Kehilaton: 7/11/09 - Temple Beth Israel

Dear Friends,

I hope you all had a great 4th of July weekend!

With Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur coming up in September, we’re busy planning for everyone to share the Holidays with our TBI family.

Here is your first advance notice: TBI’s High Holiday Services will be held at the Crowne Plaza Hotel at 13400 W. Sunrise Blvd. just across from Sawgrass Mills. Very soon you will receive a High Holiday package with all the information, so please be ready to participate -- High Holiday Flower Fund, Shana Tovah Greetings, Break the Fast, Book of Remembrance, etc.

This coming Shabbat, we read Parashat Pinchas that deals with a very interesting character from the Torah, Pinchas, who has been commented upon in different ways throughout history.

Pinchas, Aaron’s grandson (and hence a priest), was included in our Torah text because of his brave attitude towards an Israelite man (Zimri) and a Moabite woman (Cozbi) who had acted immorally and had profaned God’s name. Pinchas’ reaction when he discovered these offences was immediate -- he killed both of them.

The Torah seemed to approve this action, but many commentators later on took issue with Pinchas’ behavior. They asked: "Is it good to show this kind of fanaticism?" … "Is it good to include in our holy text a character exhibiting this reaction?" And even the Talmud (the Oral Bible) claims that Pinchas asked the rabbis if it was permitted to kill that couple. Citing halachah to justify his request, the rabbis would have told him: "The law may permit it, but we do not follow that law." (BT. Sanhedrin 82a.)

What a great teaching!! Think for a moment of the possibility of saying in crucial moments: "We don’t follow that law." What a different world would result!

Maybe if Pinchas had lived in our world today, his actions would have been different.

In order to create a different world, we have to work together to create it. Working together means sharing our ideas and our opinions with the understanding that we can all think differently.

And that is good.

We are all equal, but we are not all the same. Fanaticism is not the way to get things -- it’s only the key to hatred, and that’s what we no longer want.

When my daughter (Gali) was a baby we used to listen to music together and one of the songs that gave us a great teaching was: "You are a STAR: Stop, Take A deep breath and Relax."

Dear reader, you are the STAR in your Shabbat, so please: Stop, Take a deep breath and Relax!

Shabbat Shalom!!


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