shafer; Esther Franco; Cheryl Lewis; Lila Kluger SHALOM U’MENUHA ~ We wish courage and comfort to: Sarah & Morris Rosnow; Shirley Kubel; Jacob Igra Please inform us of any illness or life cycle event of which you are aware. Rabbi Levin would like to know so that he can call or visit. “So because the Rabbi’s birthday is on Halloween you want me to trash his office? That’ll scare everyone!” MAY THEIR MEMORY BE A BLESSING Yitzhak Rabin: 9th Yahrzeit of Yitzhak Rabin, Israel’s 5th Prime Minister of Israel, assassinated Saturday night, 4 November 1995 – 4 Heshvan 5766. He was a decorated general, strongly identified with the Six Day War, and a highly regarded statesman. In 1994, Rabin won the Nobel Peace Prize together with Shimon Peres and Yasir Arafat. He was assassinated by rightwing Israeli radical Yigal Amir, who was opposed to Rabin's signing of the Oslo Accords. Rabin was the first native-born prime minister of Israel. YAHRZEITS THIS WEEK Asher Wagram; Bernie Smigel; Lorraine Siegel Rosenthal Walter Hahn; Flora Baruth; Sophia N. Lambert; Frances Azoff Abe Chayutin; Esther Stein Oppenheimer; Ralph B. Huberman Ben Feinberg; Martha Bermann Loeb; Ann Lunsford Isidor Rosenberg; Siegfried Dreifuss; Goldie Cohen Abraham Sutterman; Harry Aaron Goldstein; Rose Feldman To dedicate a plaque in memory of a loved one, please call the office. Bold denotes a plaque on Memorial Wall Torah Sparks ~ L E K H L E K H A Sponsored by Susan Julius; Prepared by various rabbis at USCJ Edited by Rabbi Moshe Levin Torah Reading: p. 77 Haftarah: p. 95 This Week’s Torah Portion Summary With Lekh Lekha, the Torah shifts from the history of the world to our People’s beginnings as Abram and his wife Sarai become the focal characters of the text. Abram is called upon to leave the land of his origin, as G*d promises him a life of blessing and greatness. He and Sarai take his nephew Lot and leave Haran for Canaan, where Abram constructs an altar at Beth El, "calling upon the Name of G*d." But a famine in Canaan impels Abram, Sarai, and Lot to travel to Egypt. Sarai is taken into Pharaoh's harem because, at Abram's express instructions, she identified herself not as his wife but as his sister so as not to be killed by the Egyptians. Abram benefits materially from this deception, although G*d afflicts Pharaoh and his household with plagues. Dismayed, Pharaoh returns Sarai to her husband, and, along with Lot, they return to Beth El. As Abram’s nephew, Lot, grows older and has flocks of his own, Lot and Abram go their separate ways with Lot settling in Sodom. But in a war pitting four kings against five others, Lot is taken captive. Accepting responsibility as next of kin, Abram takes an armed force of 318 troops to rescue his nephew. Upon his victory and Lot's safe return, Abram refuses any spoils of the war, saying he does not want his future success ever attributed to anyone but himself. (An interesting theological question is raised when Abram, upon returning from the victory, is blessed by the priest, Melkizedek, identified as a “Kohen of El Elyon, a priest of El Most High,” and, while serving bread and wine Abram presents him with “a tenth of everything.”) The promises of providing Abram with innumerable descendants are repeated and then followed by the dramatic "Brit Bayn Habtarim – the Covenant Between the Pieces." However, Abram is told that his descendants will first be slaves in a foreign land for four hundred years, and only then will they return and inhabit the lands of the Canaanites. But despite those promises, Sarai is still unable to get pregnant. So she designates her handmaiden, the Egyptian Hagar, as her surrogate who is impregnated by Abram. Sarai then resents Hagar’s new stature and the girl flees under her harsh treatment but returns to the family at an angel’s command. Hagar's son Ishmael is born to Abram when he is 86. Thirteen years later, G*d renews the Covenant by changing the patriarch and matriarch’s names to Abraham and Sarah, signifying elevated stature. Then the “Brit Milah - Covenant of Circumcision” is commanded for all Abraham’s male descendants as well as his servants. When G*d assures him of the birth of a second son through Sarah, the elderly Abraham laughs at the idea of his 90 year old wife finally getting pregnant. He is then told the child will be named Isaac, Laughter, and will serve as the genuine heir to the covenant. When Abraham expresses concern about his firstborn son saying, "I wish only that Ishmael might live!" G*d announces that, "He shall be the father of 12 chieftains, and I will make of him a great nation." The parasha ends with Abraham and Ishmael becoming circumcised at age 100 and 13 respectively, as well as all the men in Abraham's household. "Spoils of War Can Spoil the Soul" "Then the king of Sodom said to Abram, ‘Give me back the people, and keep the possessions for yourself.' But Abram said to him, ‘I swear to the Lord, G*d Most High, Creator of Heaven and Earth: I will not take so much as a thread or a sandal strap of what is yours; so that you shall not say, ‘It is I who made Abram rich.'" (14:21-23) Commentaries, Old and New "Abraham, true to nomadic tradition, does not wish to be beholden to anyone. Besides, as a trader, he need not rely on plunder as a source of income." (Rabbi W. Gunther Plaut, The Torah: A Modern Commentary) "Abraham kept himself far away from the ease and comfort which appealed to his nephew, Lot. Abraham struck out for a place which would challenge his creative potential. The choice which Abraham made all of us have to make somewhere along life's highway. The alternative is Sodom." (Rabbi Frederick C. Schwartz) "The focus of the story is not on Abraham's martial prowess but in Abraham's responses to the challenges of war. There are times when war cannot be avoided. Abraham enters the conflict only after Lot's capture, to rescue his nephew. We need to go war to defend ourselves and protect our families, but one should not enrich oneself through warfare. The conventions of that day allowed Abraham to keep the riches he seized from the defeated invaders. Abraham, however, wisely refused all riches. He did not take advantage of his neighbors' weakness to enrich himself and plant the seeds for future conflicts. Abraham demonstrated that one needs to be magnanimous in victory. Wisdom often dictates that one should not keep all that one has conquered." (Rabbi Lewis Eron) CONGREGATION NER TAMID 1250 Quintara Street San Francisco, CA 94116 Main: (415) 661-3383 Fax: (415) 661-9041 [email protected] www.NerTamidSF.org Rabbi Moshe Levin Cantor Rudy Hassid Baal Koreh Zvi Kalinski Administrator Adele Shafer Co-Presidents Beverlee Hassid and Gerald Spindel Lekh Lekha: Week of 8 Heshvan 5775 — October 31-November 1, 2014 What Do You Think? How do Abraham's participation in war and his behavior thereafter make him an especially apt model for contemporary Jews? Rabbi Schwartz brings up the fact that Sodom is later depicted as a City of Evil, so much so that there are not even ten good people living there, and thus it is destroyed by fire and brimstone. He says that Abram rejected the materialism and easy life that Sodom represented. Has the materialism of the 80’s and 90’s “Me Generation” in which many of today’s wealthiest people grew up, been a cause of the greed that led to the economic problems so many are still experiencing? According to Rabbi Efron, what motivated Abraham to decline wealth to which arguably he was entitled? Are there any lessons that PM Bibi Netanyahu and Israel could learn from Abraham’s response as they face the challenge of what to do with the West Bank and the Palestinians they defeated in the Six Day War? This Day in Jewish History: November 1, 1290 is the date of the final expulsion of the Jews from England which was the very first national expulsion of the Jews. On July 18, 1290, Edward I, pressured by his barons, the Church, and possibly his mother, announced the expulsion of all the Jews. By November 1st approximately 4000 had fled. The Jews had to pay their own passage, mostly to France. They were allowed to take movables (i.e. clothing). A number of Jews were robbed and cast overboard during the voyage by the ship captains. The Jews did not return to England until 1659. This wads. England was one of the only centralized and national monarchies of that time. “Look toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them …. So shall your offspring be.” In reality, we are among the smallest of nations. Yet we survived for 4,000 years despite slavery in Egypt, the Assyrians who captured us, the Babylonians who exiled us, the Romans crucified us, the Crusaders who tread over us, the Spanish who expelled us, the Germans who gassed us, the Russians who choked us, the Arabs who fought us, and the UN that condemns us. And we are still here, strong, bright, accomplished and philanthropic. What a miracle!
© Copyright 2024