TORAH READING FOR SHABBAT NACHAMU 13 AV 5784 August 16-17, 2024

August 16, 2024 by templekol

SHAZOOM ONLY 6:30 PM August 16, 2024

OUR HEARTS ARE WITH THE PEOPLE OF ISRAEL AND ALL THE VICTIMS OF CONFLICT

From “Mishkan T’filah / A Reform Siddur” p.178

SHALOM RAV al Yisraël amcha tasim l’olam, [v’al kol yoshvëi tëvël, v’imru. Amen.]

GRANT ABUNDANT PEACE to Israel Your people forever, [and all who inhabit the earth. Amen.]

PARSHA

From Reform Judaism https://reformjudaism.org/torah/portion/va-etchanan

Va-et’chanan (וָאֶתְחַנַּן – “[Moses] pleaded with the Eternal”) – Deuteronomy 3:23−7:11

I pleaded with the Eternal at that time, saying, “O Eternal God, You who let Your servant see the first works of Your greatness and Your mighty hand, You whose powerful deeds no god in heaven or on earth can equal! Let me, I pray, cross over and see the good land on the other side of the Jordan, that good hill country, and the Lebanon.” – Deuteronomy 3:23-25

SUMMARY

Moses pleads with God to let him enter the Land of Israel with the people, but God once more refuses his request. (3:23–28)
Moses orders the Children of Israel to pay attention and follow the laws given by God in order to be worthy of the land they are about to receive. (4:1–40)
Specific areas of the land are set aside to serve as cities of refuge. (4:41–43)
The covenant at Sinai and the Ten Commandments are recalled. Once again, the people are exhorted to heed God’s commandments. (5:1–30)
Moses speaks the words of the Sh’ma, the credo of Judaism, and commands Israel to show their love for Adonai and keep God’s laws and ordinances. (6:1–25)
Moses warns the people not to commit idolatry by worshiping the gods of the nations they will conquer in Israel. (7:1–11)

HAFTARAH

Isaiah 40:1-26 Shabbat Nachamu

Shabbat Nachamu 2024 / שַׁבָּת נַחֲמוּ 5784

Shabbat Nachamu for Hebrew Year 5784 begins at sundown on Friday, 16 August 2024 and ends at nightfall on Saturday, 17 August 2024.

Shabbat Nachamu (“Sabbath of comfort/ing) takes its name from the haftarah from Isaiah in the Book of Isaiah 40:1-26 that speaks of “comforting” the Jewish people for their suffering. It the first of seven haftarahs of consolation leading up to the holiday of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. [This corresponds to Parashat Va’etchanan.]

RECOMMENDED READING

From Reform Judaism https://reformjudaism.org/torah/portion/va-etchanan

Seeing the Face of God

By: Rabbi Sari Laufer

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 start studying the Book of Proverbs (מִשְׁלֵי – Mishlëi), which is found in Ketuvim (Writings). Read this week’s Torah Portion at https://www.sefaria.org/Deuteronomy.3.23-7.11, and the Haftarah at https://www.sefaria.org/Isaiah.40.1-26.

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

ואתחנן Va-et’chanan – Deuteronomy 3:23–7:11

Contemporary Reflection – Carol Ochs, pp. 1084-5

THE SECOND ACCOUNT of the Decalogue (“Ten Commandments”) described in this portion has long been scrutinized for how it differs from the first version in parashat Yitro. One obvious difference is the reason given for observing the Sabbath. Exodus 20:11 states that we should rest on the seventh day in imitation of God at Creation, but Deuteronomy 5:15 focuses on our need as humans to rest. Another discrepancy is that Exodus 19 situates the revelation at Sinai, while 5:2 refers to this sacred site as Horeb. But the most significant difference between these two texts lies in the Israelites’ own state of mind.

When the Israelites stand at Mount Sinai in Exodus 19–20, they have successfully fled the Egyptians, crossed the Sea of Reeds, and been fed in the wilderness on manna; the danger is behind them. When they hear the first of the “Ten Words”–“I יהוה am your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt”–each of them has a personal understanding of the God they have known and experienced.

In Deuteronomy, however, the danger lies ahead. Of those hearing Moses’ recitation of the commandments this time, almost none actually fled Egypt themselves. Earlier, they may have witnessed their rebellious parents’ refusal to fight for the Promised Land (Numbers 13–14); but now, precious few of them still has a living parent. The giants of their youth–Moses, Aaron, and Miriam–are either dead or soon will be. The Israelites themselves, untested, will have to battle their way into the Promised Land in order to settle there. In Exodus, the Israelites are preoccupied with the present; in Deuteronomy, they are focused on the future.

Religion promises us a meaningful world. If we are not free, whether because of physical or psychological enslavement, then life may not be meaningful. But death also threatens meaning, so one of religion’s major tasks is to reconcile us to the losses we experience and, ultimately, to our own mortality. Our religion must convince us that although death exists, meaning abides. We are finite not only because we die, but also because we have chosen the particular life we live. A people’s story spreads over a large canvas and lifts up everyone who participates in its story. When we identify with those who came before us and when we are invested in those who will come after us, then we are part of something much larger than our individual lives and efforts.

While religion can help us find meaning in the face of death, the experience of bereavement transcends our cognitive experience. In particular, with the death of one’s parents comes a feeling of loss and, subsequently, a quest for enduring values. During the final years in the wilderness, after their parents have died, the members of the generation about to enter into the Promised Land go through a gradual reassessment of their parents’ identities, trying to figure out who their ancestors were and who they are themselves. As Moses recounts all that has transpired since the Israelites escaped from Egypt, he emphasizes that the prior generation died because they lacked faith: disillusioned, they had doubted God’s plan to fulfill the covenant of the ancestors and settle them in the Promised Land. Now, standing in Moab, poised to complete the forty-year journey, the current generation comes to admire and appreciate the stark honesty of their parents, who had passed on the history of their own inadequacies so that their children would not “be like their ancestors, a wayward and defiant generation, a generation whose heart was inconstant, whose spirit was not true to God” (Psalm 78:8).

How much deeper their understanding of their parents must have become when they themselves became adults and assumed the formidable task of raising the next generation! Now they face the awesome but voluntary task of carrying on the chain of tradition. After all, if they do not do so, no one else will. Their parents’ passing likely led them to understand that they are part of something larger than themselves as well as to realize that they are merely a brief but significant moment in the life of the Jewish people. It is sad that we become fully human and adult when we touch death. The loss of our parents makes us aware that we, too, are part of a generation that will die.

As the Israelites listen to Moses repeat the Decalogue, their biological parents are gone and their parent figure, Moses, will soon die. How can they find the invincible parent? Somehow, the people must internalize their ideal parent–in other words, they must parent themselves–and then raise the next generation. Their focus must shift to the next generation, the one without grandparents. The experience makes us better appreciate why the concept of l’dor vador (“from generation to generation”) is so central in our tradition.

Since mourning is a creative process, we can ask what new growth there is in the Israelites’ understanding of the Decalogue. Its commandments initially were addressed to those who had directly experienced the exodus from Egypt. If these words were to have the same force for subsequent generations, they must understand the word “Egypt” to represent all the ways in which they are constricted, degraded, and enslaved. And so, as those about to enter the Promised Land hear Moses repeat these words, they think of the “Egypt” of loss and the long “hard labor” of mourning. The God who had brought them out of Egypt becomes the God who comforts them, dries their tears, and encourages them to continue on their way after their parents have been buried in the wilderness. The God of comfort becomes a crucial addition to the ways in which the Israelites understand the One who freed them “from Egypt with a mighty hand” (6:21). As they prepare to settle in the Promised Land and face the vicissitudes of the next part of their formation as the Jewish people, this revelation of the Divine will prove to be particularly important.

TU B’AV 2024 / טוּ בְּאָב 5784

Minor Jewish holiday of love

Tu B’Av for Hebrew Year 5784 begins at sundown on Sunday, 18 August 2024 and ends at nightfall on Monday, 19 August 2024.

Tu B’Av (Hebrew: ט״ו באב, the fifteenth of the month Av) is a minor Jewish holiday. In modern-day Israel, it is celebrated as a holiday of love (חג האהבה Ḥag HaAhava). It has been said to be an auspicious day for weddings.

PRAYERS

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 – El Na R’fa Na Lah!

We recite MI SHEBËRACH for the victims of abuse, brutality, conflicts, fear, natural disasters, pandemics, tragedies, violence of all kinds especially directed at individuals and specific communities including us, and war; for all those at home alone or lonely; 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, conflict, disease, natural disasters, pandemics, tragedies, violence of all kinds, and war.

This coming week, the 13 Av through the 19 of Av, we lovingly remember:

Roberta Gobstoob Morss

Mother of Susie Morss

Those victims of the Sho’ah (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 evening, Friday, August 16, 2024. Please see the NEW Torah Study-Shazoom schedule below. NEXT week we will start studying the Book of Proverbs (מִשְׁלֵי – Mishlëi), which is found in the Ketuvim (Writings). Which are your favorite verses?

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

Shazoom – Friday Night Service

Time: Aug 16, 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 Proverbs (משלי – Mishlëi) and the NEW schedule through October 2024:

From Reform Judaism

A Woman of Valor: An Interpretation for the 21st Century | Reform Judaism

Torah: The Tree of Life | Reform Judaism