Shabbat shalom and new flags

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.