Ki Tetze 5771 – 9/6/11

Torah Thoughts for Today
Shabbat Ki Tetze 5771
Rabbi Mark Mallach
Temple Beth Ahm Yisrael, Springfield, NJ

MINYAN ASSURANCE NEEDED
Janie Links has her mother’s Yahrzeit, may Doris’s memory be for a blessing, beginning this evening, Sept. 6th, your presence at 7:45 PM is needed to assure a minyan
BACK TO SCHOOL
To all of our TBAY kids on their way back to school this week – have a great year!

IN REMEMBERANCE FOR 9/11 – Sunday, September 11, 2011

8:45 AM: Meditative reflection followed by a moment of silence for 9/11 in the Holocaust Memorial Garden
9 AM: Morning Minyan & 9/11 Commemoration in the Sanctuary together with the Religious School

READ HEBREW AMERICA CRASH HEBREW READING CLASS & Adult Bnai Mitzvah Class Starting!
Do you want to learn how to read Hebrew or brush up on your Alef Bet for an upcoming Simha? TBAY is offering a FREE 5 week Hebrew Reading Crash Course sponsored by Read Hebrew America, on Tuesdays at 7:30 pm, beginning September 13. This class is open to all! Refreshments will be provided.
Following the completion of our Hebrew Reading Crash Course, we will begin a new Adult B’nai Mitvzah class, also on Tuesdays. If you did not have a Bar or Bat Mitzvah and are interested in fulfilling this rite of passage, this class is perfect for you! Learn prayer in the Siddur, Haftorah and Torah portions, practice with speeches and receive guidance and support throughout the process. There is a fee for the two year B’nai Mitzvah class but confidential financial support is available. Please contact the synagogue office (973-376-0539 ext 13) for more information.

NEXT POTENTIAL CONGREGATIONAL ISRAEL TOUR
There have been inquiries about the next potential congregation Israel tour, such an event depends on several factors:
1. Currently exploring departure dates for the end of June, 2012
2. Having a nucleus of participants to make it viable – 20 adult minimum
3. Having a chairman to organize
If anyone is interested, please let me know and we can discuss the possibilities (NOTE: HAVE GOTTEN MANY RESPONSES, INTEREST IS CLEARLY GROWING…)

IMPORTANT NOTES FOLLOW BELOW
PARASHAT KI TETZE
September 10, 2011- 11 Elul 5771
Annual: Deut. 21:10 – 25:19 (Etz Hayim, p. 1112; Hertz p. 840)
Triennial: Deut. 21:10 – 23:7 (Etz Hayim, p. 1112; Hertz p. 840)
Haftarah: Isaiah 54:1 – 10 (Etz Hayim, p. 1138; Hertz p. 857)
(Prepared by Rabbi Joseph Prouser, Baldwin, New York)
SUMMARY OF PARASHA
Sefer Ha-Chinuch counts 74 individual mitzvot in Parashat Ki Tetzei, though that number is disputed more than such counts in any other Torah portion. Among the commandments and legal categories addressed are the following: the treatment of women taken captive in time of war; the immutability of the birthright; the draconian treatment of the “stubborn and rebellious son”; judicial hangings; the return of lost property; the obligation to assist the owner of an animal that has fallen under its burden; the prohibition against wearing clothing that is intended for the opposite sex and characteristic of it; the commandment to chase off a mother bird before taking its eggs or its young and the reward for fulfilling this imperative; the requirement to build a parapet on your roof and to remove analogous safety hazards from your property; the prohibitions against sowing a vineyard with diverse species, plowing with an ox and ass yoked together, and shaatnez (wearing garments in which wool and linen are combined); the commandment to wear fringes; laws about slander; the procedure followed when a newlywed husband alleges his wife was not a virgin as claimed and the consequences of such claims, whether they are unfounded or accurate; the legal ramifications of adultery and rape and a variety of marital restrictions; conduct and sanitation in a military camp (“keeping the camp holy” would later be expanded into a general mandate to establish worthy communities); the treatment to be accorded an escaped slave; sexual conduct deemed immoral and therefore prohibited; the prohibition against usury; mandates about vows; the legal parameters guiding someone working in a vineyard or field of crops; the fundamental laws of divorce; the special obligations and military exemption attending the first year of marriage; the securing of a debt; the legal treatment of kidnapping; the authority of priests in cases of leprosy; the commandment to remember God’s punishment of Miriam after to her ill-advised criticism of Moses; the fair treatment of laborers and the obligation to provide prompt payment of workers. Fundamental legal principles are addressed: individual responsibility and the principle that people are punished only for their own sins, not the sin of their parents or children; the obligation to deal justly with the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow. The obligation to provide justice for society’s most vulnerable finds specific expression in the requirement to leave forgotten sheaves and gleanings for the desperate poor. A maximum of forty lashes is established in cases of judicial flogging. Concern for animals is given expression through the prohibition against muzzling a plow animal at work, keeping it from eating. The law of levirate marriage and its circumvention by the ritual of chalitzah is introduced. Harsh consequences are provided in the case of a woman who violently intervenes in her husband’s physical altercation with another man (as the King James Version euphemistically puts it, she “taketh” the antagonist “by the secrets”). Scripture prescribes amputation of her hand – the only penal mutilation in the Torah, not surprisingly commuted to a punitive fine in rabbinic law. The requirement of honest weights and measures, and the more general principle of integrity in commerce are detailed. The parashah concludes with the requirement to “remember what Amalek did” – that bellicose nation’s merciless attack on the weakest parts of the Israelite camp. Israel is to “blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven.” These final verses are read as the eponymic maftir aliyah on Shabbat Zachor, just before Purim.

REMINDERS:

A. Saturday, September 10:
1. 9:30 AM: Shaharit l`Shabbat & the Bar Mitzvah of Tommy David
2. 12:30 PM: Exploring Judaism Class: Believing (God &Torah) – this class will meet in the Board Room approximately 30 minutes after the conclusion of Shabbat morning services – ALL ARE WELCOME – it is geared to those potentially interested in exploring conversion or those who just want to explore and learn more
B. Sunday, September 11:
1. 8:45 AM: Meditative reflection follow by a moment of silence for 9/11 in the Holocaust Memorial Garden
2. 9 AM: 1st Day of Religious School
3. 9 AM: Morning Minyan & 9/11 Commemoration in the Sanctuary together with the Religious School
C. Thursday, Sept 15, 7:45 PM: Torah on Tap
D. Friday, September 23: 8 PM: Shabbat Service + Healing Service
E. Thursday, October 6, 8 PM: Coffee & Clergy Corner – Springfield Barnes & Noble: Rabbi Mallach & Reverend David Knecht, Holy Cross Lutheran Church – will lead a topical discussion on issues that we all face – OPEN TO ALL – this is the inaugural evening for this event

You can also visit my website at: http://ridinrebbe.com/

For updated information go to: http://www.tbaynj.org/