The Stanton Street Shul Weekly Newsletter: Shabbat Ki Teitzei
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Week of August 28, 2020 / 8 Elul 5780 Shabbat Ki Teitzei
OUR SHUL IS OPENING! JOIN US ON SHABBAT MORNING, SEPTEMBER 12th Please join us to celebrate Shabbat Nitzavim-Vayelech with a Torah reading on September 12th. Services begin at 10:00 AM and will end at 11:45. Please enter the sanctuary through the main staircase by 10am. The Shul doors will be closed soon after services begin.
There will be no dvar torah and a minimum of announcements. We have secured a minyan for this service. Mordecai Silver, our baal koreh will open and close the ark and raise and tie the Torah, completing all required Torah related tasks. Aliyot will be given out, but brachot should be said from below the bimah.
Pre-registration is required. Those in attendance should wear a mask, sit in assigned seats that are socially-distanced, sing in moderate tones, and refrain from shaking hands and embracing others or congregating in the vestibule or aisles of the sanctuary. Hand sanitizer and masks will be available. After using the bathroom, please use the Clorox wipes to refresh the room. The beit medrash and the kitchen will be closed. If you are ill or feel vulnerable, please do not attend.
Check next week's newsletter for details on High Holidays programming.
Tuesday, September 1 (12 Elul) 5:30-6:30p Rabbi Joe Wolfson's parsha shiur via ZOOM. To participate by phone, call 1-929-205-6099 and enter Meeting ID: 869 1718 3883
Pre-Shabbat Kabbalat Shabbat Fridays at 6:45pm (ends before candlelighting)
Come together for davening as we prepare to welcome Shabbat in our own homes.
Community Havdalah Motzei Shabbat, 15 mins after Shabbat ends
Gather post-Shabbat to connect and transition from Shabbat into the new week.
We are opening the Shul! Join us for in-person, socially-distanced Shabbat Nitzavim-Vayelech abbreviated services on the morning of September 12th from 10:00 to 11:45am. We will enter through the main entrance at 10am sharp. Masks are required. Please pre-register by clickinghere.
Stay tuned for information about Selichot night service Motzei Shabbat, 8:30pm available in the Shul and via Zoom.
A huge thank you to Rachel Frazer who very ably led us through Sefer Shoftim in a weekly ZOOM class throughout the summer. We appreciate her time, care, eloquence and knowledge.
Misheberach: We pray that all who are sick may have a full recovery. To add a name to our communal misheberach prayer list, email us.
Hoarding nature to enjoy during the long winter months. Specimens gathered, pressed and saved by Jill Slater.
Public Service Announcement: The 2020 U.S. Census is now underway, and we have learned that only about 50% of neighborhood residents have completed it. We strongly encourage you to fill it out if you have not yet done so. Please help ensure our neighborhood gets the funds it deserves by making sure you and your family and friends get counted. More information at www.2020census.gov
Volunteer Opportunity: Help Distribute Meals to LES Community Members (M-F 12:30-2:00 pm): Looking for human interaction and to do good for the world? We are looking for volunteers for weekday lunch shifts! We distribute 700 meals a day Monday-Friday at 504 Grand Street (in front of Eastside Kosher), 12:30-2:00. Meals are available for anyone who needs them. If you can help, please contact Penina at penina.seidman@gmail.com.
NEW Israel Awareness Committee Support of Israel is embedded in the Shul’s Mission Statement, but scant attention has been paid to developing stronger ties to the Jewish State. We recognize an ever increasing campaign to attack Israel politically, economically and physically, and simultaneously we are witnessing an unprecedented increase in anti-Semitism locally, nationally and internationally. At this time we are gauging community interest in forming a new committee that will address these issues, and at the same time celebrate as a community the culturally rich, ethnically diverse and miraculous Jewish State. If you are interested in meeting (via ZOOM) to discuss these issues and define future goals and objectives, please write to jeff.katz48@gmail.com.
Stanton Street Shul Book Club First Meeting: September 24, 2020, 7:00-8:00 PM Discussion of Chapters 1-4 of The Price of Whiteness: Jews, Race, and American Identity, by Eric L. Goldstein. A zoom link will be sent out two days before the meeting. (The second half of the book will be discussed on October 22. After that, the book club will meet regularly on the 4th Tuesday of each month at 7:00 PM unless chaggim interfere.)
SPONSOR A CLASS Remarkably, one of the benefits of the COVID-19 pandemic has been the expansion of The Stanton Street Shul’s educational programming. Please consider sponsoring a class in honor of oneself, the Shul, a yahrzeit, an anniversary, a birthday, or in the name of a friend or someone who sustains the Shul with their hard work.
Sponsorships begin at $36, but there is no maximum. Give as your heart desires. All sponsorships benefit the Shul and are very much appreciated.
C L A S S S P O N S O R S! Margie Segal is sponsoring Rabbi Wolfson’s September 1st class in honor of all essential workers throughout the United States.
Rabbi Joe Wolfson, Rabbi of The Bronfman Center at NYU, is The Stanton Street Shul's Virtual Rabbi through September.
Rabbi Joe offers a weekly shiur and dvar torah included in each newsletter and leads a weekly shiur via ZOOMat 5:30pm. To participate by phone, call 1-929-205-6099 and enter Meeting ID: 869 1718 3883
Polish Expression Since the 17th Century A new class series taught by David Deutsch Mondays, 7pm. August 31-September 21 via ZOOM or to join by phone, call 1-929-205-6099 and enter Meeting ID: 898 4464 9960
It is probably fair to say that in the modern Ashkenazi nomenclature of 'How Good or Bad Societies Are for the Jews,' few have a worse reputation than Polish society. But as the above expression suggests, there may be more to the story than most Jews imagine. In four classes, I will review Polish-Jewish relations since the 17th century, and how that reputation--deserved or otherwise--developed. Particular focus will be given to relationships shaped by larger trends or events.
August 31st: Polish Jewish Relations from 1648-1918, will look at the "Golden Age" of Polish-Jewry, and how the place of Polish Jewry was transformed by the decline, collapse and partitioning of Poland.
September 7th: Polish-Jewish Relations in the Interwar Period, 1918-39, will look at how Jews interacted both with Poles and the Polish state in the multinational republic that came into existence after World War I.
September 14th: Poles, Jews and Others during WWII, will look at the complicated interaction between rival ethnic groups and authoritarian regimes in what had been Poland.
September 21st: Jews in Poland since WWII, will look at the vicissitudes of Jewish life in two new Polands--one, a communist Poland in the decades after WWII, the other a non-communist Poland in the decades since the Iron Curtain came down.
From JOFA, An Upcoming Webinar: “The Unfolding of Modern Orthodoxy in America and in Israel? Is Change Really Happening?"
Monday, August 31, 2020 at 12:00pm EDT
Moderated by Rabbi Asher Lopatin, ED of Jewish Community Relations Council/AJC, and featuring: Rabbi Daniel Landes, Director of YASHRUT; Daphne Lazar Price, ED of Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance (JOFA); and Rabbi Avram Mlotek, an American Open Orthodox rabbi, cantor, writer and actor. Please register for the Zoom webinar at this link.
To listen to a recording of Jewish Art withRichard McBee's class on July 15th, clickHERE. This class covered David Wander's “Holocaust Haggadah“ and Art & Auschwitz.
DVAR TORAH
Parshat Ki Teitzei by Rabbi Joe Wolfson
I want to share an idea that has been passing through some of the rabbinic circles I mix in - an idea on the parsha, and an idea for this particularly weird and difficult moment we find ourselves in.
You’re likely familiar with the Jewish practise of burying the dead within 24 hours. The origin is in our parsha, describing not an average member of the Jewish people, but a Jew who has committed a capital crime and has been punished to death (Devarim 21:22-23).
you must not let his corpse remain on the tree overnight, but must bury him the same day. For a hung body is an affront to God: you shall not defile the land that the LORD your God is giving you to possess.
Such a criminal, one might think, would not be the source for the Torah’s great respect for the human body. And yet, it is this instance which the Torah uses to describe the tzelem elokim, the image of God in every person! Rashi comments:
זלזולו של מלך הוא, שאדם עשוי בדמות דיוקנו וישראל הם בניו. משל לשני אחים תאומים שהיו דומין זה לזה, אחד נעשה מלך, ואחד נתפס ללסטיות ונתלה, כל הרואה אותו אומר המלך תלוי
It is a degradation of the Divine King [for a person to be hung], for man is made in His image and the Israelites are His children. A parable! It may be compared to the case of two twin brothers who very closely resembled each other: one became king and the other was arrested for robbery and was hanged. Whoever saw him on the gallows thought that the king was hanged (Sanhedrin 46b).
The Torah’s word for hanging is talui. A body is not to be left talui. It is an affront to the divine image in every person. In a fascinating evolution of the Hebrew language, the word talui in modern Hebrew means, ‘perhaps’ or ‘I’m not sure’ or ‘it’s dependent on something...’
Can you meet me for coffee tomorrow? I’m not sure. Talui.
The connection to the original usage of talui is clear. It refers to being in an in-between state. Not alive. Not buried. I’m not sure. Maybe. Maybe not. Uncertainty.
Perhaps you see where I’m going with this. Stretching the metaphor, but legitimately so I think, we all find ourselves now in a state of talui. Should my kids go back to school? Should we attend in person services on Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur? Should we socialise with friends?
As Rosh Hashanna approaches we are all feeling how much gray there is in our lives - we are desperate for some black and white. Some clarity and certainty about what to do and what is to be. This talui state is so stressful, reducing our room for thought and breath - it diminishes our tzelem elokim.
The Torah wishes to tell us that this is ok. That sometimes this occurs. And we are never to be ashamed of it. That even for a criminal, being talui is an affront to their dignity, and that care must be taken by everyone to care for those who are in a state of talui.
May we merit soon a removal of talui from our lives.
RESOURCE HUB
For important resources during this COVID-19 era, pleaseCLICK HERE.
We Appreciate Your Support!
Although our doors are closed, our spirits, minds and hearts remain open during these difficult times. We are davening together on Zoom, supporting congregants with chesed needs, and hosting classes and events online.
Please consider sponsoring a virtual program. Now more than ever, we rely on your generosity to keep us going. We know this is a tough time and appreciate whatever you are able to give.