We look forward to seeing you all tonight , Friday May 9 at 7pm for our lovely Kabalat Shabbat services.

Tomorrow, Saturday May 10 at 9am, we will have our Shabbat morning services, with the Torah service at approximately 9:45.  We will have our congregants Bam, Kevin and Yosef as well as Ricardo reading from the Torah in the culmination of their Torah Trope class this year.  We hope you can all come out and show your support.  Yesher Koach to all the students.  There will be a kidush lunch following services sponsored by the Koeller family.

Sunday afternoon we continue our ever popular Intro to Judaism classes. These popular classes are for anyone interested in refreshing their knowledge of Judaism and for those looking to convert.

Sunday May 11, as well as it being Mother’s Day is also the Israel Independence Day celebration at the J.  The event starts at 2-4:30 and is free and open to everyone.  Please see http://www.shalomaustin.org/ for more details.

Wednesday May 14 at 7pm is Bam Rubenstein’s class – Davening for the Diaspora.  Come learn all about Our Daily Prayers.

This week we read in Parshat B’har of the Sabbatical Year and the Jubilee Year.  In ancient Israel, on a set schedule land would lie fallow, debts would be cancelled andservants would go free, and in the Jubillee year land would revert to its original owners. It was as if there was a reset switch built into Israelite society, so that society wouldn’t become too unequal, and so the Land of Israel itself could observe a Sabbath and rest.  The Torah is very much concerned with equality-after all, we are taught that God created us all equally.  In fact, the Rabbis teach that all humanity started with one couple so that no one could claim superior ancestry over anyone else.  The Liberty Bell in Philadelphia, one of the most recognizable symbols of the United States, contains a quote from our parshah-“Proclaim liberty throughout the Land, and unto the inhabitants thereof”.  May we always follow the example of our parshah, and strive as individuals and as a society for true equality of all people.  Shabbat Shalom.

This week’s parashah views the people of Israel as one community and that land belongs to no one, but rather to G’d.  As such, we note a constant tension that runs throughout the text: Where does the individual’s rights end and his/her responsibility to society begin?  The parashah makes us debate the role of private versus public property and at what point does government oversight turn into government tyranny?  It is in this section that we re-read about the Shmitah (the Sabbath of the land ) and the Yovel, the Jubilee year. This redistribution is affirmed in the fact that the parashah reminds us that land belongs to G’d.  As such not only is life to observe a weekly Sabbath but we must also permit the earth to observe its Sabbaths, called the Yovel or Jubilee year. Moreover it is not we, humans who give the land its rest but rather it is the land that has its own responsibility to its Creator.  Just as human being then are to show gratitude to G’d through the Shabbat so too must the the earth also demonstrate its gratitude.

This week’s parashah asks if a society can survive if the individual becomes the final arbiter with no responsibility to and toward the “other”.  From Leviticus’ perspective our responsibilities are not only to ourselves, but also to our community, to the land, to time and to the Eternal. Thus we are not free to pick our own Sabbaths, but rather all Israel must make the seventh day holy.  Through this communal ownership of time, we transform Saturday into a national “cathedral of time.” 

This week’s and next week’s section emphasize actions. It teaches us that what we do and how we act toward others makes a difference and brings us farther from or closer to G’d.  The parashah reminds us that it is our duty to reach out to  others and to offer support and comfort during difficult times.  Thus we are to clothe the naked, visit the sick, comfort the mourner, and bury the dead.  These acts, and others,  are more than mere mitzvot, rather they are the practical means by which we help build a holy community.

Leviticus would not agree with the approach that many moderns take: that the individual is the final judge of all of his or her own actions.  Instead the book reminds us that such positions will lead to the “cult of individualism” and from such a lack of community and communal responsibilities, all will suffer from a world of selfishness, isolation, anomie, and alienation.  What do you think?  Where does your personal responsibility end and your communal responsibility begin?