Weekly Newsletter

Week of October 29, 2020
11 Cheshvan 5781
Shabbat Lech Lecha

Thank you HIGH HOLIDAY CAMPAIGN DONORS
for making this year's campaign a success!
We are grateful to have such a committed community.
Sheldon & Rochelle Abelson • Peretz Berk & Eric Leung (Mazal) • Moshe Bloxenheim • Brina Chu • Leslie Levinson & David Chu • David & Aliza Deutsch • Amy Eisenberg • Barry Feldman • Gary & Judith Floam • Dana Friedman • Michael Gansl • Alvin Goldstein • Jennifer & Adam Gottlieb • Paul Hess • Nathan Janette • Jeff Katz • Lindy Keiser • Moire Matheson • Elizabeth & Jonathan Miller • Bernard Osofsky • Malka Percal • Ben Rapp • Paul & Phyllis Ruffer • Marc Schwartzberg & Jill Slater • Margie Segal • Paul & Ellen Silverstein • Jessica Spector & Raffi Abelson • Maxbetter Vizelberg • Karen Suss Wolfson

COVID Protocols:
If you feel sick, please stay at home, and if you are coming to Shul, mask-wearing over both your mouth and nose remains non-negotiable. Please register for services in advance, so that we may prepare for your arrival and have a record for potential contact tracing. We are thankful to be able to meet, safely, during this difficult time. 

Because many of us are not able to attend shul in person, the Rabbi has agreed to share his shabbat morning drashah in advance. Here is the first half of it. To read the full drashah, click on the link below and it will take you to what will become a rich archive of all of Rabbi Staller's drashot.  

Serving as an early example of a story that begins in medias res, the Avraham narrative manages to entirely leave out Avraham’s back story and childhood, instead picking up with Avraham having already found God. But the Torah tells us that by the time Avraham heard God’s call of Lech Lecha, Avraham was already middle-aged (or, for the lives of Tanach characters perhaps more third- or quarter-aged). The four decades of growth and character development that brought Avraham to the place where he could hear God and respond are totally omitted! The reader is left wondering what Avraham’s early life was like, and how he became the heroic figure he is.

Thankfully, the rabbis and contributors to the oral tradition stepped up in the place of this lacking and filled in many of the details. Rambam, through a combination of his personal scientific beliefs and Midrashim, describes Avraham as a philosophical and scientific pioneer, extrapolating astrological and astronomical conclusions from his personal observations and hypotheses about the cosmos. Rambam (Avodah Zarah 1:3) makes oblique reference to Avraham’s father and mother as “foolish idolators,” a piece of important context and background info that is absent from the Tanach, but thoroughly developed by Chazal throughout the Midrash, as the rabbis sought to fill in the gaps the Torah leaves in Avraham’s childhood.

In particular, Rambam makes reference to perhaps the two most famous Midrashim about Avraham’s early life. Firstly, Rambam tells us that Avraham broke his family’s idols– a rabbinic legend that has grown and been retold in numerous ways, often framed with the claim that Terach, Avraham’s father, was steeped in idolatry and the production and sale of idols, and a young Avraham, as a sign of protest, destroyed his father’s idols and idol-making shop in an attempt to teach a lesson about monotheism. 

Next, Rambam moves on to the famous incident of the Kivshan, the industrial oven that Chazal see as the source of Ur Kasdim’s– literally the the fire of the Chaldeans– name. Rambam references the Midrash that tells us that the authorities had found out about Avraham’s rejection of idolatry in favor of monotheism, as well as his successful prostylezation to his brother Haran. As a punishment, they demanded that Terach give over his children to be thrown into the oven of Kasdim for heresy. The Midrash describes how Terach painfully watched his son Haran immolate in the flames first– picking up on the unusual formulation the Torah uses of “וימת הרן על פני תרח אביו,” “and Haran died in front of Terach his father”– and then gave over Avraham to presumably meet his brother’s fate. Ultimately, Avraham was saved from the flames of the oven by God’s miraculous intervention, and the event served as a major revelation for the religion Avraham was preaching. 

On their surface, both of these stories seem to present Terach, Avraham’s father, as a quintessential idolatrous sinner, leaving us to ultimately conclude, much like the Rambam, that Avraham’s revelation and commitment to God must have sprung out of nowhere– from Avraham’s unique perceptiveness and aptitude for astrology and theology. Steeped in a society and family of immoral and corrupt idolaters, little Avraham had to teach himself the truth of God’s singularity. Perhaps that is why Avraham is given little to no introduction in the Torah, as Avraham is meant to feel as if he just appeared out of nowhere, as the striking nature of his autodidactic realization of Hashem’s existence also feels surprisingly ex nihilo. 

Click HERE to read the Rabbi's full Drasha 

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. 
Refuah shleimah to Susan Levinson, Shifra Etta bat Beila, mother of Rabbi Melinda Zalma

​​​​​Births: Avi Blumenstein and Sarah Lehat welcomed a baby girl named Raya Gavriella. Ray Katz and Roman Khasidov welcomed a baby boy named Joseph. 

CLICK HERE to view our Annual Bulletin
Printed copies are available at shul.

SPONSOR A CLASS
Please sponsor a virtual 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. All sponsorships benefit the Shul and are very much appreciated. 

New Class with Rachel Frazer(Sponsorship opportunities available)
Reverberations of the Joseph Narrative
beginning Monday, Nov. 9 at 7:00PM  
We will consider the fascinating Joseph story in Genesis as well as the story's reverberation throughout the Tanach.

ONLINE ARCHIVES
Click HERE for an archive of shiurim by Rabbi Staller
Click HERE for an archive of drashot by Rabbi Staller
Click HERE to go to our YouTube Channel for an archive of our ZOOM classes

Rabbi Staller Encourages and Welcomes Your Feedback and can be reached by email or by phone/text at (917) 282-7643. Alternatively, you may reach out, confiedentially, to our Rabbinic Advisory Committee. Contact committee chair Jeff Katz or committee members Paul Ruffer, Margie Segal, Marc Schwartzberg, and Ellen Silverstein. We welcome your input.

For important resources during this COVID-19 era, please  CLICK HERE.