Parashat Bo

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Services Friday night, 1/23, at 7:00 pm
Services Saturday morning, 1/24, at 9:00 am with the Torah Service around 9:50.
Parashat Bo – Rabbi Gisser will be giving the D’var Torah

Unveiling for Elinor Pusin z”l will be Sunday, January 25, at 2:00 PM in Pflugerville at Cook-Walden Cemetery
14501 North IH-35
Pflugerville, TX 78660

Ma’ariv services every Wednesday at 7:00 pm with Rabbi Gisser’s Class on Death and Afterlife following services on 1/28, 2/4, and 2/11

Movies in the Shul – The Pawnbroker – Saturday, January 31 at 6:30 PM
Movie will be shown followed by a discussion led by Rabbi Gisser

Rabbi Tarlow’s Weekly Parashah from the
Center for Latino – Jewish Relations.
Due to a busy travel schedule this week we study two sections that normally are not studied together. We look at Parashat Bo (Exodus 10:1-13:16) and also next week’s section, Parashat B’shalach. (Exodus 13:17-17:16). Although these two long weekly sections seem disconnected, if we read them carefully we can see that in reality the two sections are, in many ways interconnected.
Parashat Bo speaks of the last three plagues to consume Egypt, culminating in the death of Egypt’s first-born sons. It is a time of liberation for Israel and a time in which the average Egyptian saw the collapse of his/her society. Perhaps no one was ready for the changes that would take place. For Israel, this would be a time of freedom; for Egypt the realization that its leaders had taken the nation on a catastrophic path of destruction.
Perhaps we can understand this “divergence of history” by the two forms of bread found in these two Bible sections: matzah and manna. Why did the Israelites have to bake bread at the last minute? Did they not know that the time of their liberation was soon to come? Perhaps the answer lies in the way slaves versus free people understand the concept of “time”. Slaves live in an eternal present; free human beings develop collective pasts and futures. Thus, the leitmotif found in the first of these two sections may well be a “constant present of fear” without hope for a better future.
The second section studied, Parashat B’Shlach, on the other hand, is about the act of taking risks as part of life. Reading this parashah, there is the clear sense that our future is never separated from our past, rather the future is our collective past and projected into time. This parashah is the first section in the Bible where Israel is now a free nation and faces the need to become responsible for its collective future. Israel can no longer cling to the “flesh pots” of Egypt, it must now enter the “Midbar” meaning the “wilderness of time and space”. It is the emptiness of space and time that now becomes Israel’s responsibility to fill.
Both Bible sections deal with bread, known in the Bible as the “substance of life”. In parashat Bo, the bread is “matzah.” baked in haste and without leaven. It is called the bread of affliction, the bread of slavery. In the second section, Parashat “B’Shlach”, the bread is called “manna.” This is the bread of freedom, the miracle bread, the bread of many different tastes. Manna is a gift of G’d, and unlike matzah that tastes the same to each person; the manna of freedom offers uniqueness of taste to all who eat it.
Perhaps these two types of breads symbolize the difference between slavery and freedom, between being an infant and becoming an adult. The slave, is the eternal child afraid to plan for the future, he/she lives shackled by the past and in an ever-present state of fear. The free person, the adult, sees the present as gift and just as artist does, the free person sees the emptiness of time as a way to sculpt an ever-evolving future.
These two Biblical sections pose a challenge to each of us: are we slaves in an “Egypt of our own making,” shackled by our lack of reality and fearful of building a future as partners with G’d? Are we G’d’s partners building bridges upon which we cross the Red Sea, and begin our own journey across the desert of fear toward the redemption of the Promised Land? What are you?

Cantor Ben Moshe’s Message
This week we observed Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, when we celebrate the life and legacy of the great leader of the Civil Rights Movement. King of course drew his inspiration from the story in our parshah this week, Parshat Bo. The narrative of Israel’s liberation from Egyptian bondage was of course an example for King and the other heroes of the Civil Rights Movement in their struggle to liberate African-Americans from the bondage of segregation. We should be proud that our story inspires others to seek their freedom – and we should be proud that Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel and many other Jews marched with King and joined the Freedom Riders. Our Torah teaches that God wants human freedom – let us continue the legacy of Moshe Rabbenu, Moses our Teacher, and of the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., and always work for the freedom of all. Shabbat Shalom. Hazzan Yitzhak Ben-Moshe

 

Parashat Ve’era – Special Friday services

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Dear Congregants and Friends,

We would like to invite you all to our Friday night Kabbalat Shabbat service, tonight at 7pm. We will have our regular service, but invite the children of the congregation to come and join us in singing Lecha Dodi and getting a special blessing. We will have coffee, juice and cake at the end.
NEW E-MAIL: – PLEASE READ. We are transitioning to a new e-mail in order to better serve you. It is news@bethelaustin.org. Please subscribe to this email when you receive it as it is the only way that you will be able to get the e-mail. As always, we don’t send many, so you will never receive too many, but this is a very important way of communication. Please also bear with us as we transition.
On Sunday morning, we will have Sunday school at 10am.
PLEASE NOTE that there will not be an Intro to Judaism class this week though.
HOLD THE DATE : We will have another work day on Sunday January 25 and could use as many people as possible.
Wednesday evening davening will be at 7pm and the very popular class on Jewish concepts of Death and the afterlife will immediately follow.
Movies in the shul – remember our next one is motzei Shabbat, January 31, at about 6:30pm when we will be screening The Pawn Broker.
We are forming a Hebrew conversation class on Thursday evenings – please let us know if you are interested ASAP so we can get an idea of numbers and interest.
Cantor Ben-Moshe’s Weekly message:   This week’s parshah, Va’era, begins the narrative of the Ten Plagues, which came down on Egypt as a consequence of the continued enslavement of B’nei Yisrael.  The plagues begin as annoyances-water turning to blood, frogs, lice-and progress to dangerous and at the end deadly.  They come in three sets of three, and they are all natural phenomena, except the last Plague of the First-Born.  In this way, God proves the futility of worshipping the forces of nature.  None of the gods of Egypt, from the river-god of the Nile to the frog-goddess of fertility, to Ra, the sun-god, chief of the Egyptian pantheon, had any power.  Only the Creator of the Universe has that sort of power.  As Jews, we are called on to witness that there is only One Supreme Power, Who alone is worthy of worship.  As for Nature, we may see God’s presence there, but Nature is not God, and while we recognize that we are part of Creation, we look beyond the material world to the Spirit which is beyond.  Shabbat Shalom.

Parashat Shemot and a host of New Year classes!

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Dear Congregants and friends,
Please join us tonight, Friday January 9th at 7pm for our weekly Kabalat Shabbat services – filled with song and meaningful prayer as well as some wonderful folks.
Tomorrow morning at 9am, we continue our weekend services with Shabbat morning services, followed by the Torah service, Dvar Torah by Rabbi Gisser, children’s story time and a lovely kidush at the end.
Sunday morning we are excited to restart our Sunday school classes at 10am.
Wednesday evenings we continue our evening services and classes:

Please join us tonight at 7:30 pm for the start of Rabbi Gisser’s six week course on the Jewish concepts of Death and Afterlife.   The class is free and open to the community.
There is no greater question in life than that of death.  This course will explore some of the Jewish concepts of death and the Olam HaBa, the world to come, and will be sure to change the way you look at life. Please plan to come at 7:00 pm for Maariv services before the class.
Sisterhood events for January include:
Let’s Welcome the New Year with the upcoming events for January 2015 with a bang!
REMINDER: Sunday, January 11, 2015 – It has been requested that we have another Mahjong Class.  12:30 – 3:00 pm – we will be having an informal get together and have a “Mahjong 101” Class as well as play other games.  No children this time.
We will be meeting at Juliette Meinstein’s home.  E-mail us for address.
Please RSVP to Elaine Jacobs at (jaqel@yahoo.com) or 512-261-0112 by Friday, January 9, 2015.  Please bring a healthy dairy, parev desert or little nosh (like cut up fruit, veggie plate, cheese platter, etc.) if you can.
Sunday, January 25, 2015 – after Hebrew/Sunday School, a sewing arts and crafts class will be held, at Beth El, where we will learn how to make Matza covers for Pescah.  This class will start at 12:00 noon.
Please RSVP to Elaine Jacobs at (jaqel@yahoo.com) or 512-261-0112 by Wednesday, January 21, 2015.  Please bring a healthy dairy, parev desert or little nosh (like cut up fruit, veggie plate, cheese platter, etc.) if you can.
Rabbi Tarlow’s weekly parasha:
This week we begin the Bible’s second book. In English the book is known as Exodus, named after the fact that to a great extend the book deals with Israel’s liberation from slavery and its return home to the land of Israel.  In Hebrew the book has a different name: shmot, meaning “names”.  Some have argued that what distinguishes a slave from a free man or woman is the fact that slaves, almost as pets, are given names. To be a slave is to be nameless, to live at the will of one’s master. Slaves have no past or future. To be a slave is to live in an eternal present, each day is the same and when the slave stops producing then the master may discard his (her) slave at will.  Perhaps this is the reason that the Ten Commandments place such emphasis on the concept of Sabbath.  To celebrate a Sabbath is to celebrate one’s control of time, to realize that life is more than mere labor, to create a crossroads between dignity and eternity.

Shmot begins then with names, but is there an irony in the book?  Despite the fact that the second book of the Bible begins with names, we note that there are no women’s names present.  Is it that the names mentioned are names from the past and thus in a subtle way the text is indicating that a new beginning is to take place, that women will now not only have a role in history but will enter into its pages?  Although women played significant roles in Genesis, does Exodus indicate a shift, that women would now play a significant role in the liberation story?  Is their absence then one of oversight or intentional, does it act as the bridge to freedom not only for men but also for women?

Throughout the Exodus tales, however, women play either primary roles or secondary roles in the liberation story.   Some of the leading women in the Exodus story are Shifrah and Puah, the nurses who stand up to Pharaoh’s planned genocide, Miriam, Moses’ sister who hides him from Pharaoh, Pharaoh’s daughter who raises Moses, and Tziporah who saves her husband Moses from a near fatal encounter with G’d.

Without these women’s deeds Israel never would have won its freedom from Egypt.  The text does not tell us why women’s names are not included in the first chapter.  Is it that until Sinai women were not only mere slaves, but also second class slaves? Is it that those who do are often left out of history, or is the text teaching us that there are always people behind the scenes who permit the principal actors of history to perform? Is the text teaching us that when we study history we need to look at not only who is named but also who is not named?


Why do you think?  What does the absence of these women’s names teach us about how we understand our past and shape our future?
Cantor Ben-Moshe’s weekly message – Last week we read in Parshat Vayiggash of Joseph and his family, of their reunification after many years.      Joseph of course shows the moral courage that sustained him through the long years of being cut off from his family-he refuses to avenge himself on the brothers who sold him into slavery in Egypt.  His brother Judah also shows strength of character, as he repents fully for selling Joseph and offers himself in order to save his brother Benjamin from a similar fate.  These two, Joseph and Judah, became the progenitors of the two most important tribes of Israel.  May the moral strength of our ancestors continue to inspire our deeds in our own days.  Shabbat Shalom

BERS Blooming in 2015

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The children at the Beth El Religious school are learning in so many innovative and fun ways. Whether going on a field trip on Tu Be Shevat to see trees blooming in the neighborhood, making fruit salads, talking about helping the needy in relevant and meaningful ways, there is just a buzz of learning around the school on Sunday mornings.