Friday, August 6, 28 Av 6:00 PM Please join Rabbi Lev Friedman for a virtual "From Our Home to Yours" Kabbalat Shabbat Service.
Saturday, August 7, 29 Av 8:30 AM Please join our Mishkan Tefila members as they lead us in Shabbat morning prayer for our virtual "From Our Home to Yours" Service..
If you have a simcha, please share it with us and receive a special blessing from Rabbi Plumb during an upcoming Shabbat service. Sponsor a Kiddush by virtually inviting us to your home as you lead the community in KIddush and HaMotzi prayers. (we will provide challah and grape juice!) Please contect Rosalie Reszelbach, Janet Stein Calm or Toni Spitzer to arrange.
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 Observances
Shloshim Lois Fleischer Mark Wizansky
Saturday Sarah Lichter Jodi Robin Epstein Sylvia "Sybil" Summers
Sunday Charlie Halpern Frances Brezner Shuman
Monday Adelle Barnett Louis Shapiro
Tuesday Marshall Madow
Wednesday Anna Kaminsky Herbert Ober Arlene Bornstein Israel Levine
Thursday Burton Bernstein Dr. Harold Ehrlich Samuel Berkman Merritt Lipsky
Friday Gloria Milder Gladys Kadis
From Our Rabbi: A Teaching
Mount Gerezim and Mount Ebal, with the valley in between, Israel.
‘See, I set before you blessing and curse.’ Dt. 11:27
According to our parasha this week, if we choose to act in a way that will bring blessings upon you, go to the top of Mount Gerezim. If we choose to follow paths that lead to being cursed, then climb to the top of Mount Ebal. But before we choose, pause in the valley between them and think before we act.
These verses are full of Mussar symbolism. For those of you who ask, ‘What is Mussar and what does it have to do with me?’, these verses are the answer. The mountains and the valley in between represent the choices we have to make all the time, and how to choose.
We have to make decisions all day every day: what we should say to whom, what deal to make at work, what risks to take, what actions and words should we choose. Some of our choices lead to positive outcomes and some will not. Sometimes we say words that show our best selves and sometimes we reveal the worst side of ourselves.
All our choices ultimately lead to feelings of positivity or negativity, blessing or curse. Each choice matters to the development of our souls.
Too often, however, we act or speak without thinking and later regret it. Mussar is all about choosing with intention; responding with thought rather than react instinctively. Mussar teaches that the way to choose is to pause before speaking or acting. Pausing gives us the chance to decide if our words or actions will bring blessings or curses.
The valley between the two mountains is the symbol for the pause.
This Shabbat, practice pausing in the valley, then choose words and acts for blessing.
Shabbat Shalom, Rabbi Marcia Plumb
Congregation Mishkan Tefila 384 Harvard St. Brookline, MA 02446
