THE TORAH READING FOR 13 ADAR II 5784 MARCH 22-23, 2024

March 22, 2024 by templekol

TORAH STUDY 6 PM AND SHAZOOM-PUZOOM 7:30 PM March 22, 2024

WOMEN’S HISTORY MONTH – MARCH 1-31

OUR HEARTS ARE WITH THE PEOPLE OF ISRAEL

From “Mishkan T’filah / A Reform Siddur” CCAR, New York 2007, p.60

BARUCH atah, Adonai Elohëinu, Mélech ha’olam,

yotzër ‘or uvorë chóshech, ‘oseh shalom uvorë et-hakol.

PRAISED ARE YOU, Adonai our God, Sovereign of the universe,

Creator of light and darkness, who makes peace and fashions all things.

PARSHA

From Reform Judaism https://reformjudaism.org/torah/portion/vayikra

Vayikra (וַיִּקְרָא‎ — [God] called out) – Leviticus 1:1-5:26

The Eternal One called to Moses and spoke to him from the Tent of Meeting, saying: “Speak to the Israelite people and say to them: When any of you presents an offering of cattle to the Eternal: You shall choose your offering from the herd or from the flock.” – Leviticus 1:1-2

SUMMARY:

God instructs Moses on the five different kinds of sacrifices that were to be offered in the sanctuary:

The olah or “burnt offering” was a voluntary sacrifice that had a high degree of sanctity and was regarded as the “standard” offering. The entire animal, except for its hide, was burned on the altar. (1:1-17)
The minchah or “meal offering” was a sacrifice made of flour, oil, salt, and frankincense that was partly burned on the altar and partly given to the priests to eat. (2:1-16)
The zevach sh’lamim or “sacrifice of well-being” was a voluntary animal offering from one’s herd, sometimes brought to fulfill a vow. (3:1-17)
The chatat or “sin offering” was an obligatory sacrifice that was offered to expiate unintentional sins. This offering differs from the others in the special treatment of the blood of the animal. (4:1-5:13)
The asham or “penalty offering” was an obligatory sacrifice of a ram that was required chiefly of one who had misappropriated property. (5:1-26)

HAFTARAH – Shabbat Zachor

Esther 7:1-10; 8:15-17

[historic: Ashkenazi I Samuel 15:2-34; Sephardic I Samuel 15:1-34]

From Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Shabbat

Shabbat Zachor – of Remembrance

Shabbat Zachor (“Sabbath [of] remembrance שבת זכור) is the Shabbat immediately preceding Purim. Deuteronomy 25:17-19 (at the end of Parasha Ki Teitzei), describing the attack on the weakest by Amalek, is recounted. There is a tradition from the Talmud that Haman, the antagonist of the Purim story, was descended from Amalek. The portion that is read includes a commandment to remember the attack by Amalek, and therefore at this public reading both men and women make a special effort to hear the reading.

From Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetzaveh

Connection to the Special Sabbath [non-leap years]

[In addition to Tetzaveh Ex.27:20-30:10, on] Shabbat Zachor, the Sabbath just before Purim, Jews read Deuteronomy 25:17–19, which instructs Jews: “Remember (זָכוֹר‎, zachor) what Amalek did” in attacking the Israelites. The [historic] haftarah for Shabbat Zachor, 1 Samuel 15:2–34 or 1–34, describes Saul’s encounter with Amalek and Saul’s and Samuel’s treatment of the Amalekite king Agag. Purim, in turn, commemorates the story of Esther (said to be a descendant of Saul in some rabbinic literature) and the Jewish people’s victory over Haman’s plan to kill the Jews, told in the book of Esther. Esther 3:1 identifies Haman as an Agagite, and thus a descendant of Amalek. Numbers 24:7 identifies the Agagites with the Amalekites. Alternatively, a Midrash tells the story that between King Agag’s capture by Saul and his killing by Samuel, Agag fathered a child, from whom Haman in like turn descended.

RECOMMENDED READING

From Reform Judaism https://reformjudaism.org/torah/portion/vayikra

Vayikra – Setting the Scene

By: Rabbi Daniel Mikelberg

STRUGGLING WITH TORAH and REFLECTION

We will continue to meet every other Friday for Torah Study to read and discuss selections from Ketuvim, the third section of Tanach (Hebrew Bible), which follows Torah and Nevi’im. Please see the NEW Torah Study-Shazoom schedule below. THIS week we will start studying the Book of Esther, which is found in the Ketuvim (Writings). Read this week’s Torah Portion at https://www.sefaria.org/Leviticus.1.1-5.26, and the Haftarah at https://www.sefaria.org/Esther.7.1-10 and https://www.sefaria.org/Esther.8.15-17

From “The Torah / A Women’s Commentary” edited by Dr. Tamara Cohn Eskenazi and Rabbi Andrea L. Weiss, Ph.D., Women of Reform Judaism/The Federation of Temple Sisterhoods and URJ Press New York 2008

ויקרא Vayikra – Leviticus 1:1-5:26

Contemporary Reflection – by Janet Marder, pp. 589-90

“AND AARON’S SONS, the priests, shall offer the blood” (1:5). That is pretty much how parashat Vayikra introduces Leviticus, a book that sits smack in the center of the Torah like a tough vein of gristle that runs through a tender, juicy steak. Most of Leviticus is hard to digest. Vayikra is an instruction manual, and technical writing rarely yields compelling drama or inspiring ethical teachings. The language of our portion is formal, stylized, repetitive, precise. Yet the dryness of language cannot quite disguise the essential problem with what transpires here: the portion is slippery with blood. Rising up from the page are the screams of dying animals, the pungent stink of smoke and burning flesh.

The priestly passages in the Torah not only arouse anxiety in the squeamish–they often seem to be among the most irrelevant we encounter in our sacred text. After all, the major skills of Levites and kohanim (the priests), technicians of the sacred, became obsolete almost two thousand years ago when the Temple went up in flames. While Jews with the status of kohanim survive in our own day, their role is marginal even in traditional synagogues, and Reform Jews have virtually eliminated their special status. Yet the Torah promises that Israelites who are faithful to the covenant will become mamlechet kohanim–a kingdom of priests; it envisions an entire people which serves in a priestly role (Exodus 19:6).

No doubt many of us would have preferred that the Torah command us to become a “kingdom of prophets,” collectively denouncing the world’s inequities, speaking out for justice and defending the downtrodden. But it is to the priesthood that we Jews are taught to aspire, and the priesthood from which we must seek instruction in parashat Vayikra. What can we learn from the role of the priests–and from these methodical instructions for the slaughter and dismemberment of animals for ritual offering on the altar?

If human beings were gentle and benevolent by nature we might not need the stern, disciplinary teachings of the priesthood. The Torah’s insight is that priestly service is what our homicidal proclivities demand and deserve. So the descendants of Phinehas, a family whose origins are murderous and full of rage (see Numbers 25:1–14), are taught to (re)direct their zealous energies to the service of God. They turn from uncontrolled aggression to the discipline of ritual slaughter, hedged about with myriad laws and regulations. As officiants at the altar, their killing is tamed and domesticated, their dangerous proclivities neutralized. Stripped of the normal male prerogatives of land ownership and military service, they become, as my teacher Melila Hellner-Eshed suggests, “God’s housewives”–feminized men who dress in skirts and busy themselves with the domestic work of cooking and cleaning in God’s holy dwelling.

Sublimation of aggression may, in fact, underlie the entire sacrificial system of worship. A korban, an offering to God, is more than an act of violence. It is violence transmuted into something higher; it is God re-shaping a destructive human drive into productive, creative energy. Through bringing offerings to the altar, the fierce passions of the ego are not indulged but controlled and transcended. Animals, valued possessions and markers of wealth, are given selflessly to God–and thus the worshipper learns gradually to overcome narcissism and greed. Animal blood is dashed on the altar, but human blood may not be shed; substitution trains the worshippers to restrain their own innate savagery.

The opening of our parashah reads: Adam ki yakriv mikem korban l’Adonai–“When any of you presents an offering of cattle to יהוה” (1:2). A Hasidic commentator offers an interpretive reading: “One who wants to become karov–close to God–must bring an offering mikem–that is, from oneself.” And what is the offering? It is the beast within ourselves–the part of ourselves that is capable of cruelty and brutality, even to those we love (Itturei Torah, IV, 1998, p. 10). The ritual of animal sacrifice, understood symbolically, conveys the struggle of flawed human beings to become more humane.

The Israelites approached the altar in order to attain closeness to the Divine–to experience what we today would call spiritual elevation, a consciousness of being lifted up to something higher than themselves. They drew nearer to God not by denying the body and its drives but by raising the physical to a sacred purpose. From the rituals of worship set forth in Vayikra we learn that aggression need not be extinguished in the personality in order to lead a holy life; it may instead be channeled in constructive directions and employed for the good.

A Talmudic passage reminds us that certain traits may be inborn, but character is never determined by fate. All human energies are ours to activate as we wish, in accordance with our freedom. Rav Nachman bar Yitzchak observed: “One who is born under the sign of Mars will be a shedder of blood.” Rav Ashi did not see such a prediction as necessarily bad, for as he pointed out, one could “shed blood” for a good cause–by becoming “either a surgeon,…a ritual slaughterer (shochet), or a circumciser (mohel)” (BT Shabbat 156a).

So we may aspire, even today, to be a kingdom of priests–a people committed to elevating and sanctifying even the darkest forces within the psyche. If we closely read the seemingly dry instructions and bloody details of parashat Vayikra, we learn that through the discipline of our faith we can redeem what is broken and flawed within ourselves, transforming barbaric urges into opportunities for blessing.

From “Mishkan T’filah / A Reform Siddur”:

FOR OUR COUNTRY p.376

THUS SAYS ADONAI, This is what I desire: to unlock the fetters of wickedness, and untie the cords of lawlessness; to let the oppressed go free, to break off every yoke. Share your bread with the hungry, and take the wretched poor into your home. When you see the naked, give clothing, and do not ignore your own kin.

O GUARDIAN of life and liberty, may our nation always merit Your protection. Teach us to give thanks for what we have by sharing it with those who are in need. Keep our eyes open to the wonders of creation, and alert to the care of the earth. May we never be lazy in the work of peace; may we honor those who have [served, suffered or] died in defense of our ideals. Grant our leaders wisdom and forbearance. May they govern with justice and compassion. Help us all to appreciate one another, and to respect the many ways that we may serve You. May our homes be safe from affliction and strife, and our country be sound in body and spirit. Amen.

PRAYER FOR THE STATE OF ISRAEL p.552

O HEAVENLY ONE, Protector and Redeemer of Israel, bless the State of Israel which marks the dawning of hope for all who seek peace. Shield it beneath the wings of your love; spread over it the canopy of Your peace; send Your light and truth to all who lead and advise, guiding them with Your good counsel. Establish peace in the land and fullness of joy for all who dwell there. Amen.

FOR HEALING

We recite MI SHEBËRACH for the victims of brutality, abuse, fear, natural disasters, pandemics, violence, and war; for all those at home alone; for all those in need of physical, emotional, and mental healing. “R’fuah sh’lëmah” – a complete recovery!

YAHRZEITS/ANYOS

We say KADDISH YATOM for those of our friends and families who have died and been buried this last week; those in the period of Sh’loshim (30 days since burial); those who have died in the last year; and those whose Yahrzeits/Anyos occur at this time; as well as the victims of brutality, disease, natural disasters, war and violence.

This coming week, 13 Adar II through 19 Adar II, we lovingly remember:

Edmund Burke Harris

Father of Rachel Harris

Irma Fabela

Aunt of Ida Farmer

Those victims of the Shoah (Holocaust) who died at this time of year.

“Zichronam liv’rachah” – May their memories be for blessing.

TORAH STUDY AND SHAZOOM-PUZOOM

We will meet as usual at the regular times for Torah Study and Shazoom this evening, Friday, March 22, 2024. Please see the NEW Torah Study-Shazoom schedule below. THIS week we start studying the Book of Esther, which is found in Ketuvim (Writings).

Zoom regularly updates its security and performance features. Making sure you have the latest version of Zoom, please join us online this evening with wine/grape juice for Kiddush and Challah for Motzi.

Topic: Torah Study – Book of Esther

Time: Mar 22, 2024 06:00 PM Arizona

and/or

Shazoom – Erev Shabbat Service

Time: Mar 22, 2024 07:30 PM Arizona

To join Torah Study and/or Shazoom click on the following link [you may need to copy it into your browser]: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/72510500854?pwd=Z3VQZWF4U1BBZytNYmh3aHFTWkFDZz09

Meeting ID: 725 1050 0854

Passcode: 4NrMk0

Hint: The last character of the password is the number zero.

This year, our Friday evening Shazoom service, March 22, 2024, will include Purim music and a reading from Megilat Esther. Please have at hand Hamantaschen or whatever you would like to nosh on after the service.

Shabbat Shalom – Buen Shabbat/Gut Shabbos

Chag Purim Sameach!

-Ruben

PS – About the Book of Esther and Purim, and the NEW schedule through June 2024:

From Reform Judaism

https://reformjudaism.org/jewish-holidays/purim

https://reformjudaism.org/what-shushan-purim

From Jewish Women’s Archive

https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/esther-bible

https://jwa.org/topics/purim

From The Torah.com

https://www.thetorah.com/topic/esther