ב"ה !Kavod Jewish Chapel, Kavod Senior Shabbat Shalom From Dr. Seth Ward Want to receive this Newsletter? Contact Living, 22 S Adams, 2nd Floor. Services currently suspended due to COVID-19. [email protected] כ"ו תמוז תש"פ SHABBAT SHALOM—JULY18, 2020 שבת שלום

TORAH READING: MATTOT- MASEI Numbers FILM DISCUSSION GROUP: ZOOM Film 30:2-36:13 : Jeremiah 2:4-28; 3:4 Discussion group meets Tuesday evenings in July. Next meeting is the evening of July 21, Newsletters and much more blogged at 2020 at 8:30 PM Mountain time, when we will http://drsethward.wordpress.com discuss The Kindergarten Teacher, which depicts a 5 year old poet prodigy. (Note: R for nudity and What do a day-old moon and the horns of a cow sexual scenes) Final session is July 28. Info: have to do with today’s reading? Experts https://www.coloradohebrewchorale.org/2020/06/ who chant the Torah in synagogues will surely 03/middle-east-and-israel-in-film/ know the answer: these translate the names of a Register: very rare cantillation sequence in today’s Torah https://form.jotform.com/201474650457153 or Reading: yareah ben yomo—karnei farah. contact: [email protected]. (Numbers 35:5). This combination also occurs in the (7:9), on a reference to July 30 6 PM Mountain Time: TISH’A BE’AV Haman and the gallows he made. The sequence PROGRAM. Traditional aspects of the evening, occurs 14 additional times in , but morning, and afternoon services of the day, as none of the other passages are part of the well as a recognition of other tragedies, Jewish regular synagogue reading tradition. Internet and human. Click here for Info: Tish’a BeAv searches can find a number of nice sermons Register: about this sign, but the best explanation I have https://uwyo.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJYocOqgr found is that it sometimes replaces a pazer (i.e., zgqGdYp0QtlfGrOOGK7RzrJN51y it comes in the same place you might expect a pazer in terms of the flow of the sentence), for no A THOUGHT FROM THE TORAH: known reason. Numbers 35:20-21 give as examples of cases This is the final reading from the Book of that should be considered capital murder, Numbers. Haftarah: Sephardim and Ashkenazim including “if he pushed him in hate…or struck him recite Jeremiah 2:4-28, and both append a verse with his hand in enmity and he died.” In these or two from later on in the Book of Jeremiah. cases, internal exile in a sanctuary city—a “city of Ashkenazim at 3:4, Sephardim add 4:1-2. refuge” is not allowed, as the person should be considered a murderer. Some of the traditional ANNOUNCEMENTS: Jewish commentaries, translations and halachic SUNDAY July 19 10:30 AM Mountain Time: works understand this to be a test of INQUISITION REMEMBRANCE CEREMONY intentionality: was the murderous attack Register: perpetrated by someone who hated the victim or https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0ud was a known enemy with death as a likely result? OGrqzstHdwGMcACQEmJzDDUKDI_0lal This seems to me to be the dominant trend in Info: Click Here: Inquisition Remembrance understanding. Maimonides, for example, appears to understand this as a call to assess WUTSSSup? Wednesday Torah Study whether the victim was pushed off a location high Summer Session. Wednesdays at 5 PM enough to cause death (Laws of the Murderer Mountain time. Join our Wednesday Afternoon and the preservation of life 3:7). In other words, Study Group! All are welcome. Contact if the killer hated the victim and pushed him in a [email protected] or [email protected] to location not likely to cause death, death might receive the Zoom Invitations! have been accidental. Others use language that assume that the text should be taken literally: death resulting from pushing or assault of Hate crimes are all over the news these days. someone the perpetrator hates can be an Many readers of this newsletter will be especially example of murder, even if killing the victim is not aware of antisemitism and especially of race- the intent of the attack. related animus—of the spirit of sin’a ve-eivah hatred and enmity—in our society. Whatever we In our days, “hate crimes” are a topic in our may think about contemporary protests, of society, with a number of high-profile cases. The discourse totally informed racial, religious and broader reading of Numbers 35:20-21 suggests ethnic prejudice, let’s hope that we are moving to me that Scripture teaches that an act that led towards a world in which there is no tolerance for to the death of a person cannot be ruled as crimes informed by hatred. Even more, during simply accidental when motivated by hatred or period of time in the Jewish calendar between enmity, even if the act would not normally have the 17th of Tamuz and the 9th of Av, let’s start been deadly. Once hatred and enmity enter the with our own attitudes, removing, as much as is picture, acts that result or may result in the death possible, any gratuitous enmity and hatred, lest of another human must be judged as murder or these emotions inform our thoughts, words or attempted murder, not “merely” actions motivated actions. by fear or excessive caution, defensive actions or protocol. –Shabbat Shalom