H A V U R A T Y I S R A E L 6 8 - 6 0 A U S T I N S T R E E T , F O R E S T H I L L S , N E W Y O R K 1 1 3 7 5 / T E L : 7 1 8 - 2 6 1 - 5 5 0 0 / F A X : 7 1 8 - 2 6 1 - 7 5 8 4

D A V I D A L G A Z E , R A B B I / J A C K G O L D H A B E R , P R E S I D E N T W E B : W W W . H A V U R A T Y I S R A E L . O R G / E M A I L : H Y O F F I C E 1 8 @ Y A H O O . C O M / E R U V : 7 1 8 - 5 4 4 - 6 8 9 8

19 Tevet 5775 Shabbat Shemot January 9—10, 2014

HAVURAT YISRAEL WEEKLY NEWS

Shabbat Shalom! 4:28 pm Candle Lighting 4:35 pm Mincha & Kabbalat Shabbat Parsha: p. 292, Haftorah: p. 1147 8:45 am Mishnayot 9:00 am Shacharit 9:40 am Latest time for Shema 11:00 am Drasha — Rabbi Kraft 11:45 am Kiddush 3:45 pm Gemara Shiur — Rabbi Sebrow 4:20 pm Mincha & Seudah Shlisheet 5:32 pm Maariv & Havdalah

Kiddush & Seudah Shlisheet are sponsored by HY members.

DESIGN COMMITTEE (donors of $20,000 or more)

Shoshana Bacon & Steve Golub Arlene Ross

Maddy & Bernardo Drucker Ken Lewon

Rachelle & David Alkalay Rabbi Joel & Chana Hochman

Miriam & Bruce Jacobs

BUILDING COMMITTEE (donors of $50,000 or more)

David & Debbie Sosnowik Louis & Rachel Ordentlich

Refael Katz Marc & Karen Rose

Mark & Gail Silverman Edward Finfer

Jane Stiefel Stu & Judy Rosen

Fanny Seinuk Daniel and Carol Yaghoubian

SUPPLIES COMMITTEE (donors of $5,000 or more)

Jay Waitzman Gabriela Linder

Eileen Alter

FURNISHINGS COMMITTEE (donors of $10,000 or more)

Anne Biener Renee & David Hirsch

Seymour Kaplan Helen & William Kober Gary & Yael Emmanuel

WE ALL ENJOY KIDDUSH! — Be a Sponsor!

SUNDAY January 11 / 20 Tevet

7:30 am Amud Yomi 8:00 am Shacharit

MONDAY January 12 / 21 Tevet

6:20 am Amud Yomi 6:50 am Shacharit

TUESDAY January 13 / 22Tevet

6:20 am Amud Yomi 6:50 am Shacharit

WEDNESDAY January 14 / 23 Tevet

6:20 am Amud Yomi 6:50 am Shacharit

8:30pm Rabbi Kraft’s Class

THURSDAY January 15 / 24 Tevet

6:20 am Amud Yomi 6:50 am Shacharit

FRIDAY January 16 / 25 Tevet

6:20 am Amud Yomi 6:50 am Shacharit

4:36 pm Candle Lighting 4:45 pm Mincha, Kabbalat Shabbat

MAKE A PLEDGE AND SUPPORT OUR BUILDING! We need everyone to help!

we hope that everyone will feel the responsibility and privilege of being part of this great enterprise: the new Havurat! Several people have responded to this appeal by committing themselves to weekly or monthly contributions either by credit card or checks. We thank:

For AS LITTLE AS $10 A WEEK AND even $50 A MONTH. , our building fund will be able to provide us with the building that we all need and love.

ANY AMOUNT IS WELCOME. EVERYONE CAN AFFORD SOMETHING,

we need your help to exist and flourish.

Refuah Shlema to: Yoseph ben Chava (Fred Isaac), Zeev Menachem Ben Chana (Bill Kober), Shoshana bat Chana , Micha ben Devorah, Miriam bat Tziporah, Leya bat Mina, Eliyahu ben Chanena, Danit Esther bat Yaira Shoshana, Binyamin ben Ruth, Frida Chanah bat Sarah Leah, Ahava Emunah bat Chava Ehta, Yaakov David Halevi Ben Sarah , Leah Tirtza bat Serel, Yehuda Yehoshua ben Rivka Ita, Havah bat Lilian, Esther Reva bat Devorah Shifra (Eileen Alter), Mordechai ben Itta, Rose bat Vidalina, Lifsha bat Shulamit (Elona Lazaroff), Roiza bat Yita Feiga, Chaya D'vora Disha bat Doba Rivkah (mother of Sara Lefkowitz).

Esmeralda Meneses Gary & Yael Emmanuel Alan Tullio & Maji Chiarella Boaz & Delia Nagar Rabbi Alan & Elona Lazaroff Kenneth & Tanya Lewon

Yehudah Mendieta Jeff & Miriam Benkoe Eliyahu & Rachel Kriheli Larry & Michelle Polonetsky

New Dues for The New Year (first increase since 1981)

Family: $425 / Individual: $250 / Associate: $75 Building assessment :$500 (for those who have not yet made a pledge to the Building Fund — We need your help!)

28th Annual Ski Shabbaton

January 21st—25th — Mount Snow Vermont

The trip is filling up and space is limited so make your plans to join one of HY’s most famous signature events!

Beautiful location, great people, catered meals, an amazing Shabbat experience for skiers and non-skiers of all ages.

See the brochure for complete details.

Welcome to new Member Bezalel Kosofsky.

News about our Rabbi: Rabbi Algaze has been invited to be the Scholar-in-Residence at a prominent synagogue in Buenos Aires this Shabbat. We wish him and Tamara a Nesiah Tovah and much success.

THIS IS YOUR OPPORTUNITY—DO NOT MISS IT “They shall make a sanctuary that I may dwell among them.” (Shemot 25:8) At this time and in this place we have the special privilege to participate in the building of our “small sanctuary”(miqdash me’at)—the new building of Havu-rat Yisrael. Some have opened their hearts already with great generosity to enable us to reach this day and we thank them. Many have wanted to memorialize special people in their lives with a dedication that will last long in our new building. Attached please find a list of items and areas that are still open for dedication, some as low as $3,000 and higher so that eve-ryone can be a part of the building of the new Havurat. Please note that although the main building is near comple-tion, there are still many things that are needed, such a ap-pliances for the kitchen, furniture for the classrooms and syn-agogue, ner tamid, bookcases and so on. Please peruse through this list and select something we still need and do not have. The names of all contributors will be inscribed in the walls of the synagogue so that those names that you wish to memorialize will always be there with us. The Rabbis tell us, “When a mitzvah comes your way, do not let it pass by.” Don’t say the building is done and they don’t need my help. We do. The time is now.

WHATEVER

By Rabbi David Algaze

“An Angel of G-d appeared to him in a blaze of fire from amid the bush. He (Moses) saw and behold! The bush was burning in the fire but the bush was not consumed. Moses thought, ‘I will turn aside now and look at this great sight—why will the bush not be burned?’” (Shemot 3:2-3)

This sight of a burning bush that is not consumed is among the most eloquent and memorable figures in Biblical literature. G-d chooses to appear to Moses in order to order him with the mission of liberating the people of Israel in a lowly bush, not particularly pleasing to the eyes, and in a state that flagrantly defies the laws of nature: a fire that does not consume its material. The significance of this vision has been the subject of many interpretations. The Midrash tells us that a non-Jew once asked Rabbi Yehoshua ben Korcha, “Why did G-d appear to Moses from a bush?” He won-dered why would the Creator, in charging Moses with the colossal task of freeing Israel from slavery, not select a more honorable lo-cation?

The Midrash offers several answers to this query but all of them point to the bush as an answer to Moses’ own questions. In reality one needs to understand why did G-d appear to Moses at all or why did He choose Moses as the leader of his people? The Midrash says, “When G-d saw that Moses was inclined and upset about the suffering of his people in Egypt, He said, ‘This man is the proper one to be their leader’ and that point G-d called to Moses from the bush.” In other words, the vision of the bush comes in response to Moses’ own initiative and concern for the travails of his people. Moses was always preoccupied over the fate of his brethren and worried that perhaps the Egyptian would succeed in their “Final Solution”—the program of annihilation of Israel. It is in response to his infinite concern for others that G-d appears to him.

The selection of the bush contains the answers to Moses’ own doubts and trepidation. The first answer is that there is no place, even the lowliest, that lacks the presence of G-d. Secondly, that G-d Himself was in the lowly bush to represent that when Israel is in exile G-d too is in Exile with them, sharing as it were their thorns and wounds. However, the most powerful message was that just as the fire did not behave according to the laws of nature so it will be with the Egyptian enslavement: it will not succeed in annihilating the people of Israel. This was the message that Moses earned by his unfailing concern for his people.

However, if G-d had already decided that the time for the liberation of Israel had arrived, why was it necessary to wait until someone would harbor these concerns? The answer may be that there is an interconnection between the deeds of G-d and those of Man. G-d does not act in a vacuum, wholly independent of human conduct. Man initiates and propitiates the actions of the Creator by his own will and actions. Thus, if people are indifferent to the suffering of others, G-d may postpone His own intervention until someone would “demand” His intervention. This is called in Kabbalah litera-ture, “the awakening from below.” If Man is dismayed by troubles and anguish around him, then G-d will be more inclined to act on their behalf than when people are indifferent to one another. Moses was the epitome of concern and therefore he was selected to bring about the prompt salvation of his suffering brethren.

Our society, plagued as it is by so many problems and diseases, has no worse calamity than the indifference towards other people’s pain. The Greek school of Stoics actually made apathy into a vir-tue, namely to possess a state of indifference towards events and

things which lie outside one's control. This insensibility is antithet-ical to Jewish thought. Being aware of others’ pain and acting to alleviate it are primordial ingredients of Jewish life. Unfortunately, too many people live lives with indifference and apathy and our world suffers greatly because of this lack of sympathy. Elie Wiesel, once declared that, “indifference can be tempting -- more than that, seductive. It is so much easier to look away from victims. It is so much easier to avoid such rude interruptions to our work, our dreams, our hopes. It is, after all, awkward, troublesome, to be involved in another person's pain and despair. Yet, for the person who is indifferent, his or her neighbors are of no consequence. And, therefore, their lives are meaningless. Their hidden or even visible anguish is of no interest. Indifference reduces the other to an ab-straction.”

One of the new words in our vocabulary, so frequently on people’s lips these days is “Whatever.” That odious remark actually trans-lates into, “You can do whatever you want because I am totally disinterested in you.” It means, “You are on your own” and “I don’t care.” This separation is one of the most tragic conditions in our society. Rabbi Shlomo Carlebah, z”l, said that the shrugging of one’s shoulders was one of the most egregious sins. Indeed, our propensity to disconnect from others, sometimes piously disguised as tolerance, is the cause of many of humanity’s tragedies. In our personal lives, indifference can destroy a relationship much more than any other emotion. If you respond too often with the word “Whatever” it means that indifference is creeping up on you. On the national level, indifference too can be lethal. American wartime indifference to the plight of the European Jews cost us six million lives and the enduring suffering of the survivors. How many other tragedies were not averted by the indifference of an unfeeling, mer-ciless world? Whatever, disinterest and unconcern have killed more lives than bombs, bullets and cannons.

Indifference is caused by a sense of helplessness produced by de-pression or by a lack of faith and hope—a sense of meaninglessness and skepticism in life. Sometimes, societies induce this sense of helplessness in their citizens in order to keep them in check. As the Romans gave their people “pane et circus” (bread and distractions) to oppress them, our society promotes musical entertainment (notice the number of people hooked to their earphones!) and sports to produce disengagement from the political process that really matters to them. The Jewish community today is equally disinterested or indifferent to the plight of Jews in Israel, whether threatened by outside forces or by a system that treats them unjustly or with unnecessary roughness, as in the case of the settlers of Ju-dea and Samaria. The silence of American Jewry today is no less deafening than it was during the time of the Holocaust. We may disagree about policies but we dare not be indifferent. Do not listen to the voice that you are irrelevant or that your efforts are insignifi-cant. You can make a difference if you choose to shun indifference, avoid shrugging of your shoulders and resist the temptation to sigh with a resigned tone another... "whatever."

Follow Rabbi Algaze on J-APP for the latest shiurim, divrei Torah and more. Available in the iTunes and Google Play app stores.

Our new Shul: Getting Closer Every Day!

Please be a part of building our new home. The shul is not going to be totally furnished or completely

done—There is still plenty of room for you to make a significant contribution.

NOW’s the time to join the Building Fund!

HAVURAT YISRAEL/CENTER FOR JEWISH LIFE

Dedication Opportunities BUIIDING COMMITTEE…(Builders) …………………………For donors of $50,000+

INTERIOR DESIGN COMMITTEE…(Patrons) ……………..For donors of $20,000+

FURNISHING COMMITTEE (Supporters) …………………..For Donors of $10,000+

SUPPLIES COMMITTEE (Contributors) …………………… For Donor of $5,000 +

Names will be listed on a special plaque at the entrance of the synagogue

Wall of Honor will be designed for the main lobby listing all gifts

Main Components

Center for Jewish Life Name Dedication 1,000,000

The Sanctuary Dedicated

Social Hall 150,000

Library 100,000

Beit Midrash 150,000

The Center for Jewish Life Building

Main Entrance Lobby 100,000

Shoah Memorial 50,000

Tree of Life 50,000

Administrative Office 50,000

Rabbi’s Study 50,000

Outdoor Garden/ Sukkah area Dedicated

Main Mezuzah 20,000

Inner Mezuzot (each) 3,000

The Sanctuary Aron Kodesh Dedicated Bimah 150,000 Women's Section 100,000 Ner Tamid 50,000 Mechitza 75,000 Torah Reading Table Dedicated Parochet 50,000 Memorial Plaque (2) 36,000 Rabbi's Chair 18,000 Speaker’s Podium 18,000 ********************************** Kitchen 50,000 ********************************** Beit Midrash Bet Hamidrash Aron Kodesh 100,000 Ner Tamid 18,000 Learning Tables--each 2,000 Bookshelves-each 10,000 Sulchan 18,000 ********************************* Children’s area 100,000