Friday Night Services, 6/26, at 7:00 pm

No Shabbat morning services tomorrow, but there is a special mincha service at 7:30 p.m.

We will be celebrating the bar mitzvah of Nadav Rosenberg. We would like to wish the Rosenberg family a hearty mazal tov on their simcha and thank them for sponsoring the seuda shlishit meal following the Mincha service.

Rabbi Tarlow’s weekly Parasha:
This week, we read the Torah section called “Chukkat” (Numbers 19:1-22:2). Lay readers and Biblical students alike will note that this section is not an easy section to read. The Parasha’s wilderness experience acts as a counter-point to the tale found in the Garden of Eden. If Eden represents life’s ideal dream, now the Desert of Tzin presents us with the other side of life, that of the harshness of life’s reality. Tzin is a barren place, a place to go through rather than to.
In this section everything seems to go wrong for the People of Israel and for their leader Moses. Now the People of Israel begin to realize that freedom is not an ideal dream, but rather it is a harsh reality composed of the battles for daily life. To be free means to accept life’s challenges and find a way to face and overcome them. In this week’s parashah we read about how Moses loses patience with the people, how Miriam dies, and how the nation’s naïve idealism is confronted and then transformed into the reality that life is an ongoing struggle for survival.
Parashaht Chukat is not meant to depress us. Rather it is a lesson in life’s challenges. This section teaches us that there is no life without crises; that problems are not obstacles placed in front of us by G’d but rather challenges which G’d gives us. In other words, it is we who must define the events of our lives and how we chose to view them.
To live is to overcome obstacles, it is to learn from them and to become stronger because of them. Midbar Tzin, the Wilderness of Zin as it is called in English, represents the adult side of life. It is alone in the wilderness that we, as a people, learn that even there, G’d is with us. It is in the wilderness that we also learn that paradise is not a gift from G’d but rather the results of what we accomplish by ourselves. In Parashat Chukkat we learn that no one gets to a promised land without a willingness to struggle, to accept hardships and the many detours on life’s path.
Although life is never easy, it is a challenge that forces us to seek a better world by using the talents and gifts that G’d gives us every day. We call that process in Hebrew: “tikkun olam” meaning” the repairing of the world”. The way that you answer the question: “How will I handle my journey through the Wilderness of Zin?” greatly speaks to who you are and how you choose to determine your path through life. What is your path? How do you deal with life’s obstacles, by complaining or by doing?

Cantor Ben-Moshe’s Weekly Message:
This week’s parshah, Hukkath, deals extensively with death-the sacrifice of the Red Heifer for purification after contact with death, and then the deaths of Aharon and of Miriam. The descriptions of the deaths of Moshe’s siblings and partners in leadership illustrate what the rite of the Red Heifer comes to teach-when we encounter death, we experience it fully, we mourn, and then we return to the land of the living. Bodily death is an inevitable part of life, and must be faced and not avoided. The People of Israel stop their journeying and mourn for Miriam and Aharon, and then they move on. When one comes into direct contact with death, one sits for seven days, then purifies and returns to life. The Torah teaches us a balanced way of dealing with death, which many non-Jews admire. May we all enjoy s’machot, happy occasions-but when we inevitably face death, let us face it squarely, inhabit our grief-and then return to the life which is our gift from God. Shabbat Shalom.
Hazzan Yitzhak Ben-Moshe

Friday Night Services, 6/12, at 7:00 pm

Shabbat morning services, June 13 at 9am, Torah service at 9:45 followed by a delicious kiddush sponsored by Gregg and Michelle Philipson in honor of Sharon and Lior Sternfeld.

Rabbi Gisser’s Conversion class Sunday June 14 at 9 am, with shacharit at 8:20 am.

Sisterhood Event, this Sunday June 14th at 2pm at Beth El. It’ll be Sew Much Fun! We will sew challah covers! Open to all. There will also be a kid friendly sewing activity.

Summer spoken Hebrew class this coming Thursday.
Congregation Beth El will be starting a summer spoken Hebrew class for adults and interested teens this Thursday June 18 at 7pm. Please let us know ASAP if you are interested. The class will be taught by our own Morah Shiry and will be for beginners. It will also include a short, but highly informative davening portion from Gabbai Bam Rubenstein immediately following. RSVP or questions

Thank you to Hal and Elaine Jacobs for replacing our shul flags with brand new ones!

A hearty thank you to our “Kiddush Crew” for preparing a terrific shabbat kidush: Barbara, Michelle, Claudia, Iris and Mary. Ask us how you join this merry band of cooks! Everyone welcome!

Rabbi Peter Tarlow, Center for Crypto Judaism, Weekly Parasha:
This week’s Torah section is: “Sh’lach L’chah meaning: Send forth”. You will find it in the Book of Numbers 13:1-15:41. Reading this week’s parashah we cannot help but connect its name to an earlier section found in Genesis: “Lech L’chah meaning Go forth”. In Lech l’chah G’d tells Abraham to change the place where he lives and to change his life. In this week’s parashah, it is not G’d commanding Abraham to move but Moses who commands the Israelites to send forth twelve spies to scout out the land that generations back G’d had given to the people of Israel. In the case of Lech l’chah, Abraham obeys the command, successfully moves from Ur to Canaan and from moral darkness to spiritual light. In this week’s case, the twelve spies will fail. It is fear and lack of faith in themselves and in G’d that will turn success into failure.
Are not these two Torah portions different sides of the same coin? Both leaving Ur and Sinai required acts of courage and the need to leave the familiar and accept risk. Both Bible portions share a common theme: that without an optimistic sense of faith, we lack the courage to dream and thus become eternal slaves of fear.
In this week’s section the text teaches us that ten of the spies brought back a highly negative
and pessimistic report stating: the enemy is too strong, the land cannot be conquered. From their perspective Jewish history would die before it was born. As in the case of most pessimists they were excellent in presenting the problem, but offered no alternative solution. Pessimists, despite what they may claim, tend to become frozen in their fear of success.
Realistic optimists take a very different approach to life. Thus, two of the twelve spies take state: “Im chafetz banu ha’Shem v’hevi otanu el ha’aretz ha’zot utnah lanu eretz asher hi zavat chalav udvash/if the Lord so desires it, then He will bring us into this land and give it to us, for it is a land flowing with milk and honey.” (14:8). The two positive spikes knew the task would not be easy but with strength of faith and a sense of dedication G’d would not abandon them and they would succeed. These two spies, Caleb and Joshua, teach us an important lesson: Pessimism accomplishes nothing. Indeed, pessimists not only hold themselves back, but also destroy the spirit of those with whom they associate. Pessimists are not realists. Realists offer solutions, pessimists offer only fear but never alternative solutions.
Judaism is not a religion for pessimists. We Jews are commanded to be persons of faith; not to be deniers of faith. Judaism insists that we have faith in oneself and in G’d. Is not our history a 5,000 year journey of faith and optimism? Ours is the story of a small people refusing to give into “the reality of the pessimist.” It was only with faith that even as we faced the horrors of Nazi Europe, we were willing to rebuild a modern nation from the ashes of Europe’s bigotry.
To be an optimist is to sanctify the past and to embrace the future. As a people of faith we have no other choice then to remember the words of Joshua and Caleb “be strong and to be of good courage” for like our ancestors in Sinai we have no alternative. Are you a person of optimistic faith or negative pessimism?

Cantor Ben Moshe’s Message
This week’s parshah, Sh’lah L’kha, is to me one of the saddest stories in the Torah. Reacting to the spies’ negative report about the Promised Land, the People of Israel refuse to go there. When they are told that they are therefore doomed to die in the desert, they have a change of heart and attempt to conquer the Land – only to face defeat and death. Isn’t this so very human? So often we decide to do something only to find that it is too late, and our efforts are in vain – if only we had acted sooner. It is a difficult lesson to learn, as many spiritual lessons are. In such situations, we need to recognize our failure, and attempt to apply the lesson to the future. Not an easy task, but that is the only way to grow. Shabbat Shalom.