During the winter months, Friday evening, Kabbalat Shabbat services, are virtual only. (January 20-March 10) Shabbat morning services remain in person and on Zoom.
Friday, January 20, 27 Tevet 6:00 PM Please join Rabbi Marcia Plumb and Ellen Allard for VIRTUAL"From Our Home to Yours" Kabbalat Shabbat Service
Saturday, January 21, 28 Tevet, 10:00AM Please join Rabbi Marcia Plumb and Cantor Ellen Band for aHYBRID Shabbat morning 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
Kabbalat Shabbat with Nefesh Mountain at CMT March 17, 6:00 PM
We Remember: This week's upcoming Yahrzeit Observances
Shloshim Sylvia Schwartz
Saturday Nathan Gliksman Milton Parker
Sunday David Lichter Ida Sheff
Monday
Tuesday Jean Kern
Wednesday Aunt Jean Marcus Joseph Stone David Kisloff
Thursday Benjamin F. Solomon Florence Lieberman Mollie Golov
Friday Charlotte Kaitz Irma Gershkowitz Lorraine Goldman Bernard Fishman
A Teaching from our Rabbi
This week, in Torah, we read of the first set of plagues. According to midrash, all of the plagues were silent except one.
וַיֵּצֵ֥א מֹשֶׁ֛ה וְאַהֲרֹ֖ן מֵעִ֣ם פַּרְעֹ֑ה וַיִּצְעַ֤ק מֹשֶׁה֙ אֶל־יְהֹוָ֔ה עַל־דְּבַ֥ר הַֽצְפַרְדְּעִ֖ים אֲשֶׁר־שָׂ֥ם לְפַרְעֹֽה׃ י Then Moses and Aaron left Pharoah’s presence, and Moses cried out to God of the matter of the frogs which had been inflicted upon Pharoah. (Ex.8:8)
The text above says that Moses cried out to Pharoah עַל־דְּבַ֥ר (al dvar) on the matter of the frogs. The word Dvar means ‘matter’ or ‘thing’ but it also means words or speech. Thus, the midrash suggests that the plague of the frogs was bad not only because frogs were everywhere (‘frogs here, frogs there, frogs were jumping everywhere…’), but also because they were so loud, using their unique speech to torment the Egyptians.
‘Our teachers of blessed memory said: The destruction caused by the frogs didn’t suffice for the Egyptians. The sound of the frogs was more harsh than the plague. They would enter into their bodies and cry out from inside them, as it says, regarding the devar of the frogs, that is the dibbur, speech, of the frogs…’ (Midrash Tanhuma Vaera 6)
According to the midrash, the worst component of the plague of frogs was its sound. Interestingly, the way that it characterizes what was so terrible about the noise was that it penetrated the Egyptians, literally or figuratively, entering their bodies and emerging from them. First, the Egyptians themselves would absorb the source of the noise, the frogs themselves, and then hear the frog’s croaking coming out of their own throats, as if the voice of the frog was their own. With the frogs inside them, the Egyptians cried out with the same despair as the Israelites who cried out to God. The plague was not to annoy the taskmasters. God wanted them to embody the despair of the Israelites.
Dena Weiss points out that ‘The plague of frogs was designed to make the Egyptians listen to the people who they thought of as frogs and to hear them screaming. The irony and the tragedy is that it was easier for the Egyptians to be disturbed by the noise made by frogs than it was for them to hear the cries of the actual human Israelites who were suffering at their hands.’
Only when we truly hear the pain of another, and empathize with their suffering, can we understand that we are all connected. No one should be treated as less than human, demoralised and ignored.
This Shabbat may our ears open to hear the cries of others. May our homes be filled with rachamim, compassion, for each other.
Shabbat Shalom, Rabbi Marcia Plumb
Congregation Mishkan Tefila 384 Harvard St. Brookline, MA 02446
