Hertz p.735
Soncino p.989
Shabbat ends in London at 10.00pm
Tisha B'av will commence at 8.58pm Monday and conclude at 9.49pm Tuesday
| Sidra Lite | |
| Descent leads to Ascent | Rabbi Hershi Vogel |
| Bar Mitzvah | Rabbi Daniel Roselaar |
| Rabbi Zalman Sorotzkin | Rabbi Dr Michael Harris |
| 6th Av | Rabbi Yisroel Fine |
| Israel A - Z, M - Golda Meir | Simon Goulden |
| Riddle of the Week | Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis |
| Commencing five weeks before his death, Moses delivers a moving discourse in which the rebukes the people for their rebelliousness and reviews their experiences through their forty years of sojourn in the wilderness. He recalls the highs and lows of their accomplishments as part of a last will and testament that he leaves with us for all time. |
DESCENT LEADS TO ASCENT
After Napoleon conquered the city of Acre in Northern Israel, he walked through the streets of the ancient seaport. His attention was caught by a group of people wailing bitterly. Incensed at the thought that perhaps they were heartbroken because of his conquest, Napoleon sent agents to investigate. His agents returned telling him that Jews were mourning. Indeed, their mourning was prompted by a conquest, but it was not Napoleon's victory that they were lamenting. It was the night of Tisha Beav, the ninth day of the Hebrew month of Av. They were mourning the conquest of the Temple which occurred more the 1750 years previously on this date.
Napoleon was moved and said that any nation whose sense of history is so strong as to remember to the point of tears something that happened many years previously will live to see that history become present again.
Parshat Devarim is always read before the fast of Tisha Beav the day on which we commemorate the destruction of both Temples. More importantly, it is the day when we focus on building from those ruins, seeing that exile is not in itself an end, but a phase in the progress of mankind to its ultimate goal, the future redemption.
This Shabbat is called Shabbat Chazon, The Shabbat of Vision, referring to Isaiah's vision revealed in the Haftarah which we read this Shabbat. Isaiah's vision speaks of the retribution G-d will inflict on the Jewish people for their sins. Conversely, the name of this Shabbat has a positive connection. As Reb Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev would say: On the Shabbat of vision, every Jew receives a vision of the third Temple.
Both interpretations relate to the fact that this Haftarah was instituted to be read before Tishah Beav which commemorates the destruction of the Temple and the exile of the Jewish people.
How can these two seemingly opposite interpretations coexist? Our nation is prone to extremes. Whether we are at the highest peaks or the lowest depths, we simply are not ordinary. Our people, as a whole and as individuals, share a connection with the essence of G-d, which is not computable. It doesn't fit on a graph, defying all definitions and foreseeable determinations; making rules, rather then conforming to them. That essence was implanted in every one of us. Therefore we will be exceptional; at times sinking to the depths about which Isaiah spoke, and at times rising to the peaks that enable us to anticipate the revelations of the era of the Redemption.
What is most unique is that the two extremes are interrelated. The descent leads to the ascent. G-d structured the challenges of exile to compel us to express our deepest spiritual potential. And just as He presented us with these challenges, He gave us the ability to overcome them.
Bar Mitzvah
When a boy reaches the age of thirteen he acquires the halachic status of an adult and becomes bound by all the mitzvot in the Torah. He is thus a bar mitzvah - a person with a duty to observe the mitzvot. Though it is often said that a boy becomes a bar mitzvah when he is thirteen years old and one day, this simply means that he becomes a bar mitzvah on the first day of his fourteenth year, i.e. on his Hebrew birthday. According to the famous medieval halachist R' Asher, this is a tradition that was communicated to Moses at Mt Sinai.
A further factor in defining someone as a bar mitzvah is that he must also show the first signs of physical puberty. Unless this is the case he cannot fulfil Biblical mitzvot on behalf of others (e.g. he cannot blow the shofar for them on Rosh Hashanah), but he may fulfil Rabbinic mitzvot for them (thus he is allowed to lein from the Torah).
Becoming a bar mitzvah is an automatic event and does not require any special ritual or celebration. Nevertheless, the occasion is usually marked by calling the boy to the Torah, since this is a mitzvah that he was unable to perform as a minor. Massechet Sofrim mentions an ancient custom of taking a bar mitzvah boy to the local Rabbis and elders so that they should bless him, and it is also traditional to host a seudat mitzvah (celebratory meal) in honour of the occasion. Obviously the emphasis at any such celebration should be on the religious dimension of the event. If it is merely an excuse for a knees-up to mark the boy's transition to teenagehood, it becomes a perversion of the true meaning of bar mitzvah.
RABBI ZALMAN SOROTZKIN
Rabbi Zalman Sorotzkin was born in Zakhrina, Russia in 1881 and died in 1966. He was one of the central Rabbinic personalities of pre-war Poland and postwar Israel.
R. Zalman was a brilliant student who married the daughter of Rabbi Eliezer Gordon, Rosh Yeshiva of Telz. He served as Rabbi of the small town of Voronovo, near Vilna, and subsequently as Rabbi of Zittel in Lithuania. Shortly after the First World War he was appointed as Rabbi of Lutsk, which had a Jewish community of 30,000 souls, and he remained there until the outbreak of World War II.
It was during the Lutsk period that R. Zalman's reputation grew and he became one of the leaders of Agudat Yisrael and of Orthodox Jewry. When Lutsk was occupied by the Russians after the outbreak of war, R. Zalman was compelled to flee with his family to Vilna.
He finally arrived in Eretz Yisrael, establishing the Va'ad HaYeshivot, which oversaw the Yeshivot of Israel. He was elected vice-chairman and subsequently chairman of the Council of Torah Sages of Agudat Yisrael.
The work for which R. Zalman is best known is his Oznayim LaTorah, a popular commentary on Chumash. He also authored HaDe'ah VehaDibbur on Chumash and a collection of Responsa, Moznayim LaMishpat. A commentary on the Haggadah, HaShir VehaShevach, was published posthumously.
6th Av
Cromwell's unofficial readmission of the Jews into England in 1656 provided an oral guarantee and the approval of The Council of State allowing the Conversos of England to practice their faith openly.
However, their formal and legal emancipation proved to be a long and tortuous process. In 1753 the Jewish naturalisation Bill (Jew Bill) was issued to give foreign-born Jews the ability to acquire the privileges of their native-born children, but was rescinded due to anti-Jewish agitation.
It was on this day, corresponding to 22 July 1833, that the Jewish Emancipation Bill passed its third reading in the House of Commons. It was consistently rejected by the House of Lords, and was only finally passed on 31 July 1845.
Legal disabilities were slowly removed by stages. In 1833 the first Jew was admitted to the Bar and the first Jewish sheriff was appointed in 1835. Two years later Queen Victoria knighted Moses Montefiore, and in 1841 Isaac Lyon Goldsmid was made baronet, the first Jew to receive a hereditary title.
By 1846 exclusion from Parliament was the only serious grievance remaining. Lionel de Rothschild had been elected by the City of London as its Parliamentary representative time after time from 1847, but he was barred from taking his seat through his unwillingness to take the Christian oath.
After an eleven year debate, in 1858 a compromise was finally reached, and each House of Parliament was allowed to settle its own form of oath. Baron Rothschild became the first Jewish Member of Parliament.
M - Golda Meir
Born in Russia in 1898, Golda Meir's family emigrated to Milwaukee, in the U.S.A when she was a child, seeking to leave poverty behind. In 1921, she and her husband moved to Palestine and she began a career devoted to service to the Jewish People. From 1946 to 1948 she was head of the political department of the Jewish Agency in Jerusalem. In an effort to boost the treasury, she was sent on a mission to the USA to raise the seemingly impossible sum of $25 million. Her powers of oratory and persuasion were such that she actually returned with $50 million. Later, she was elected to Israel's first parliament and served as Israeli Foreign Minister, Minister of Labour and Ambassador to Moscow.
In 1969, following the untimely death of Levi Eshkol (Vol 16 No. 43 A-Z), Golda Meir came out of retirement to lead Israel as Prime Minister, becoming its fourth Prime Minister, aged seventy. She inherited deep political divisions concerning the best plan to deal with the territories occupied since the Six-Day War of 1967. She took a hard line toward the Arabs, refusing to stop expansion of settlements in the occupied territories. She also led an administration that had an open-door immigration policy, encouraging thousands of Soviet Jews to emigrate to Israel. The Yom Kippur War of 1973 brought an end to Meir's political life. Blamed for overestimating Israel's security, making the country vulnerable to the surprise attacks by Egypt and Syria, she resigned the Prime Minister's position in 1974, dying in 1978. She is buried in Jerusalem.
Last week's questions:
1) In today's second Sidra, Masei, in the details given about the journeys of the Israelites, there is a veiled reference to the festival of Chanukah.
What is it?
Answer:
The 25th stop was at Chashmona, corresponding to the festival of the Chashmonaim on 25th Kislev.
2) EXTRA CHALLENGE set by Prof Lester Kershenbaum of New West End Synagogue.
The section from the Torah most frequently read in Synagogue is from Chapter 28 of Bemidbar (Parshat Pinchas), which is read on Rosh Chodesh. This is read on 17 to 21 occasions during the year.
The second most frequently read section is read 11 or 12 times every year. What is it?
Answer:
Shemot 34:1-10.
It is read on
1 Shabbat Ki Tissa
2-9 twice on 4 public fast days (at Shacharit and Minchah)
10 at Mincha on Tisha B'av
11 during Chol Hamoed Pesach
12 and, in most years, on Shabbat Chol Hamoed Succot
This week's question:
1) How many of these can you explain?
I. the 9 days
II. the 3 weeks
III. the 7 weeks
IV. the 24 weeks
V. the 4 Shabbatot
VI. the 7 Shabbatot
VII. the 28 years
VIII. the 50 years
2) EXTRA CHALLENGE
In what circumstances would an entire congregation (made up of more than a minyan of obligated, healthy men) during a regular daily service, not say a single Amen except for responses to the Mourner's and Rabbonan Kaddishes?
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