Friday, May 12, 21 Iyar 6:00 PM Please join Rabbi Plumb and Ellen Allard for a Hybrid Kabbalat Shabbat Service.
Saturday, May 13, 22 Iyar, 10:00 AM Please join Rabbi Marcia Plumb for a Hybrid Shabbat Morning special service of learning and spirituality with Torah reading by Lea Grossman.
Join us IN-PERSON ONLY AT 9:00AM for Nosh and Drash Torah Study - SEE BELOW
Hybrid services begin at 10:00AM
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
Nosh and Drash: Shabbat Morning Torah Study Saturday, May 13, 9:00AM featuring Matt Sienkiewicz
We are continuing our counting of the Omer, the 49 days between Pesach and Shavuot.
Every year at Congregation Mishkan Tefila, we count the Omer with a special thought for the day. The Omer began on Thursday evening, April 6. This year, I will greet you, every morning, with a short video message to help you start your day in a positive inspired way.
I invite you to celebrate someone you love by sponsoring a day of the Omer. Choose someone to honor, who has instilled an important value in you. You may choose someone in your family (past or present), a teacher, a friend, or anyone who has taught you an important life lesson. Please share their name, and yours, so we can celebrate you both. The cost to sponsor a Day of the Omer is $118. Be sure to read the morning emails to see your day!
Thank you so much, and we look forward to celebrating the Omer with you, Rabbi Marcia Plumb
We Remember: This week's upcoming Yahrzeit Observances
Saturday Stanley E. Weisman Minna Lapp
Sunday Beryl Chafetz
Monday Sarah Krentzman Rhoda Davidow Bertha Katz Charlotte Paley Henry Ward
Tuesday Solomon Aronson Arnold B. Ehrlich Serena Boronkay Robert Shuman
Wednesday Barbara Cohen Lee Wolchansky Claire Lorraine Pearl Eliot Michaelson
Thursday Bertram Lank Frances Diamond Sidney Magid Herbert M Carle Susan Garber-Bishop
Friday Henrietta Jacobs
A Teaching from our Rabbi
Lilac Sunday at Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University This Sunday, May 14 10AM - 3PM Click here to register
כִּי־לִ֖י הָאָ֑רֶץ כִּֽי־גֵרִ֧ים וְתוֹשָׁבִ֛ים אַתֶּ֖ם עִמָּדִֽי׃ For the land is Mine; you are but strangers resident with Me. Lev 25:23
One of my favourite days in Boston is Lilac Day at the Arnold Arboretum. I love walking among the flowering trees, and marveling at every blossom. Lilac Day coincides with Mother’s Day this year and is this Sunday. It makes sense that our parasha this week also talks about appreciating the earth.
Parashat Behar-Behukotai begins with the command to follow the Shmita year, the 7th year during which the land lays fallow and has a rest. Lev. 25:23 reminds us that the land is G*d’s, and we are but renters. We think we own the land, and can do with it what we like, but the opposite is true. Rashi, the 9th c.commentator teaches that the phrase, ‘כי לי הארץ FOR THE LAND IS MINE’ means ‘ Your eye shall not be evil towards it (you shall not begrudge this) for it is not yours.’ G*d, the Torah and Jewish philosophy as a whole knew that human beings have a greedy, destructive side to us. Proverbs says, “An evil-eyed person moves quickly after wealth.” Our desires get the better of us, and often blind us to what is right, good and holy. Our longing for, and dependence on, the wealth that comes from the earth, has led us to destroy that which feeds us–the land itself. Therefore, the Torah and Jewish law provides safeguards against our yetzer hara–our evil inclination. By reminding us that the earth is actually not ours to do with what we want, but is G*d’s, the Torah is putting boundaries on our treatment of it.
Judaism created a command known as Ba’al Tashkhit–do not destroy. We are not to destroy what G*d created. This includes the prohibition against making a species, whether animal or flora, extinct. When our actions cause something G*d created with intentionality to be wiped from the earth, it is considered blasphemous and sinful. Causing extinction is against Jewish law. Destroying our planet’s eco-system, carefully engineered by the Creator, is also against Jewish law.
Jewish philosophers took the idea of kavod ha-aretz, respect for the land, further. They wrote about how the earth manifests divinity. Psalm 19:1 expresses this point poetically: “the heavens are telling the glory of G*d / and the firmament proclaims G*d’s handiwork.” By studying and loving nature, we can study and love G*d. Understanding all parts of nature helps us better understand G*d. Dr. Hava Tirosh-Samuelson says that nature is like a text that can be decoded to better understand the Holy One. Destroying nature, therefore, is like destroying something Divine.
Dr. Tirosh-Samuelson writes, ‘Judaism prescribes a sensitivity to all of God’s creatures as part of the command to confer dignity on all things created by God.’
This Shabbat, and this weekend, as we celebrate the mothers of the world, as well as our own, may our love for the women in our lives extend to a love of the earth. This Shabbat, we celebrate mothers and Mother Earth.
Shabbat Shalom, Rabbi Marcia Plumb
Congregation Mishkan Tefila 384 Harvard St. Brookline, MA 02446
