beth shalom weekly update
TRANSCRIPT
Beth Shalom Weekly Update Thursday, December 17, 2020 to Wednesday, December 23, 2020
Hazzan Lance H. Tapper Shabbat Parashat Miketz
Shabbat Service—Friday, December 18, 7:30 p.m.
SHABBAT
SERVICES Friday Evening 7:30 pm
SYNAGOGUE
OFFICE HOURS
While the Beth Shalom
office will be closed
during the Covid 19 Shut
Down, our office phone
and email will continue
to be attended to during
regular working hours:
9:00a-4:00p Tue-Fri.
562.941.8744
YAHRZEIT
Arlene Norton in memory of mother,
Jean Vinetsky
David Weiss in memory of mother,
Rose Weiss
Hope Greenwood in memory of mother,
Pearl DeMase
Maxine Berkowitz in memory of
Pheney Margolis, grandfather and Irene Shapiro, aunt
Harris Kuhn in memory of father
Samuel Kuhn
Jeffrey Kolnick in memory of grandmother,
Mary Kolnick
Myra Becker in memory of mother,
Ruth Becker
If you know of someone who is ill, had surgery, or just needs a call now and then, please let us know so we can reach out. Thank you.
Beth Shalom Services: Because of COVID-19, we continue to livestream our Shabbat and Festival services on our Facebook page, Beth Shalom of Whittier. When there is a livestream taking place, you can click on it and watch. We encourage everyone to con-tinue to tune in each week and take part in our services virtually and leave messages of greeting to other who are watch-ing. This is one way we can all stay in touch.
Directions for viewing livestream services: If you are a current Facebook subscriber, you need only to go to our Facebook page, Beth Shalom of Whittier, to view these announcements and videos. If you are not a current Face-
book subscriber, you need to go to www.facebook.com and sign up with a
username and password and then you can access our page at that point. Always log in 5 minutes ahead the video start time.
ROSE HILLS CEMETERY PLOTS If you want to do your family the mitzvah of pre-planning, please call the office. They can give you information as to what gravesites are available and what steps to take to secure your plot(s). Plots are $3500 each.
Book Club: Our next book is ‘Paris in the Present” by Mark Helprin. We will be meeting on January 12, 2021, 12:30 pm.
Tribute Cards: To send a Tribute Card, please contact Michelle Hess with your request. Her e-mail is: [email protected]
PayPal Donations: Paypal donations welcome: [email protected]
Simcha Sharing
Let us know about your Simcha's. Let the office know of your good news and we will share it in the next weekly. Weddings Births
Two Kinds Of Intelligence
To be fully educated and human we must study a range of disciplines--humanities and sciences, secular and Judaic. By Rabbi Bradley Artson Pharaoh has endured a night of terrible dreams. To make matters worse, neither he nor any of his ministers understood what the dreams were about. The only person able to interpret those dreams is a Hebrew prisoner in an Egyptian jail. That person is Joseph.
Seven Years & Seven Years
After hearing the dreams described, Joseph announced that Egypt would enjoy seven years of plenty, followed by seven years of universal famine. In advance, Joseph argues that Pharaoh should appoint someone “navon ve-hakham,” discerning and sage, who will store enough food to ensure the survival of the population.
Why did Joseph use both words, discerning and sage? Wouldn’t either one have sufficed to describe what type of person was needed? Our traditions regard each word of the Torah as necessary. Any apparent redundancy must be there to teach a specific lesson. Each of these words, our Rabbis taught, refers to two different kinds of knowledge.
Rabbi Moses ben Nahman, the Ramban (13th Century Spain) comments that the two types of knowledge apply in different spheres of learning. “Discerning” refers to knowing “how to support the people of Egypt from his hand with bread” and “how to accumulate wealth and money for Pharaoh.”
In other words, the first category of knowledge pertains to social policy. A government official must understand how to develop programs that will actually accomplish their stated goals (without bankrupting the government in the process). Discerning, in this case, reflects the ability to match goals with the appropriate means of achieving those goals.
Good intentions are not enough; nor are mere pronouncements. A vision of how to relate policy with purpose is the key qualification for any level of leadership.
The second category — “sage” — refers to knowledge of “how to preserve the produce so that it should not rot.” According to this standard, the prospective bureaucrat had to know more than just how to govern. He also had to have an expertise in his field–in this case, how to store the grain for seven years without any loss of grain during the intervening years.
(Continued on next page)
Happy Birthday!!!
Jordan Pollack—December 20 Robert Rubin—December 21
Clergy Schedule
Virtual Services: www.facebook.com/bethshalomofwhittier
December 18-- 7:23 pm organ prelude; 7:30 pm service Hazzan Lance and Mark Peterson
December 25-- 7:30 pm service Rabbi Kenneth Milhander
January 1 - 7:30 pm service Rabbi Kenneth Milhander
January 8-- 7:23 pm organ prelude; 7:30 pm service Hazzan Lance and Mark Peterson
January 15-- 7:23 pm organ prelude; 7:30 pm service Hazzan Lance and Mark Peterson
Our Torah is on its way to Honduras with a stop in Miami. Tune in for details in the January Mishpacha.
(Continued from previous page)
More Than Power
To lead a people, one must know about more than simply power. The realities of human life — the concerns that fill their daily schedules and plague their nights–these must be familiar to anyone who would represent a community and seek to direct their affairs.
A broader approach to these categories builds upon the understanding of the Ramban. The first category applies to human learning and human structures, and the second category applies to natural phenomena and properties. To be considered “discerning and sage” requires education in the humanities and the social sciences, and in the natural sciences as well. A fully educated human being must know not only about ourselves and our communities, but also about the world around us.
A third understanding is possible as well. Perhaps the two categories refer to the importance of both Jewish and gentile learning. Many Jews today know the writings of Shakespeare, Freud and Hawkings, but are unfamiliar with the works of Yehudah Ha-Levi, Moses Maimonides and Abraham Joshua Heschel. That form of illiteracy — ignorance of Jewish thought and religion — limits us to an impoverished and anemic relationship to Judaism. Similarly, to know only Jewish sources — Torah, Talmud and Midrash — represents no less a shortcoming than not knowing them at all.
In the words of the Talmud itself, if you only have Torah, then you don’t even have Torah. Learning–both Jewish and general, both about natural reality and about human society and personality–is an essential ingredient in becoming fully human, in becoming discerning and sage.