This week’s picture:

“#GoodShabbos! This week’s #parsha is Eikev (עקב) https://goo.gl/HMuaO0 #ShabbatShalom!”by EliPongo is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

Please join us on Saturday morning at 9:30 am for Shabbat worship and Torah study.

EIKEV

On Being the Chosen People

The Israelites may assume that as God’s select, they are immune to punishment and entitled to a bounty of privileges. But God is no patron. On the contrary, with great privilege comes great condemnation. Arthur Hertzberg famously said that, “Chosen-ness is the inescapable discomfort caused by consciousness.”

THE TROPE

Please note: These trope links connect to the beginning of the whole Torah portion / Haftarah. Find a specific reading with the drop-down box at the top, right of the page, and/or by using chapter and verse.

Torah: Deuteronomy 7:12 – 11:25 – Click here.

Haftarah: Isaiah 49:14 – 51:3 — Click here.

Another good Torah “helper” is Pocket Torah, available in the Apple App store. Pocket Torah Trope teaches “Trope Phrases,” and Pocket Torah teaches portions.

Please join us on Saturday morning at 9:30 am for Shabbat worship and Torah study.

VAETCHANAN

Shabbat Nachamu:
God, the Parent, Consoles His Children

THE TROPE

Please note: These trope links connect to the beginning of the whole Torah portion / Haftarah. Find a specific reading with the drop-down box at the top, right of the page, and/or by using chapter and verse.

Torah: Deuteronomy 3:23 – 7:11 – Click here.

Haftarah: Isaiah 40:1 – 40:26 — Click here.

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Another good Torah “helper” is Pocket Torah, available in the Apple App store. Pocket Torah Trope teaches “Trope Phrases,” and Pocket Torah teaches portions.

“To the Promised Land – 4×3”by joshlama is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Please join us on Saturday morning at 9:30 am for Shabbat worship and Torah study.

MATOT-MASSEI

THE TROPE

Please note: These trope links connect to the beginning of the whole Torah portion / Haftarah. Find a specific reading with the drop-down box at the top, right of the page, and/or by using chapter and verse.

Torah: Numbers 30:2 – 36:13 – Click here.

Haftarah: Jeremiah 2:4 – 28; 3:4

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Another good Torah “helper” is Pocket Torah, available in the Apple App store. Pocket Torah Trope teaches “Trope Phrases,” and Pocket Torah teaches portions.

Please join us on Saturday morning at 9:30 am for Shabbat worship and Torah study.

DEVARIM

Every human being is inevitably left with a huge emptiness which is a vacuum of unanswered questions, fears, and doubts that come with the trials and tribulations of being human. How do we go on living and  find the strength to carry on? How do we make the lessons, the values, the inspirations of our individual and collective memories a part of who each of us is becoming, while at the same time finding our own voices of aspiration? We ask, “How can we hold these two intentions?”

THE TROPE

Please note: These trope links connect to the beginning of the whole Torah portion / Haftarah. Find a specific reading with the drop-down box at the top, right of the page, and/or by using chapter and verse.

Torah: Deuteronomy 1:1 – 3:22 – Click here.

Haftarah: Isaiah 1:1 – 1:27 — Click here.

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Another good Torah “helper” is Pocket Torah, available in the Apple App store. Pocket Torah Trope teaches “Trope Phrases,” and Pocket Torah teaches portions.

Please join us on Saturday morning at 9:30 am for Shabbat worship and Torah study.

PINCHAS 2019

“This week’s news—most weeks’ news—offers sufficient evidence of that. Leaders must act quickly and forcefully to restore order. Justice is crucial to that effort. Perhaps Pinchas receives God’s covenant of peace because he needs it so desperately. We all do. May it come speedily, in our days.”  (Professor Arnold Eisen, JTS)

THE TROPE

Please note: These trope links connect to the beginning of the whole Torah portion / Haftarah. Find a specific reading with the drop-down box at the top, right of the page, and/or by using chapter and verse.

Torah: Numbers 25:10 – 30:1 – Click here.

Haftarah: I Kings 18:46 – 19:21 – Click here.

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Another good Torah “helper” is Pocket Torah, available in the Apple App store. Pocket Torah Trope teaches “Trope Phrases,” and Pocket Torah teaches portions.

Please join us on Saturday morning at 9:30 am for Shabbat worship and Torah study.

BALAK 2019

More and more questions…fewer and fewer answers…THE TROPE

Please note: These trope links connect to the beginning of the whole Torah portion / Haftarah. Find a specific reading with the drop-down box at the top, right of the page, and/or by using chapter and verse.

Torah: Numbers 22:2 – 25:9 – Click here.

Haftarah: Micah 5:6 – 6:8 – Click here.

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Another good Torah “helper” is Pocket Torah, available in the Apple App store. Pocket Torah Trope teaches “Trope Phrases,” and Pocket Torah teaches portions.

Please join us on Saturday morning at 9:30 am for Shabbat worship and Torah study.

CHUKAT

THE TROPE

Please note: These trope links connect to the beginning of the whole Torah portion / Haftarah. Find a specific reading with the drop-down box at the top, right of the page, and/or by using chapter and verse.

Torah: Numbers 19:1 – 22:1 – Click here.

Haftarah: Judges 11:1 – 11:33 – Click here.

“Moses bringing water from the rock and receiving the ten commandments”by Nick in exsilio is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Please join us on Saturday morning at 9:30 am for Shabbat worship and Torah study.

Korach

Should not Korach and his followers be seen as heroes, challenging Moses’ replication of the hierarchical power structure normative to the ancient world? After all, they had just escaped from the clutches of Egyptian tyranny.

Were they not, in fact, prescient reformers to a time, in the distant future, when a John Locke would emerge with his prescription for a social contract, whereby each human being has a natural right to life, liberty and property?

Sometimes, I wonder, how ready is our own contemporary, modern society?

THE TROPE

Please note: These trope links connect to the beginning of the whole Torah portion / Haftarah. Find a specific reading with the drop-down box at the top, right of the page, and/or by using chapter and verse.

Torah: Numbers 16:1 – 18:32 – Click here.

Haftarah: I Samuel 11:14 – 12:22 – Click here.

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Another good Torah “helper” is Pocket Torah, available in the Apple App store. Pocket Torah Trope teaches “Trope Phrases,” and Pocket Torah teaches portions.

By Sandro Botticelli – Web Gallery of Art:   Image  Info about artwork, Public Domain, Link

Please join us on Saturday morning at 9:30 am for Shabbat worship and Torah study.

Shelach Lecha

The Talmud challenges us, through this week’s Torah portion’s Story of the Spies, to move beyond an adolescent love for the Land of Israel, to an adult love, which is always, beautifully, messy.

THE TROPE
Please note: These trope links connect to the beginning of the whole Torah portion / Haftarah. Find a specific reading with the drop-down box at the top, right of the page, and/or by using chapter and verse.

Torah: Numbers 13:1 – 15:41 – Click here.

Haftarah: Joshua 2:1 – 2:24 – Click here.

“galilee”by Bon Adrien is licensed under CC BY 2.0

Please join us on Saturday morning at 9:30 am for Shabbat worship and Torah study.

Beha’alotcha

Moses lives fully embracing his complicated human self. For this we say, לֹא קָם בְּיִשְׂרָאֵל כְּמֹשֶה עוֹד. No one human can replace, replicate, the greatness of Moses. לֹא תוּכַל לִרְאֹת אֶת-פָּנָי: כִּי לֹא-יִרְאַנִי הָאָדָם, וָחָי
I, God, will not allow you human beings, to see My face and to live. The prophet is human, after all.

THE TROPE
Please note: These trope links connect to the beginning of the whole Torah portion / Haftarah. Find a specific reading with the drop-down box at the top, right of the page, and/or by using chapter and verse.

Torah: Numbers 8:1 – 12:16 – Click here.

Haftarah: Zechariah 2:14 – 4:7 – Click here.