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Kehilat Shalom's D'var & Discussion Blog

We want to make the Kehila's website as responsive to your needs as possible. Feel free to comment regarding anything pertinent to shul and shul matters. e.g. Feedback on the website, questions on issues of Judaism, Kashrut, Jewish law, the Parsha or weekly Torah portion, ideas for what the Kehila can do to improve our services, etc. are all fair game.
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Dvar TorahTerumah: Sharing our gifts- Rabbi Leonard Cohen    February 19, 2021

2/18/2021

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In this week's Torah portion, Terumah, the Jewish people are each instructed to bring forward a contribution (Terumah) to the construction of the Mishkan, or Tabernacle. The Mishkan was to become the central site of sacrificial and ritual worship, the holy place of the Jewish people up until the building of the Beit Hamikdash.
The second Passuk (verse) of the Torah reading has G-d saying to Moses,
דַּבֵּר֙ אֶל־בְּנֵ֣י יִשְׂרָאֵ֔ל וְיִקְחוּ־לִ֖י תְּרוּמָ֑ה מֵאֵ֤ת כָּל־אִישׁ֙ אֲשֶׁ֣ר יִדְּבֶ֣נּוּ לִבּ֔וֹ תִּקְח֖וּ אֶת־תְּרוּמָתִֽי׃

"Tell the Israelite people to take contributions for Me, from every person whose heart so moves him, you shall take this contribution of Mine."
Rashi asks the obvious - why does G-d need contributions from humanity? The answer is that the act of giving allows anyone of means or desire to ally with G-d in sacred activity -- in this case, building the Mishkan.
The recounting of the design and construction of the Mishkan, its vessels and utensils, and the garb of the Kohanim who served there, form the major part of the last half of the book of Shemot. Rabbi Jonathan Sacks z"l explains that the Mishkan constituted the first collective project of the Jewish people. It was a mass movement -- not in an act of flight from oppression, but mobilization towards a common, unified, sacred goal. Rabbi Sacks notes that the constant strife that marked the Jewish people's journey in the desert seemed to be absent during the building of the Mishkan; they found harmony in their pursuit of a collective project.
How noteworthy that the Jewish people rallied around giving. A subtle message is conveyed here: community is formed when people are each giving of themselves. We form our most meaningful bonds when we bring our strengths, gifts and resources towards common pursuits.
I have remarked in recent weeks on how wonderful our Saturday evening Havdalah programs have been precisely because they have been homemade. With the organization and recruitment done by Ora Major, our members have shared with one another divrei Torah and discussions, presentations on humour, a travelogue, facts and anecdotes about coins and stamps... All of these have added to the do-it-yourself ethic that has added so much to the intimacy and participatory nature of this community. We all have our gifts to share, and when we do so with one another, in the context of a Kehila, we evoke Hashem's presence among us. This coming week, as we celebrate Purim, Ora and I continue to welcome creative ideas for celebrating this occasion and coming events.
May we continue to find inspiration and connection with Hashem and one another as we share our gifts meaningfully together.
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Dvar Torah- A Vortl on Mishpatim"- Rabbi Leonard Cohen & Sapira Cahana- February 12, 2021

2/11/2021

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This week's Dvar Torah is courtesy of my daughter Hannah's best friend Sapira Cahana, daughter of my rabbi and mentor Rabbi Ronnie Cahana. The Cahana family shares passion and insight about Judaism, and like her father, Sapira is adept at finding meaning that lies hidden within the wording of Torah.

This week's parsha, Mishpatim, contains a continuation of the laws granted to the Jewish people at Sinai. Following the great revelation at Mount Sinai, and the delivery of the Aseret Hadibrot (the 10 Pronouncements), Hashem proceeds to lay out a wide variety of mitzvot that lay the foundations for a civil society. Among these laws are the restrictions pertaining to the Eved Ivri - a Jewish slave owned by a fellow Jew. The Torah seems to acknowledge the oppression of slavery, such as that of the Jewish experience in Egypt; the tolerance of slaveholding may have been an accommodation to a society and world where slavery was the norm.


According to Torah, a master must grant a Jewish slave freedom upon the arrival of the seventh year. However, there is provision for a slave who wishes to remain with his owner. When a slave refuses to go free, the owner is instructed to bring the slave to a doorpost, and pierce his ear with an awl to mark him as a committed slave. Only upon the arrival of the jubilee fiftieth year is such a slave then freed.


Why would a person refuse to go free and rather wish to remain enslaved? What do we learn from this mitzvah in a time when we no longer engage in the cruel practice of slavery?

Sapira remarks upon the Hebrew word מרצע (martze'a) for the tool used for the piercing. She points out that the word is an anagram of מצער (mi-tza'ar) which literally means, "from a place of despair". One can imagine that there are people who fear freedom beyond the confines of the world with which they are familiar. The distress of autonomy might compel such a person to retreat to servitude.

Also significant is the gematria of the word מרצע which is equivalent to 400 -- the number of years the Jewish people were enslaved in Egypt. A Jew who refuses their own freedom is literally marked to signify the irony of their choice, given the foundational, tragic Jewish experience of slavery.

As well, the ear is the very organ with which the Jewish people heard Hashem's voice at Sinai, the voice impelling them to freedom with all its risks, to serve G-d and no other. The slave who denies themselves liberty is marked in their ear, to signify the cleft between their choice and the Divine ideals of liberty sounded by Hashem.

Sapira points attention to the location where the piercing is conducted -- the doorpost. A doorway represents a liminal space, the literal threshold of transition from one place to another. Any transition where we stand between one important place in our lives and another, can prove fearsome. This liminal space is the point where a decision needs to be made.

We stand at times at important thresholds in life. As noted author Bill Bridges points out in his book Transitions: Making Sense of Life's Changes, the transitional/liminal space can be unsettling and even frightening. When we wish to make a change in life, we may hear the message from others, "Don't change! Stay back!" In the course of transition, one may experience trauma and difficulty. After a time, when a person succeeds in changing, they can look back with new insight and learning about what they have undergone.

​To some, the threat of change, even to an improved situation, can prove overwhelming. The Eved Ivri at the end of seven years stands at a potential transition to autonomy. The refusal to go forward, the retreat into familiarity and safety, may represent a lost opportunity that cannot be regained. Such a person who refuses to go forward remains forever marked by his unreadiness to take ownership of his situation.

Hashem does not wish for the Jewish people to retreat back to slavery, as they threatened to do at the incident of the Hebrew Spies in the book of Bemidbar. Rather, G-d wishes for us -- both individually and collectively -- to proceed forth boldly into the world, to face our unsettling challenges with emunah (faith) and bitachon (surety) that Hashem accompanies us in our journeys. We cannot attain success unless we risk failure.
May we be inspired by Sapira's learning, to acknowledge the great demands of transition in our lives, and to find faith in Hashem to see us through to new pathways.
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Dvar Torah - YitroAseret Hadibrot "The Ten Pronouncements" -Rabbi Leonard Cohen

2/7/2021

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This is a very, very special Shabbat. This weeks parasha, Yitro, contains the Aseret Hadibrot – the Ten Pronouncements (often mistranslated as “Ten Commandments”) fundamental not only to Judaism, but to nations throughout the world.
The opening word of the Dibrot is simply, אנכי – anochi – ’I’… as in, “I am the L-rd your G-d”. It is said that in that one word anochi is encompassed the entirety of the positive mitzvot. What is so distinctive about this pronoun?

My great-grandfather was a Karliner Hasid, meaning that he was an adherent of the Hasidic dynasty founded by Rav Aharon of Karlin (1736-1772). It is told of Rav Aharon that he was learning in his study one day, when there came a knock at the door. The Rav called out, “Who is it?” And the man at the door replied, “It’s me” (ich, literally, ‘I’). Rev Aharon did not respond. A few minutes later, the man knocked again. Again, the same question, “Who is it?” and the same answer, “Ich”. Again, the Karliner Rav did not answer. After several rounds of the same, the Rav finally opened the door.
The man at the door exclaimed, “Why wouldn’t you open for me?! You know and recognize me well from all the time we studied under the Maggid of Mezeritch! Why did you keep me waiting outside like that?”
The Karliner Rav slowly answered, “There is no ‘I’. The only anochi is that of Hashem, who said, ‘Anochi Hashem Elokecha’, I am the L-rd your G-d who brought you out of Egypt. Everything and everyone is subject to Hashem’s unity.”
The man sighed in response, “You’re right, Rav Aharon. There is more for me to learn about humility.” And the man left and headed back to Mezeritch, so he could study more under the Maggid’s guidance.

The term anochi itself is no longer in common Hebrew parlance -- today, Hebrew speakers use the word ani for ‘I’. In biblical Hebrew, however, both terms were used, and the simpler ani appears twice as often as anochi.
Anochi is a pronoun, to be sure, through which Hashem articulates divine Presence. But the word is not just used by G-d. People in Torah, including Cain, Avram, Sarah, and Rivkah, all made use of the term.
The Malbim holds that the term anochi is a specific term referring to just oneself, meaning ‘I and no other’. Indeed, the Aseret Hadibrot specify Hashem’s distinction from all other entities that people erringly worship. Rabbi Shimshon Rafael Hirsch states that the pronoun signifies something yet further – a desire to attain closeness with the person with whom they are speaking. Just as there are both formal and informal ways of addressing someone in the second person in languages like French and German (“tu” vs. the more formal “vous”; “du” vs. “sie”), here too, R. Hirsch suggests, there is the more formal pronoun ani and the more intimate one of anochi.
It seems that Hashem wishes to draw close to the Jewish people, and wishes the Jews to draw closer to G-dself (yet another unusual pronoun, an English one that has come into usage in modern Jewish theology). At Mount Sinai, the entire Jewish people heard G-d’s voice directly. Rabbi Jonathan Sacks zt”l, in an essay published posthumously this week, emphasizes that that the Jewish relationship with G-Hashem is meant to be decentralized and democratized. This is part of Hashem’s desire for the Jews to become “a nation of kohanim (priests)” (Shemot 19:6). Rabbis in Judaism do not wear a distinctive garb, to signify that no person is more inherently elevated in holiness than another. We all have the capacity for a deeply personal relationship with G-d.
In following the ways of Torah, we fulfill a sacred mandate that enables us to become a “treasured nation” (19:5) to Hashem. In these challenging times, amid the isolation imposed on us by the pandemic, it is heartening and important to remind ourselves that we are each individually beloved in Hashem’s eyes.
Previous Dvar Torah compilation
For those who missed previous Dvar Torah's, they can now be found online at https://www.kscalgary.org/blog. David Craimer, the creator of Kehilat Shalom’s website, has meticulously compiled past Dvar Torah articles, and you’re invited to visit the site and read through it for Torah learning.
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