Shabbat Shalom GRJC

Weekly Emails to the Congregation

Parshat Ahare Mot Kedoshim 2007

Shabbat Shalom to the GRJC family,

This Shabbat we light candles at 7:30 PM. We celebrate Andrea Safirstein’s Bat Mitzvah beginning with our Friday evening service at 8 PM. We wish an early Mazel Tov to Andrea and her whole family.

Saturday morning events begin at 8:30 AM with a special breakfast and study session on this week’s Torah reading: Kedoshim – Holiness and The Golden Rule and. We will have a nosh as well as study and discussion time, and then services will begin at 9:30 AM. 

This week we read from parshat Kedoshim in the Book of Leviticus. As we read the last third of the parasha this Shabbat, we take note of the statement in chapter 19, verse 18: “Ve’ahavta le’re’acha kamo’cha.” “Love your fellow human being as yourself.” This statement, sometimes called the Golden Rule, has a parallel later in the chapter; “Love the stranger as yourself, for you were strangers in the Land of Egypt.”(19:34)

The question arises as to how we can have these two statements together since, after the first one, the second one seems unnecessary. If we are supposed to love our fellow human beings, then we should love them without judging their status in society. The first statement should suffice especially because the word used in that phrase “re’ah” can mean friend, neighbor, kinsman, or simply ‘fellow human being’ as J.H. Hertz points out in his essay in our Chumash.(p. 563)

Since the Torah is precise in its language, we take the approach that the Torah wishes to communicate a particular message with the statement about “loving the stranger.” I think that the Torah is teaching us a message about human nature. It is easy for us to love, to socialize, to spend time with those people who are close to us in beliefs, opinions, and interests. On the other hand, it is more difficult to interact with those who are different from us in any number of ways. The Torah is teaching us with the second statement about loving the stranger that we have to make an extra effort to interact with those who are different from us, and the Torah gives us an excellent reason to do so. It reminds us that once we were all strangers in Egypt. We were set apart and Pharaoh tried to make sure that we would have no future as a people. Now that we are a people, we have the ability to set an example of peace, openness, and tolerance in our own community and in the larger world beyond.

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

1. Adult Education – The Sunday evening Adult Education class is cancelled this week. I will be out of town at the annual Rabbinical Assembly convention in Boston from Sunday morning through Wednesday evening, May 2. You can reach me on my cell phone at 201-421-9811. In case of an emergency, please contact Rabbi Jonathan Woll (Temple Avoda, Fair Lawn) at 201-797-9716.

2. Saturday evening we will gather at 8:40 PM for the last night of Shivah at the home of Alfred Fredel, 6 Clinton Place in Glen Rock. 

3. HERITAGE DAY -- Sunday April 29 at the Ridgewood High School Campus Center, from 1-4 PM. Free admission. Music performance, food and fellowship. More than 30 countries represented. Stop by the Israel table!

4. The next Widows/Widowers group will meet Thursday, May 3, at 11:45 AM for lunch and discussion.

5. HAPPY BIRTHDAY AND HAPPY ANNIVERSARY! - If you are having a Birthday (Ages 1-100+) or Anniversary in May, join us on Friday night, May 4th, at 8 PM during Friday night services for a special ceremony with blessings. This celebration will continue each month. Check the bulletin and emails for monthly announcements

Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Tow
 

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