Chaired by Dr. Ellier Russ with Rabbi Gaber. This committee coordinates programs and classes to engage members in lifelong learning. Events include our yearly Scholar in Residence program, Talmud Study, and more. Guest speakers, online webinars and Shabbat morning discussions additionally provide congregants with opportunities to expand their knowledge of Judaism and living a Jewish life.
TAlmud
In fulfilling the following commandments one enjoys the yield in this world while the principal remains for all eternity honoring father and mother, performing deeds of loving kindness, punctually attending the house of study morning and evening, showing hospitality to strangers, visiting the sick, helping the needy bride, attending dead, praying .with devotion, and making peace between individuals. And the merit of Torah study is equal to all of these. Talmud Shabbat in 12e
TORAH SPARKS
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TORAH PORTION: PEKUDEI
March 16, 2024 6 Adar II 5784
Torah Exodus 38:21-40:38 Triennial Exodus 38:21-39:21
Haftorah: I Kings 7:40-50
D'VAR TORAH
Bex Stern-Rosenblatt
Parashah
Crying Uncle
In these next few weeks, we read the beautiful and tender story of an uncle helping to raise his nephews. We read with an exquisite level of detail the care that he took with each of them. We read of how he taught his brother, how he led his brother, in teaching his brother’s children. These stories are full of loving physical touches, of the washing of feet, the caressing of ears. This is an intimate family story, played out on the public stage.
The promise of children is that they will replace their parents. Inherent in the robing, the clothing, of Aaron is the knowledge that these clothes, this role, will be passed on to his sons. Over and over in the text we find the phrase, “Aaron and his sons.” Moses, too, has children. But his role cannot be passed on. Instead, he gets to act as an uncle, helping pass Aaron’s role on to Aaron’s children, a position he takes up with grace and love.
The tragedy, of course, is that two of Aaron’s sons will predecease him. Every time we read of Aaron and his sons in the next few weeks, we read with the terrible knowledge that Nadav and Avihu will die as they attempt to do their duties in a few short weeks. All the tender, loving action, all the teaching done by Moses, will not prevent their deaths.
Their line survives. Aaron’s sons continue after the death of their brothers. Eleazar and Itamar, prevented from touching the bodies of their loved one, prevented even from mourning them, take up the mantle. They too have been anointed as priests, they too will serve. But the family is broken. The sweetness of two brothers raising children together is gone. Instead, we find Moses’s anger and Aaron’s near silent rebuke. In the wake of terrible tragedy, when they need each other more than ever, the family disintegrates, hiding behind their official roles. It isn’t until Aaron’s death that the family will be able to be close together again. It isn’t until Moses helps Eleazar and Itamar into the clothing of their father that they are finally able to mount their brothers. Meanwhile, they all have jobs to do.
Itamar is the youngest of all four brothers and the first to receive an independent commission. In our parashah, we read that he is responsible for recording the sums of the contributions to the mishkan. Later, after the deaths of his brothers, his role will be further explained. Itamar is the leader of the Gershonites and the Merarites, charged with the transportation and maintenance of the ohel moed. Why should the youngest of Aaron’s sons get such a large responsibility? Why should he be singled out in such a way? Does God already know that Nadav and Avihu will die? Does Moses already know? Perhaps we are following in the biblical tradition of the elevation of the later son over the firstborn.
I think the most beautiful reading, though, is that Itamar is being set up as an uncle. The Gershonites and Merarites are his distant relatives. He is gifted with the responsibility to lead them and to love them, just as Moses led and loved him. He is allowed to think of his family expansively. Before his brothers are taken from him, Itamar is given a support system, a large family network. Moreover, Itamar, youngest of the brothers, is invited to emulate Moses. He is invited to act as uncle instead of just as father, to love the whole family rather than just his own children. A clue to this can be found in the name of the Gershonites. They are only one letter away from being the sons of Gershom, son of Moses. Indeed, the Book of Chronicles records them as Gershomites rather than Gershonites. Moses acts as uncle to Aaron’s children who then act as uncle to Moses’s children. Even as tragedy strikes, even as we lose and lose our loved ones, with a strong enough family network, with love and relationship transcending the family, we will survive.
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Connecting Heaven and Earth
Vav – a special letter
You probably know that there is a correspondence between Hebrew letters and numbers. Number 6 corresponds to the letter “vav”. “Vav” is shaped like a hook holding two things together (ו); normally, “Vav” is translated as “and”. This letter is also referred to as “vav of connection” therefore, “the Sixth Day”—Yom HaShishi (Yom Vav)—connects the spiritual and physical; heaven and earth, six days of Creation and Shabbat.
The day of connection
We can see a wonderful confirmation in today’s Jewish life. Anyone who has experienced Shabbat in Israel knows that Friday, Yom Shishi, is a really special day of the week, since it is the beginning of Shabbat. As such, it connects and holds together the six days of the week and the most important day of the Jewish week, Shabbat (Saturday).
Discover the nuances of the Bible
The importance of this day is clearly emphasized in Judaism: the day we celebrate as the Jewish New Year, is not actually the anniversary of Creation, it is the anniversary of the sixth day of Creation—Yom Hashishi. According to Jewish understanding, Creation became meaningful when man was created: the Sixth Day connected heaven and earth, and God was proclaimed King! Enroll in our live online Biblical Hebrew course and Hebrew will reveal the nuances of the Scripture!
PEKUDEI 5784: THe gold standard
Shabbat Shalom Weekly
March 16, 2024
PEKUDEI, Exodus (38:21-40:38)
GOOD MORNING! This week’s Torah reading concludes the book Exodus. The majority of the last four Torah portions of Exodus are preoccupied with the building of the Mishkan – the Tabernacle; its utensils and priestly vestments, and the collection of the necessary materials to produce everything.
Reading through this week’s Torah portion I was reminded of a sign I once saw as a child hanging on the wall of a store on Lincoln Road in Miami Beach: “In God we trust, everyone else pays cash.”
In this week’s reading, we find an accounting of all the gold, silver, and copper that were donated by the Jewish people for the construction of the Mishkan. The sages of the midrash (ShemotRabbah 51:6) explain why Moses felt this accounting was necessary. The sages begin by asking, “Why was this accounting necessary? After all, God Himself vouched for Moses’ trustworthiness saying, ‘My servant Moses is a trusted servant throughout My entire house’ (Numbers 12:7).”
The Torah tells us that “Whenever Moses went out of the Meeting Tent [after concluding his conversations with the Almighty] all the people would rise and stand by their tent, gazing at him until he reached his own tent” (Exodus 33:8).
According to the midrash there were three schools of thought on Moses: 1) Those who didn’t suspect him of any wrongdoing and gazed after him thinking, “Wow, how fortunate it is to be a human and yet have such a close relationship with the Almighty” 2) Those who looked at him thinking that he was paying himself (rightfully) for managing the massive undertaking of building the Mishkan 3) Those who looked at him and suspected him of stealing monies from the donations.
When Moses heard of these different sentiments, he insisted that at the end of the construction a full accounting of everything be made. The audit wasn’t for future generations; it was for the people of his own generation who didn’t trust him.
There is a well-known saying; “The pot calling the kettle black.” This expression is said to date back to the 17th century and is commonly understood to refer to the irony of pointing out a deficiency that you yourself share. The fact is that both cast-iron pots’ and kettles’ bottoms turn equally black when hung over a fire, and thus the pot is accusing the kettle of a fault it shares.
But there is another way to look at it, which is much more insightful and perhaps even more historically accurate. It has been suggested that this expression finds its origins in the cooking methods of the time. Kettles were generally made out of shiny metals, either copper or silver. When warming water on the fire there wasn’t any concern of burning the water, so the kettle was placed directly on red hot coals.
By contrast, when cooking over an open flame the temperature has to be very carefully monitored and adjusted so that the food doesn’t burn. For this reason, pots would be suspended high above the flames for quite some time and the smoky fires would inevitably turn the bottoms black with soot.
Now the expression takes on a whole new meaning – the pot “looking” at the relatively clean and shiny kettle (who was directly on the coals and therefore not sooty) really only sees its own black reflection. In other words, the pot is accusing the kettle of something that is only true in the pot itself. This reminds me of a story that my father once mentioned in a lecture on this week’s Torah reading.
Many years ago, one of my father’s former students – let’s call him Bob – told him he needed to see him urgently. A few years’ prior, Bob had taken a fundraising position with one of the local charitable institutions and headed their development department. During his community work he had befriended an older, childless holocaust survivor.
The gentleman came to trust him and sought his advice on how to distribute his fairly large estate. Bob secured a very sizable donation for his organization and also helped the donor choose charitable organizations in Israel, where the donor had intended to leave the majority of his estate.
Bob was then called in by the president of his organization’s board and accused of not securing a large enough gift for the institution. He was then accused of directing the majority of the donor’s estate to organizations in Israel that would pay him a “kickback” in some way or another. The president of the board threatened to dismiss him from his position if he didn’t redirect the funds back locally.
Bob was devastated. He was an honest and loyal employee who had just tried to do the right thing by an elderly holocaust survivor. He wondered how the president of the board could accuse him of such a betrayal and threaten to fire him. For this reason, he came to my father to seek counsel.
My father told Bob that he shouldn’t feel bad and that he should hold his head up high. As long as he acted properly the truth would eventually come out. My father went on to explain that the president of the board was only judging him by what he would have done himself if he were in that position. My father based this insight on a well-known teaching in the Talmud (Kiddushin 70a) that one who suspects another of a deficiency is simply articulating his own deficiency.
The Talmud teaching and my father were proved correct; three years later the president of the board was ousted by the organization over accusations that the president himself had diverted donor funds to his personal accounts. The president was forced to resign with no small measure of embarrassment.
When it comes to judging others, we have to be particularly aware of our own shortcomings and consider how our deficiencies may color our perspective when viewing the actions of others. I find this lesson particularly relevant to the turbulent political climate in which we currently find ourselves.
The sages point out a fascinating omission in the actual accounting of all the donated gold, silver, and copper. While the exact donation amounts are given for all three precious metals, the Torah only explains exactly where the silver and copper were used throughout the Miskan. There is no statement in the audit of exactly how or where the gold was used. Why did the Torah not give a complete accounting for the different uses of all the gold?
There is an interesting commentary from the Da’at Zekainim (sages from the schools of thought founded by the grandchildren of Rashi). The Da’at Zekainim explains that gold, silver, and copper represent the three different types of givers. Gold represents people who give when they are healthy. In other words, they give altruistically and are not expecting anything in return; they give because they believe in the cause and want to do the right thing.
Silver represents those who give while sick or ailing in some way, hoping that in return they will be healed. However, even if they aren’t healed, they don’t regret giving the charity (see Tosfos Pesachim 8b) and are happy that the money is being used properly. Copper represents those who only give after death – they give only when they won’t be negatively affected by the giving or feel the loss.
Based on this, perhaps we can now understand the three groups of givers. The group who gave the “golden way” had a deep admiration for Moses and didn’t suspect him of any wrongdoing. The group who gave in the least meaningful way (the copper) – i.e. after death, when their monies are of no use to them anyway – suspected Moses of stealing because they themselves were incapable of giving freely. They could not understand why anyone would do what Moses had undertaken; therefore, he must be stealing from the donations.
The group who gave the silver understood that while there is some altruistic element to giving, it isn’t purely selfless. In other words, we can do the right thing, but we also like to be compensated for it. Thus, they believed Moses could work hard for the Mishkan, but he would be entitled to take money for his time.
Now we can understand why the Torah didn’t account for how the gold was used while still accounting for the uses of the silver and the copper. The silver and copper came from those without complete altruism, and they suspected Moses of varying degrees of motivation. But the gold came from those who believed in the cause and trusted Moses, and therefore they never suspected him of taking any of it and did not need a complete accounting of the gold’s usage.
PEKUDEI , Exodus 38:21-40:38
Pekudei includes an accounting of all the materials that went into the making of the Mishkan (the portable Tabernacle) and details of the construction of the clothing of the Cohanim. The Tabernacle is completed, Moses examines all of the components and gives his approval to the quality and exactness of construction, the Almighty commands to erect the Tabernacle, it’s erected, and the various vessels are placed in their proper place.
Peace for Israel means security and that security must be a reality. When people criticize Zionists, they mean Jews. You’re talking antisemitism!
— Martin Luther King Jr.
A nation – like a family – doesn’t have to be perfect or always in agreement, but it must always be united.
On-Line Learning
Rabbi Gaber lead several Adult Education programs using ZOOM "You don’t have to leave the warmth and comfort of your home to hear a discussion on confronting Antisemitism and Hate or the Human Genome or to discuss how to bring Judaism into the 21st century.
See the CBOI On-line Learning page in Learn Navigation bar to see all the On Line Zoom Learning sessions.
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