Shabbat Vayeshev Week of December 19th, 2024 Kislev 5785 Wishing you and your family Shabbat Shalom and Happy Chanukah!
Erev Shabbat Friday December 20th , 2024 (19 Kislev, 5785) Candle Lighting at 4:14 pm
Shabbat December 21st, 2024 (20 Kislev, 5785) Shacharit Services in Shul will begin promptly at 9:30 am, followed by a Kiddush open to everyone at 12pm. This week's Kiddush is being sponsored by our own Judy Josephs, long time congregate,in memory of her father Harry Josephs and her former partner Robert Tennen. We thank Judy for her generosity and will gather as a community to honor her loved ones. Havdalah at 5:18pm
Membership Announcement: Renew Your Membership or Consider Joining Our Community Here! Reach out to Andreea at info@stantonstshul.com with any questions. Your dues allow us to be the welcoming place we are. Thank you to all members who have submitted payments! Also, this is a great time to get in your end-of-the-year donnation Here! We appreciate any donation. No donation is too small.
COMMUNITY ANNOUNCEMENTS
Holiday Alert: Erev Channukah falls on Wednesday, December 25th, 2024 Chanukah: December 25th, 2024 - January 2nd, 2025
Birthdays and Anniversaries: Happy Hebrew Birthday to Moshe Bloxenheim (Monday, December 23, 2024/ 22 Kislev 5785 Hebrew Birthday, and Tuesday, December 24, 2024 English one)
Misheberach:
Liba Miriam bat Channah Devorah ליבה מרים בת חנה דבורה Rachel Devorah bat Elke Cecile Cohen זיאסל מלכה בת אסתר Manny Kaplan מאיר ראובן בן לאה Chana Mera bat Fruma Henna Gitche bat Honcha Ella bat Leah Chaya Malka bat Esther Leia Nolan Rhodes נתן צבי בן פרידה Ashlynn Elizabeth Helen Coffman Moshe Asher Ben Esther Sarah Reuven ben Rochel Rivka bat Miriam Sara Eliyahu Natan ben Shayndel Shayna bat Chana Kayla Yitzhak Calev ben Leetza Tzvia Ashira bat Yosef Chaim Yonah ben Dubrah Efraim Ben Sore Shimon Sumer HaLevi Ben Malka Jim Lee Leah Zahava Bat Elka Barry Feldman Yaacov Ben Chaya Gitza Rochel Ben Chaya Gitza
We pray that all who are sick may have a full recovery. We are especially sending prayers to those who are wounded and in need of healing in Israel and Gaza, and daven for the safe return of those who are still unaccounted for. To add a name to our communal misheberach prayer list,email us. If you have a Yahrtzeit, birthday, anniversary or other milestone coming up, please reach out! We'd like to update our Yahrtzeit database. Pleasesend us your yahrzeit details. If you don't know the exact Hebrew date, just let us know the date of passing, and we will figure it out and add it to the Shul Cloud calendar.
Weekly Message From Rabbi Birkeland
Dear Friends, This week we read Parshas Veyeishev. Much of the parshah revolves around the conflicts between Yosef and his brothers. We are told that the 17 year old Yosef would go with his brothers to tend Yaakov’s flocks and that he would bring back bad reports about them to Yaakov. What’s more is that Yosef was Yaakov’s favorite son. Yaakov made him a special garment, of intricate design, which the other brother’s resented. When Yosef starts telling everyone about the dreams he is having, in which everyone including his parents bow down to him, the brothers have had enough and the story takes a dark turn. One day Yaakov sends Yosef out to his brothers to see how they are doing. When the brothers see Yosef coming, they conspire to kill him. Reuven, the eldest, convinces them to throw Yosef into a pit instead and then Yehudah convinces them to sell Yosef to a passing caravan. This precipitates the chain of events that take us through the rest of the book of Genesis and bring our forebears down to Egypt. One of the stranger aspects of our parshah, though, is that right in the middle of this dramatic and troubling story, the narrative shifts focus to Yehudah who leaves his brothers and starts building his own family. He marries a Canaanite woman, they have three sons. His eldest son marries a woman named Tamar but dies before they have any children. His second son performs levirate marriage but refuses to get Tamar pregnant and so he too dies. Yehudah, worried for the well-being of his third son, tells Tamar to go back to her parents’ house until his son has grown up some more. When time has passed and Yehudah has not honored his agreement, Tamar tricks Yehudah into having relations with her and, after a lot of drama and back and forth, they have twins named Peretz and Zerach. The Midrash tries to understand the significance of this interlude in a number of ways. One such approach comes from R’ Shmuel bar Nachman. He cites the verse “For I am mindful of the plans I have made concerning you—declares God—plans for your welfare, not for disaster, to give you a hopeful future” (Jeremiah 29:11). He then says that at this point in the story, the other brothers are involved in and/or consumed with the sale of Yosef; Yosef, Reuven, and Yaakov, are fasting and wearing sackcloth; Yehudah is involved with getting married; and God is involved with creating the light of the messiah. The reference to the messiah here stems from the fact that the messiah will be descended from David who is descended from Yehudah and Tamar through their son Peretz. Still that doesn’t seem to help us understand what this story is doing here. I’d like to suggest that R’ Shmuel bar Nachman is teaching us the following. The sale of Yosef proves to be a deeply traumatizing experience for everyone involved. Yaakov is never the same man and, as we see later in Genesis, the brothers are deeply affected and remorseful as well. To some degree, everyone gets lost in the aftermath of Yosef’s sale except maybe Yehudah. Yehudah, at this time turns towards the future. He recognizes that the only thing to do in the face of such fracture, sorrow, and destruction, is to build. His attempts to build are messy, no doubt, but we see that he has the right idea because it is from this interlude that the ultimate future stems. It is crucial that we seek to build even and especially in the face of darkness and destruction; even and especially if we ourselves have some responsibility in said darkness and destruction; and even when the building is slow and messy. It is with this new understanding of Yehudah’s that the Torah can return to the unfolding Jewish story. Shabbat shalom, Rabbi Birkeland
StantonKIDS Shabbat Programming for 5785
Shabbat Program January 11: 10:30am-12pm Shabbat Program January 25: 10:30am-12pm Shabbat Program February 1: 10:30am-12pm Shabbat Program February 15: 10:30am-12pm Shabbat Program March 1: 10:30am-12pm Shabbat Program March 15: 10:30am-12pm Shabbat Program April 5: 10:30am-12pm Shabbat Program April 26: 10:30am-12pm Shabbat Program May 3: 10:30am-12pm Shabbat Program May 31: 10:30am-12pm Shabbat Program June 14: 10:30am-12pm Shabbat Program June 21: 10:30am-12pm
Women's Tefillah Group Thank you to all who have joined us for services this year! Our schedule for 5785 is below: Shabbat Parshat Beshalach - February 8 Megillat Esther Reading - March 13 Shabbat Parshat Emor - May 17 Shabbat Parshat Nasso - June 7 Shabbat Parshat Korach - June 28 If you would like to layn, lead services, or give a d'var Torah with us, or if you have questions, please be in touch!
We are shaking from the ongoing war in Israel. Israeli citizens, among them Americans, are still hostages in Gaza. You can find information on them and on their families' efforts to release them here. Over 1,200 Israelis are dead with thousands more wounded. There are also innocent civilians caught in the line of fire in Gaza and Lebanon.
This is an unprecedented and the most deadly attack on Israel in a generation. We must take action!
In addition to our prayers, we ask you to consider making a generous donation to one of the listed causes.
The One who makes peace on high, may He bring peace down below to us. Amen
ONLINE ARCHIVES
If you missed services this past shabbes, or arrived too late to hear the drasha, you can go to our archives and read a copy! Click here for an archive of shiurim Clickherefor an archive of drashot Clickhere to go to our YouTube Channel for an archive of all of our ZOOM classes
