THE TORAH READING FOR 21 ADAR II 5784 MARCH 29-30, 2024

March 29, 2024 by templekol

SHAZOOM ONLY 6:30 PM March 29, 2024

OUR HEARTS ARE WITH THE PEOPLE OF ISRAEL

From “Mishkan T’filah / A Reform Siddur” p.385

HELP ME PERFECT my ways of loving and caring. Inspire me to make myself whole so that I may honor Your name and create a world of justice and peace.

PARSHA

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

Tzav (צַו — Command [Aaron and His Sons]) – Leviticus 6:1-8:36

The Eternal One spoke to Moses, saying: “Command Aaron and his sons thus: This is the ritual of the burnt offering: The burnt offering itself shall remain where it is burned upon the altar all night until morning, while the fire on the altar is kept going on it.” – Leviticus 6:1-2

SUMMARY:

The five sacrifices that the priests are to perform are described. (6:1-7:38)
Limitations on the consumption of meat are delineated. (7:17-27)
Details about the ordination of Aaron and his sons as priests and the preparation of the Tabernacle as a holy place are given. (8:1-36)

HAFTARAH – Shabbat Parah

Ezekiel 36:22-36 [historic: Ashkenazi: Ezekiel 36:16-38 & Sefardi: Ezekiel 36:16-36]

RECOMMENDED READING

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

Who’s Afraid of the Dark?

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. NEXT week we will finish studying the Book of Esther, which is found in the Ketuvim (Writings). Read this week’s Torah Portion at https://www.sefaria.org/Leviticus.6.1-8.36 and Haftarah at https://www.sefaria.org/Ezekiel.36.22-36

From “The Torah / A Women’s Commentary” edited by Dr. Tamara Cohn Eskenazi and Rabbi Andrea L. Weiss, Ph.D.

צו Tzav – Leviticus 6:1-8:36

Contemporary Reflection – by Nancy Fuchs Kreimer, pp. 610-11

ELIZABETH EHRLICH WAS ONCE a comfortable “cultural Jew.” The practice of Jewish religion held little attraction for her. Miriam’s Kitchen: A Memoir (1997) is Ehrlich’s report on a year spent learning from her mother-in-law, Miriam, a Polish Holocaust survivor, the details of domestic religion–the laws and the lore. As the year passed, Ehrlich grew increasingly interested in becoming a ritual specialist in her home. She wanted to “infuse the minutiae of everyday life with something more.” She recognized that someone would have to make this a “priority mission,” and that that someone would be her.

We can draw an arc from Elizabeth Ehrlich’s kitchen back to the Torah portion before us. Many contemporary Jews find this portion among those that make their eyes glaze over. Reform theologian Rachel Adler reports that when she was growing up she never heard the word “ritual” without it being prefaced by the word “meaningless.” Likewise, Arnold Eisen, a scholar of contemporary Judaism, for many years kept his sights on so-called higher things (like faith and covenant) in lieu of studying the sacrificial system (Taking Hold of Torah, 1997, p. 71). If the rituals of sacrifice in the sanctuary (6:1–7:48) seem to be of little interest, the elaborate rites for ordaining priests (8:1–36) appear to be both archaic and problematic in their exclusion of women from spiritual leadership.

Over the years Adler, Eisen, and many others have come to appreciate the power of the rituals described in this parashah. As we learn about ritual as a human phenomenon, we come to understand it as a language of its own, uniquely meaningful. To do justice to the sacrificial system, we need to contextualize Israelite sacrifice with the help of anthropology, sociology, comparative religion, and even neurobiology. We can ask also how this ritual of sacrifice was transformed in Christianity and in Judaism. When we consider the Jewish transformation of the sacrificial system, the question of gender, power, spirituality, and leadership can emerge in a more nuanced light.

Anthropologist Mary Douglas, who has been called “the mother of ritual studies,” shows that Leviticus has a specific way to approach the subject of spirituality and the body in relation to sacrifices….

Christianity transformed sacrifices by bringing sacrifices’ symbolism right into the heart of its worship service. Priests prepared and congregants ate and drank the Eucharist, the body and blood of the ultimate “lamb” of God. Carolyn Walker Bynum documents that although women were marginalized, in the Middle Ages nuns and upper-class lay women found their way into this system of sacralized food through rituals of fasting and in ecstatic feasting (Holy Feast and Holy Fast, 1987).

After the destruction of Jerusalem’s Temple, the Rabbis replaced the sacrificial system in two ways. The first was to commune with God through prayer and study. The second was via a system that maintained sacrifices in a new form, hinted at in 7:22–27: The whole complex of laws and rituals around preparing and eating food became another way in which the sacrificial system lived on. With this change, women became the ritual specialists for what was once temple sacrifice in its domestic transformation–because women in traditional Jewish society, as in many cultures, control food resources.

The Talmud says that the table upon which we eat is like the altar of the Temple (BT B’rachot 55a). We are bidden to wash our hands before breaking bread not simply to cleanse them, but because the priests washed their hands before they offered a sacrifice. When making bread, the baker takes a small piece of the dough (challah) and burns it to represent the sacrifice. On the Sabbath, the challot represent the showbreads sacrificed at the Temple.

Guarding the traditional food taboos, taking challah, preparing the home for holidays and for the Sabbath (literally “making Sabbath”), and distributing food to the poor–all of these are areas in which women have controlled and executed significant ritual functions. There is an old saying quoted by Hayim Soloveitchik: “A yidishe bale-boste (Jewish home-maker) takes instruction from her mother only.”

Susan Starr Sered, an anthropologist of religion, conducted a study of illiterate Kurdish Jewish women who were living in Jerusalem. That research led her to challenge preconceptions about the nature of spirituality and the holy. In her book Women as Ritual Experts (1992), she reports that these women developed religious culture alongside the Judaism of text and synagogue practiced by the men. As she notes, what anthropologist Robert Redfield calls the “little tradition” was based in the home, where women were the ritual experts. The domestic religion used many of the same symbols and ideas of the “male” Judaism but applied them to sanctify the daily tasks of the women, in the domain that they controlled. In Sered’s study, food preparation loomed large, from maintaining the laws of kashrut in the home to distributing cookies at the graves of ancestors after prayers had been answered. These women had developed what she called “devotional autonomy.”

During the Holocaust, some Jewish women who were interned in Terezin compiled a cookbook from memory. The Terezin prisoners recalled and wrote down their recipes for chocolate torte, breast of goose, plum strudel, and other traditional dishes while surviving on potato scraps. Their effort was a kind of spiritual revolt, an act of resistance against brutality, calling to mind the everyday world they had known and presided over. These half-forgotten recipes, scribbled on scraps of paper, became the texts that helped them transcend their situation. Decades later, their book found its way to the daughter of one of the authors who had died in the camps. The book was published as In Memory’s Kitchen in 1996 by Cara de Silva.

Elizabeth Ehrlich–the kitchen apprentice to her mother-in-law–learned something surprising about spiritual leadership. This is not to say that women today should accept exclusion from the realms of study or politics and retreat back to home and hearth. Rather, as we seek lives of spiritual integrity, we would do well to widen our gaze beyond the so-called higher things, to recall the power of the home through which Jewish women–against great odds–have powerfully continued connection to God and community across generations.

Pesach 2024 / פֶּסַח 5784

From Hebcal https://www.hebcal.com/holidays/pesach-2024

Passover, the Feast of Unleavened Bread

Pesach for Hebrew Year 5784 begins in the Diaspora at sundown on Monday, 22 April 2024 and ends at nightfall on Tuesday, 30 April 2024. [In Israel and for Reform Jews Pesach is seven days. See Reform Judaism/Passover https://reformjudaism.org/jewish-holidays/passover]

Passover (Hebrew: פֶּסַח Pesach) commemorates the story of the Exodus, in which the ancient Israelites were freed from slavery in Egypt. Passover begins on the 15th day of the month of Nisan in the Jewish calendar, which is in spring in the Northern Hemisphere, and is celebrated for seven or eight days. It is one of the most widely observed Jewish holidays.

Temple Kol Hamidbar will have an in-person Seder in Sierra Vista on Monday, April 22, the first night of Pesach. For details, please see the email sent on March 25, by Dr. Sam Caron, Congregational President. The deadline to RSVP is April 15. The suggested donation is $35 for adults and $25 for children. Make checks payable to Temple Kol Hamidbar and mail payment to the Temple address as soon as possible.

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, 20 Adar II through 26 Adar II, we lovingly remember:

Paul Jogun

Godson of Peggy Patz

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

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

SHAZOOM ONLY

We will meet for Shazoom ONLY this Friday evening, March 29, 2024. Please see the NEW Torah Study-Shazoom schedule below. NEXT week we will finish studying the Book of Esther, which is found in the 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.

Shazoom – Erev Shabbat Service

Time: Mar 29, 2024 06:30 PM Arizona

To join 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.

Shabbat Shalom – Buen Shabbat/Gut Shabbos!

-Ruben

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

From Reform Judaism

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

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