When Grandpa Abe Went To War

List of Big Bible moments

1.    Moses smashes the 10 commandments when he sees the golden calf being worshipped.

2.    Elijah the prophet is taken up in a chariot of fire

3.    All Israel comes to Devorah the Judge for justice where she holds court her special tree.

4.    Jacob wrestles with a stranger in the dark by the river, demanding a blessing

5.    Miriam leads the people in song after the splitting of the Reed Sea.

6.    Solomon finishes building  the Temple and holds an 8 day festival.

7.    David brings the ark up to Jerusalem.

8.    Moses carves a second set of tablets for the 10 commandments

9.    Moses blesses and ordains Joshua to be the next leader.

10.  The plague of hail strikes Egypt.

 

BERESHEET/GENESIS 14: WHEN GRANDPA ABE WENT TO WAR

[The invading kings coming south] seized all the wealth of Sodom and Gomorrah and all their provisions, and went their way.  They also took Loht, the son of Avram’s brother, and his possessions, and departed; for he had settled in Sodom.  A fugitive brought the news to Avram the Ivri, (who was dwelling among the terebinth trees of Mamre the Amorite, kinsman of Eshkol and Aner, these being Avram’s allies). When Avram heard that his relative had been taken captive, he mustered his chanichim*, born into his household, numbering three hundred and eighteen, and went in pursuit as far as Dan.

*”retainers,”  members of his camp,  employees or servants capable of bearing arms.

He and his servants split up at night, and defeated them; and he pursued them as far as Hobah, which is north of Damascus.  He brought back all the possessions; he also brought back his relative Loht and his possessions, and the female captives and everyone else. 

GOOGLE MAPS?  LET'S SEE! 

When he [Avram] returned from defeating Khadar’la-omer and the kings with him, the king of Sodom came out to meet Avram in the Valley of Shaveh, which is the Valley of the King.   And [at the same time] King Melchi-Zedek of Salem brought out bread and wine; he was a priest of El Elyon/God Most High.  He blessed him [Avram], saying, “Blessed be Avram of God Most High, Creator of heaven and earth.  And blessed be God Most High, Who has delivered your foes into your hand.” And [Avram] gave him a tenth of everything [he had captured].

Then the king of Sodom said to Avram, “Give me the people, and you take the stuff for yourself.”  But Avram said to the king of Sodom, “I swear to Adonai,  El Elyon/God Most High, Creator of heaven and earth:   I will not take so much as a shoelace or a sandal strap of what is yours; you shall not say, ‘It is I who made Avram rich.’ For me, nothing but what my servants have used up; as for the share of the men who went with me—Aner, Eshkol, and Mamre—let them take their share.”

1) Why does  Avram (soon to be Abraham) want to make sure nobody will say the King of Sodom made Avram rich? Is it something the king says, believes or does? Or is it something else? (Hint: what happens to the city of Sodom?)

 

 

 

2)   Give an explanation for Avram’s donations to the King of Shalem, because a tenth of what you capture in battle is a good sized chunk.   

 

 

 

3)  If Avram can pull 318 chanicnhim (retainers or soldiers) from his camp,  just how many people does he and Sarai  have working for them?    

 

4)Why does Avram, who lives south in Mamre, east of the Salt Sea, peruse his enemies past where he finds them at Dan, to the other (northern) side of Damascus (see map)?

 

5)Where did Avram learn millitary tactics like a night attack?  Make a short midrash-  tell us your theory or story.  possibility .

 

 

6) Are any elements of the story in this parsha still an issue today,  such as kidnapping, war, or political alliances?  If so, which ones? Or is this story too old to have any connection to our lives today?

 

 

What’s Bothering Rashi  in Parshat Lech Lecha?

Rashi,  known in his time as Rabbi Shlomo Yitzhaki (1040-1105 CE),  is known as the greatest of Jewish commentators, both for his commentary on Torah and on almost the entire 2,711 pages of the Talmud Bavli.  Rashi was a wine maker or merchant as well as a Rosh Yeshiva who lived in Troyes, France, in the heart of Champagne wine growing region.   Unlike so many others,  Rashi’s community was not wiped out by Crusaders. Students from all over  France and Germany to study Torah with him.

 

What question, conflict, problem or issue is bothering Rashi such that he makes his comment?   Rashi is giving us an answer- so what is his question?

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GENESIS 17: (THE LAST CHAPTER IN LECH LECHA)

And God said to Abraham, “As for your wife Sa’rai, you shall not call her Sarai, but her name shall be Sa’rah. I will bless her; indeed, I will give you a son by her. I will bless her so that she shall give rise to nations; rulers of peoples shall issue from her.” Abraham bowed with his face to the ground  and laughed, as he said to himself, “Can a child be born to a man a hundred years old, or can Sarah bear a child at ninety?”

And Abraham said to God, “O that Ishmael might live by Your favor!” God said, “Nevertheless, Sarah your wife shall bear you a son, and you shall name him Yitzhak; and I will maintain My covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his offspring to come.  As for Ishmael, I have heeded you. I hereby bless him. I will make him fertile and exceedingly numerous. He shall be the father of twelve chieftains, and I will make of him a great nation. But My covenant I will maintain with Yitzhak, whom Sarah shall bear to you at this season next year.”

לא תקרא את שמה שרי YOU SHALL SHALL NOT CALL HER NAME SARAI which means “my princess”— a princess to me and not to others — BUT SARAH, in a more general sense, SHALL BE HER NAME: she shall be princess over all (Talmud, Berakhot 13a).

1) What’s bothering Rashi about Sarah’s name?

 

 

 

וברבתי אותה AND I WILL BLESS HER — And in what did the blessing consist? In that she resumed her youthfulness, as it is said, (Genesis 18:12) “shall I have the pleasure of youth again?” (Midrash, Genesis Rabbah 47:2)

2) What’s bothering Rashi about God blessing Sarah?

 

 

אם שרה הבת תשעים שנה OR SHALL SARAH, WHO IS NINETY YEARS OLD be worthy to bear a son? Although the previous generations used to have children at the age of five hundred years, yet in Abraham’s days the length of life had already become shorter and a diminishment of strength had come upon people. Go and learn this from the ten generations from Noah to Abraham who begot their children at the then early age of sixty or seventy.

3) What’s bothering Rashi about Sarah? 

 

 

 

 

קראת את שמו יצחק AND YOU SHALL NAME HIM YITZHAK  — with reference to his laughter. Some say the name has reference to the ten (י) trials, the ninety (צ) years of Sarah’s age, the eight (ח) days of the circumcision and the hundred (ק) years of Abraham’s age (Genesis Rabbah 53:7).

4) What’s bothering Rashi about Yitzhak’s name?

 

Taking out the Torah, Praying with your feet

 This is what we hear.  It's solid. 

https://www.ansheemet.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Shema-Echad-Gadlu.mp3

What the   Shema and Echad Eloheinu of Solomon Sulzer (1804-1890)  were meant to sound like:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWdqP0KDqJ0

Elgar:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fK6rsZ4S4ik  at 150

Hail to the C:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFhgdZOP9Fk

One version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsnJpv2BU6g  at 1:41

Our melody: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwBg6vz0w7M

 

 

1.      POST IT  WARMUP

a.      What do you  know about jewish participation in the civil rights movement?

b.      What was at issue?  What were Jews trying to do? Which jews participated?

 

 

2.      BRAINTSTORM:

a.      Why were jews drawn to civil rights?

 

b.      Why did jews stay out?

                                                    i.     Fear:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebrew_Benevolent_Congregation_Temple_bombing

http://jwa.org/sites/jwa.org/files/mediaobjects/TheTemple-_bombing_photo_-_have_permission.JPG

Perry Nussbaum

                                                   ii.     Bigotry--  See letters from Congregations and Eisendrath

https://youtu.be/_SQtTK4nnWI

http://jwa.org/sites/jwa.org/files/mediaobjects/RabbiEisnedrathFromHUC19560501_1of2.jpg

http://jwa.org/sites/jwa.org/files/mediaobjects/RabbiEisnedrathFromHUC19560501_2of2.jpg

http://jwa.org/sites/jwa.org/files/mediaobjects/UAHCFromHUC19631107.jpg

 

Not all jews stayed out of the way:

https://forward.com/news/472284/were-southern-jews-in-the-civil-rights-era-inside-agitators/

 

The woman who would not just be a widow

  https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/freedomsummer-murder/

Three workers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnefNkvFsD0

Searching:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2ssdtB-sAI

 

        

 

The man  with the hardest job in the world that day  

Intro: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Hw8N2XF6Hk

Mahalia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hQeGDSB6Ss at 1:30pm

The speech:  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIJ0Pr7JBY8

 

Talmud Bavli, Shabbat 54b
Whoever can prevent his household from committing a sin but does not, is responsible for the sins of his household; if he can prevent the people of his city, he is responsible for the sins of his city; if the whole world, he is responsible for the sins of the whole world.
 
Rav Ya'akov Emden (Germany, 1697-1776) She'elat Ya'betz
משא"כ באדם חשוב שמוטל עליו להציל עשוק מיד עשקו בכל אופן שיוכל, אם בגופו או בהשתדלותו, יהי' העשוק מי שהי'. כענין שאמר איוב, ואשברה מתלעות עול, וכתוב במרע"ה ויקם ויושיען, אע"פ שבנות כומר היו
What is not like this is an adam chashuv/person of importance or power has the obligation to rescue the oppressed from the hands of the oppressor by all means available to him, whether by direct action or through political effort, regardless of whether the oppressed is Jewish. So Job praised himself by saying "I have broken the teeth of evil", and the Torah says of Moses that "He arose and championed them", referring to the daughters of Jethro, even though they were the daughters of an pagan priest . . . .

 

 

 

 

 

TROPE: TRUE AND FALSE

 

1.    The Masoretes who first recorded the tropes in writing  were the only Jewish group who survived the Romans destroying Jerusalem in 70 CE.

 

2.   Most Tropes occur plenty in the Torah,  but the  Karnei Parah only occurs once in all the tropes found for the Torah.

 

 

3.   The Tevir changes depending on who it is with,  but the munach is always the same.

 

4.   The Munach changes depending on who it is with.  The Etnachtah is always the same.

 

 

5.    Kadmah  and Azlah  are a pair of tropes that mean “coming and going.”

 

6.   Torah Trope is in a darker, minor key, while Haftorah tropes are in a brighter, major key.

 

7.    Reform Jews don’t use trope anymore.  They read the  Torah without tropes in Hebrew in their temples to make it simpler and more modern. 

 

8.   Three families of tropes-  Etnachtah,  Katon,  and Sof Pasuk make up between 2/3^rds and 3/4^ths  of most Torah and Haftorah readings.

 

9.   In an Ashkenazi community,  there are actually nine different versions of tropes including Torah, Haftorah, Aicha and Esther.

 

10.                   The trope names come from the names of plants in ancient Israel-  for example, Tevir means rose.

A religious man is a person who holds God and man in one thought at one time, at all times, who suffers harm done to others, whose greatest passion is compassion, whose greatest strength is love and defiance of despair.

Abraham Joshua Heschel

 

 

 

A test of a people is how it behaves toward the old. It is easy to love children. Even tyrants and dictators make a point of being fond of children. But the affection and care for the old, the incurable, the helpless are the true gold mines of a culture.

 

Abraham Joshua Heschel

 

God is not a hypothesis derived from logical assumptions, but an immediate insight, self-evident as light. He is not something to be sought in the darkness with the light of reason. He is the light.

Abraham Joshua Heschel

 

God is of no importance unless He is of supreme importance.

Abraham Joshua Heschel

 

 

He who is satisfied has never truly craved, and he who craves for the light of God neglects his ease for ardor[1].

Abraham Joshua Heschel

It is not enough for me to ask question; I want to know how to answer the one question that seems to encompass everything I face: What am I here for?

Abraham Joshua Heschel

 

 

 

Just to be is a blessing. Just to live is holy.

Abraham Joshua Heschel

 

Man is a messenger who forgot the message.

Abraham Joshua Heschel

 

Man's sin is in his failure to live what he is. Being the master of the earth, man forgets that he is the servant of God.

Abraham Joshua Heschel

 

 

 

Racism is man's gravest threat to man - the maximum of hatred for a minimum of reason.

Abraham Joshua Heschel

 

 

Self-respect is the fruit of discipline; the sense of dignity grows with the ability to say no to oneself.

Abraham Joshua Heschel

 

 

The issue of prayer is not prayer; the issue of prayer is God.

Abraham Joshua Heschel

 

The road to the sacred leads through the secular.

Abraham Joshua Heschel

 

When I was young, I admired clever people. Now that I am old, I admire kind people.

Abraham Joshua Heschel

 

 

Wonder, rather than doubt, is the root of all knowledge.

Abraham Joshua Heschel

 

 

 

 

 

Prophecy is the voice that God has lent to the silent agony, a voice to the plundered poor, to the profane riches of the world. It is a form of living, a crossing point of God and man. God is raging in the prophet's words.

— Abraham Joshua Heschel

 

 

Worship is a way of seeing the world in the light of God.

Abraham Joshua Heschel

 

 

 

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[1] ardor: a strong feeling of energy or eagerness, a strong feeling of love

 

8th Assembly and Joy of the Torah

Rabbi Dr. Abraham Joshua Heschel,  teaching future rabbis.

"Sooner or later in the life of every Jew, 

there comes a moment when they are hit

 by a barely understood concept: 

that they are a Jew. 

Sometimes this seems like a mystical act."

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BLAIR BLIECHMAN'S  HOMEWORK PROBLEM

GESHEM: THREE STYLES OF PRAYER  FOR A CRUCIAL GIFT FROM GOD

HAKAFOT:  DANCE, DANCE, TORAH, DANCE!

What you need to know about . . . Shemini Atzeret/Simchat Torah

 

Things about Shemini Atzeret, a.k.a. Simchat Torah

·       It is a holiday commanded by the Torah.  It’s sort of part of Sukkot, but sort of its own holiday. It is the last Jewish holiday of the season. 

·       Shmini Atzeret is two days long outside of Israel.  The second day is called Simchat Torah.

·       There is no more lulav and etrog waving once the holiday begins.

·        Though we can  eat in the Sukkah, we no longer say the blessing for sitting in the sukkah.

·       Both days are celebrated with lighting of candles at sundown.

·       Both days are celebrated with festive meals with family and friends.

·       The Torah says we should not work on this festival.

The first day is Shemini Atzeret, when in synagogue…

·       Yizor, the special prayers remembering those who have died are said. This includes Kaddish Yatom.

·       There is a special prayer for rain (Geshem) said during Musaf. When a cantor chants Geshem, they often wear a white robe called a Kittel (just like on Yom Kippur) because this prayer is so serious and so important.

·       We Say Hallel.

·       We read Torah and Haftorah.

·       From now through Pesach, there will be a short line in the Amidah every day, asking God to provide rain: Mashiv Haruach Umorid Hagashem. We wait until this day to say this prayer because we don’t want it to rain until we’re done sitting in the sukkah.

 

The second day is Simchat Torah when in synagogue….

·       The atmosphere is one of fun and celebration, and things get a little silly.  Prayers are often sung  to pop music tunes (Think the Beatles, music from “Frozen”, etc)

·       The end of the Torah is read, as is the start.

·       There is food and drink  (but usually not in the Sanctuary itself)

·       People play (simple) pranks on each other.

·       Every Torah scroll is taken from the ark. People dance with the scrolls and around the scrolls in a series of seven processions known as Hakafot.  At least one usually breaks out into the halls or even outside.

·       Everyone of Bnei Mitzvah age gets an aliyah.

·       Young Children are given flags to wave, and all kids under BM age get an aliyah together under a Chuppah!

·       A special honor is to be  a Chattan/Kallah  (Groom or Bride) Torah at Night

and a Chattan/Kallat Beresheet  during the day.  Anshe Emet gives this honor people who have been active and helpful in the community in numerous ways.