Friday, November 13, 26 Chesvan 6:00 PM Please join Rabbi Plumb and Jackson Mercer for a virtual "From Our Home to Yours" Kabbalat Shabbat Services
Saturday, November 14, 27 Cheshvan 9:30 AM Please join Rabbi Plumb and Cantor Ellen Band for a virtual "From Our Home to Yours" Shabbat Mevarchim Morning Services
Please click here for the link to the new Conservative prayerbook, Siddur Lev Shalem: Shabbat Shaharit Siddur Lev Shalem The prayers will be the same as in our usual blue siddur, so feel free to use that instead if you wish.
Please click here for the link to the page numbers for Shabbat morning prayers in Sim Shalom (Blue) and in Lev Shalem Page Numbers for Shabbat Morning
We Remember: This week's upcoming Yahrzeit and Shloshim Observances
Shloshim Benjamin Hyman Maye Cohen
Saturday Louis Silberstein Pearl Posner-Goodes Sidney Katz
Sunday Samuel Stahl Edward Ted Levine
Monday Jennie Leiman Israel Einstein Ida Hoffman William Kaplan
Tuesday Harry Freedman
Wednesday Bluma Stein Louis L. Kaitz
Thursday Samuel Perlmutter Fred Fialkow Nathan Cutler
Friday Bennet Rogers
LimmudFest 2020
Congregation Mishkan Tefila is pleased to be a sponsor of LimmudBoston's LimmudFest 2020 which will be held online this coming Sunday, November 15, 2020 from 11:00 am to 4:30 pm. The program schedule has been released and they are offering a wide variety of sessions so everyone should be able to find topics of interest.
Click here to register. Access to their online event will be emailed to you from LimmudBoston once you register.
From Our Rabbi: A Teaching
This week in Parashat Hayyei Sarah, we read of the deaths of three of our great biblical leaders--Sarah, Abraham and King David. These deaths symbolise both endings and beginnings. They are moments of transition, as all deaths are. My heart goes out to Phyllis Katz and her family who lost her mother this week.
Every death, every ending, is a doorway into a new way of being, a new framework for our lives. Each of the losses in our parasha this week leads to new understandings.
Sarah is the first matriarch to die. Her husband Abraham buries her himself after careful, respectful negotiations with the owners of the land, to buy the plot for her and other members of the family. Her burial in a new family plot earns him a new name: ger toshav, a settled traveler.
Abraham and Sarah had been travelling ever since they were told to Lech Lecha, leave their parent’s house and go on an unknown journey. Finally, Abraham laid down roots when he ‘planted’ Sarah in the ground. He found a place he could return to as his eternal home.
Abraham’s death brought another type of transition. This one consisted of a healing between two brothers. The first time Ishmael and Isaac come together, since they were children, is to bury their father together. It is also the first time the Torah refers to the two of them as ‘Abraham’s sons.’ Rabbi Arthur Waskow points out, ‘We can only tell each other our imagined stories of what their conversation was like at the graveside of their dangerous father. Remember, he sent one of them into the wilderness ill-equipped to survive, and the other he took up the mountain, intending to slaughter him as an offering to God. Yet they joined to bury him and they reconciled with each other, so that Isaac went to live where Ishmael lived.’ Rabbi Waskow suggests that we should read the text of this brotherly burial on Rosh Hashanah instead of the Binding of Isaac, because it represents reconciliation.
Sarah’s death brought Abraham a sense of finally finding home. Abraham’s death brought two brothers home to each other.
King David’s death in the Haftarah, brought a transition from stability to uncertainty. As King David was dying he appointed his heir, Shlomo (Solomon), ‘the peaceful one’ as the leader who was to take over after him. But even as he was leaving this world, another son was gathering leaders, ‘yes-men’, officials who would support him at any cost, to declare him king. He attempted a palace coup. He refused to allow the appointed heir to take the rightful place of leader. It is ironic how timely this haftarah is to our current election predicament. We too have an elected heir to the leadership of our country, and an ousted son refuses to step aside. We too need a smooth transition that will enable us to reconcile with our fellow American brothers and sisters who have different ideas than us. We too want to come home; to the America we love, the America of democracy, that so many fought and died for, and were honoured this week on Veteran’s Day.
May this Shabbat fill us with gratitude for democracy and those who defend it. May Shabbat fill the home of our souls.
Shabbat Shalom, Rabbi Marcia Plumb
Congregation Mishkan Tefila 384 Harvard St. Brookline, MA 02446
