Shabbat Shemot Week of January 17th, 2025 Tevet 5785 Wishing you and your family Shabbat Shalom!
Friday January 17th,2025 * 17 of Tevet 5785
Erev Shabbat: Candle lighting at 4:37 pm
Shabbat January 18th,2025 (18 of Tevet 5785)
Shacharit Services in Shul will begin promptly at 9:30 am, followed by a Kiddush at 12:00pm. Everyone is welcome! Kiddush this week is sponsored by the house. If you'd like to sponsor Kiddush in the future, please reach out to info@stantonstshul.com.
IMPORTANT! We now have security for all services from 9:30 AM to 1:00 PM.
COMMUNITY ANNOUNCEMENTS
Birthdays and Special Days: Monday, January 20, 2025 • 20 Tevet 5785
Martin Luther King's Day
Happy Birthday to Shlomo Sternberg!
Misheberach:
Yeshaya Israel Chaim (Boyarin) ben Esther Malke 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.
Torah Inspiration with Rabbi Birkeland Dear Friends, This week we start the book of Exodus in which we learn about the enslavement and eventual deliverance of the nascent Jewish people in Egypt. In Genesis we learned all about the Abrahamic family, our forebears, but it is in Egypt that we grow from a single family into a network of tribes and clans; a nation, a people, forged in the crucible of Egyptian oppression. In Egypt, the Children of Israel grow and multiply and when a new king comes to power, he paints this growing nation as a threat. Through a series of policies and actions he appoints taskmasters over the Jews, and imposes heavy work upon them. They continue to grow and Pharoah continues to up the workload. In the process Pharaoh manages to turn the people against the Jews and they are filled with fear and loathing on account of them. What stood out to me this year, though, when reading through the parshah, is the role played by small acts of compassion and kindness that ultimately lead to the dismantling of the hate peddled by Pharoah. For one, Pharaoh's daughter herself displays a great act of compassion when she finds the baby Moses in his basket and recognizes that he is a Hebrew child. Unphased, she takes him into her household and raises him as her own. When Moses grows up, it is a feeling of compassion with his brethren that drives him to kill an Egyptian taskmaster and leads to his exile in Midian. In Midian it is Moses’s saving of Jethro’s daughters that leads him to Jethro’s household and it is a disposition of cooperation and satisfaction that leads him to stay there, where he builds his own household with Tziporah and eventually encounters God. It is obvious that kindness and compassion are important values. What is interesting to me, however, is the way in which our parshah presents them as the needed and necessary response to Pharoah’s hatred and oppression. In a society where hatred is turned into culture and policy, it is more natural to fight fire with fire. The hatred becomes contagious and one act of hatred begets further acts of hatred. In a subtle way, I think our parshah illustrates that that cannot be the way forward. These acts of compassion on the part of Moses and those around him are the building blocks of the later redemption. They reflect the disposition and orientation needed to stand up to Pharaoh and to bring the Children of Israel to freedom. Hatred builds hatred; compassion chips at it until it collapses. Shabbat Shalom, Rabbi Birkeland
Calling All Photographers in the Community!
Dear All, We are looking for photos from our community life! If you took any pictures at an event you attended these past two years, feel free to email Andreea at info@stantonstshul.com Thank you!
StantonKIDS Shabbat Programming for 5785
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 1,800 Israelis are dead with many more wounded. There are also innocent civilians caught in the line of fire in Gaza and Lebanon.
This has been 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
