From Our Clergy

וְדִבַּרְתָּ֖ בָּ֑ם בְּשִׁבְתְּךָ֤ בְּבֵיתֶ֙ךָ֙ וּבְלֶכְתְּךָ֣ בַדֶּ֔רֶךְ ׁכְבְּךָ֖וּֽבְש וּבְקוּמֶֽךָ׃

Recite them when you stay at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you get up.

– Deuteronomy 6:7

The Jewish people, I believe, is one of the most resilient peoples on the planet, having been tested over and over throughout our history. As a people, we’ve developed a number of survival mechanisms to help us make it through. Prayer can give us hope. Ritual can give us stability. But the most important tool that has helped us stand the test of time can be found in our Torah portion this week.

Vaetchanan, the second parashah of the Book of Deuteronomy, is packed with great material. We find Moses’ final plea to enter the Promised Land, alongside a reiteration of the Ten Commandments, and yet we also find the “watchword of our faith”, the first paragraph of the Shema, words that are traditionally recited twice a day and, in many ways, define who we are as a people.

One of the most incredible things about the Shema is, like the Cha Cha Slide or the Hokey Pokey, the prayer itself tells you how to use it. We’re meant to put it on our doorposts as mezuzot. Many Jews put them in front of their eyes and on their hands in the form of tefillin. Most importantly for our purposes, we are told to recite the words when we’re at home or when we’re elsewhere. For most of our history, we have been far away from home. Many empires have oppressed us or even expelled us, taking everything we owned in the process. But they can never take away the words that define and unite us. In the face of exile, the Jewish people made religion portable. Yes, we have temples and Torah scrolls, but our stories, prayers, and values can never be taken away.

The Shema reminds us that wherever we are can be holy space and that our home can be anywhere we have people to live and pray with. So long as we live inspired by the words of our Torah, hope and kindness can blossom even in the darkest places or moments.

L’shalom,

Rabbi Michael Weiss

בְּעֵ֥בֶר הַיַּרְדֵּ֖ן בְּאֶ֣רֶץ מוֹאָ֑ב הוֹאִ֣יל מֹשֶׁ֔ה בֵּאֵ֛ר אֶת־הַתּוֹרָ֥ה הַזֹּ֖את
On the other side of the Jordan, in the land of Moab, Moses began to teach this Torah.

– Deuteronomy 1:5

This week, we begin the book of Deuteronomy with Parashat Devarim. Numbers would have been nearly the perfect ending to the story of our peoples’ wandering before entering the Promised Land, but Moses had other ideas. Like a parent sending children out into the world, he still had wisdom to share in the form of a forty-day-long lecture. He had to remind them of their journeys in the wilderness and give them his final advice on how to build a functioning ethical community upon settling down.

Interestingly, Moses begins to talk about topics that had never been covered in the rest of the Torah, namely the appointment of a king and the establishment of a central place of worship. Biblical scholars often identify this focus on centralization of power as anachronisms, dating the authorship of the book of Deuteronomy to a time when the monarchy and the Temple in Jerusalem were already firmly established. We may even find evidence of this in the Book of II Kings where, during the time of King Josiah, the high priest discovers a Sefer HaTorah, a book of the Torah in the Temple. It is only then that we read of Josiah’s regime reforming Judean religion to be centralized entirely at the Temple in Jerusalem. How convenient!

And yet, even if Deuteronomy was written later and, perhaps, smuggled into the Torah, it is as sacred and meaningful as any of the other books. In fact, among the five books, it has a unique focus on the value of learning and study, along with an emphasis on how our practice needs to be felt in and come from the heart. In a way, Deuteronomy serves as the first book of Reform Judaism, identifying a need for a change in the Jewish religion in response to a changing world and presaging a Judaism that emphasizes our power to learn and our capacity to love. There is no doubt that, in the words of Rabbi Ben Azzai (when asked why he would follow his teacher into the bathroom), this too is Torah and we must learn. Let us learn from the lessons of our ancestors who realized that we and our tradition must evolve along with the world around us, so we can better fulfill our purpose of being a light of moral clarity and justice to the nations. May we, like Moses, teach our own Torah.

L’shalom,


Rabbi Michael Weiss

גִּדְרֹ֥ת צֹ֛אן נִבְנֶ֥ה לְמִקְנֵ֖נוּ פֹּ֑ה וְעָרִ֖ים לְטַפֵּֽנוּ וַאֲנַ֜חְנוּ נֵחָלֵ֣ץ חֻשִׁ֗ים לִפְנֵי֙ בְּנֵ֣י יִשְׂרָאֵ֔ל
We will build pens for our flocks and then towns for our children. Then we will hurry to serve as troops for the people of Israel.
– Numbers 32:16-17

בְּנֽוּ־לָכֶ֤ם עָרִים֙ לְטַפְּכֶ֔ם וּגְדֵרֹ֖ת לְצֹנַאֲכֶ֑ם וְהַיֹּצֵ֥א מִפִּיכֶ֖ם תַּעֲשֽׂוּ׃
Build towns for your children and sheepfolds for your flocks, but do as you have promised.
– Numbers 32:24

We know the Torah can be repetitive in its storytelling, but Moses flips around their words, putting children before sheep. Why? Reuben and Gad may have been revealing that their priorities were misplaced, that they valued their property over the welfare of their children, and Moses needed to set them straight. Moses understood, as we do today, that nothing we have means anything if we fail to invest in the generations to come and especially in their education. The rabbis of the Talmud in Tractate Shabbat tell us that any community without a school is worthy of destruction. Thank goodness that our temple, even over the summer, is filled with young people learning, growing, and connecting with each other, so we’ve been spared, as far as I’m concerned.

In any community, all of us are responsible for our young people as caretakers and role models. No matter how complicated the situation around us gets, this Jewish priority remains. And even in the toughest times the Jewish people have experienced, our commitment to the next generation has given us the strength and inspiration to keep going. Even having just gotten here, I can already see that Anshe Sholom doesn’t need Moses to set them straight. We get what it’s all about. I so look forward to getting to know every generation of our Anshe Sholom families.

L’shalom,

Rabbi Michael Weiss

מַה־טֹּ֥בוּ אֹהָלֶ֖יךָ יַעֲקֹ֑ב מִשְׁכְּנֹתֶ֖יךָ יִשְׂרָאֵֽל׃
How fair are your tents, O Jacob, Your dwellings, O Israel!

– Numbers 24:5 Balak

One of the great ironies of Parashat Balak is that Israel never hears the blessings being spoken about them. While they are going about their ordinary lives, Balaam stands on the mountaintop and God plants these words on his lips

Often, we are unaware of the goodness others see in us. We focus on our shortcomings and assume others do the same. Yet Balaam teaches that even our enemies can recognize blessings we ourselves cannot see.

Perhaps this is why we begin our morning prayers with these words. Every day we are reminded that before we speak of our failures, God first speaks words of blessing over us.

Sometimes faith begins with learning to see ourselves through the eyes of blessing rather than the lens of fear.

L’Shalom,

Cantor Paula Baruch