בס״ד TORAH WEEKLY 12 - 18 May, 2019 Parshat Emor annually. crisis is all about.) 7 - 13 Iyar, 5779 LIFE IS A But why count time? So the Torah tells us PICTURE Time marches on inexorably, to count our days – because Torah: whether we take note of it they are, in fact, numbered. Leviticus 21:1 - 24:23 POSTCARD.... or not. What value is there We each have an allotted I was planning to in counting the days? The number of days and years in Haftorah: procrastinate, but I never got answer is that we count these which to fulfill the purpose Ezekiel 44:15-31 around to it. 49 days to make us conscious for which we were created. Whether you consider of the preciousness of every Hopefully, by counting time the above quotation wise, wit- single day. To make us more we will appreciate it better. CALENDARS ty or silly, it can actually be sensitive to the value of a day, So, whatever it is that is We have Jewish quite a sobering thought. How an hour, a moment. As Rabbi important for each of us to get Calendars, if you would many of us can truly say we Sholom DovBer of Lubavitch done, please G-d, we will all like one, please send us don’t put off important things once said, “A summer’s day get around to it. a letter and we will send we know we should have and a winter’s night is a year.” By Rabbi Yossy Goldman you one, or ask the Rab- done yesterday? Don’t you I heard a classic bi / Chaplain to contact just go green with envy when analogy on this theme in the THE GIFT OF us. you meet those super-efficient name of the saintly Chofetz amazons who are so punctual, Chaim, Rabbi Israel Meir Ka- FORGINESS The Jewish year organized and always put gan (1838-1933). Life is like a FAMILY is filled with holidays that together? Don’t they infuriate picture postcard, he said. Ever PROGRAMS commemorate past events: you…with yourself? had the experience of being Do you have Passover is celebrated on From my own expe- on vacation and sending a family on the outside the day we were liberated rience I now know that if picture postcard home or to who are struggling, from Egypt; Shavuot, on the something is important I bet- a friend? We start writing day we received the Torah; please contact or have ter attend to it immediately, with a large scrawl and then Rosh Hashanah, the day of them contact our office otherwise I simply don’t trust think of new things to say and judgment, the day Adam and to learn more about our myself to “get around to it.” before we know it we’re at the Eve were judged for the sin family programs. You I know I could benefit from end of the card and there’s no of eating from the Tree of and they are not alone, a Time Management course. more room. So what do we Knowledge. And on the day In fact, I once signed up for do? We start writing smaller we are here to help. the Jewish people received the one but I never made it there. and then when we’re out of second set of tablets, which GRAPE JUICE & No time. There are still so space we start winding our represented the atonement for MATZAH many new ideas, projects and words around the edges of the sin of the Golden Calf, we plans I’d like to get around the card to get it all in. Before Aleph offers free celebrate Yom Kippur. to. I know that with better we know it, we’re turning the Grape Juice and Matzoh In truth, Judaism personal discipline they might card upside down to squeeze for you to be able to does not believe in an anni- actually materialize. in the last few vital words in make the blessings every versary as merely a celebra- You might be sur- our message. Shabbos. Please have tion of the past. According to prised to learn that effective Sound familiar? Isn’t the teachings of Chassidism, your chaplain / Rabbi time management is not only life like that? We start off the same energy that occurred contact us to enroll, it is a professional value but also young and reckless without a in the past is available and available to all prisons. a religious imperative. This worry in the world and as we more easily accessible on the week’s Parshah details the get older we realize that life is anniversary of that event. ALEPH INSTITUTE Jewish Festivals, in the con- short. So we start cramming A wedding anniversary, for Hyman & Martha Rogal text of which we read about and trying to squeeze in all example, is a day when the the Counting of the Omer those important things we ne- Center commitment, devotion, love during the 49 days between ver got around to. Sometimes 5804 Beacon Street and friendship that the couple Passover and Shavuot. Just as our attempts are quite despe- Pittsburgh, PA 15217 experienced in the past can the Israelites counted the days rate, even pathetic, as we seek 412-421-0111 be readily reawakened. By after the Exodus in eager anti- to put some meaning into Fax: 412-521-5948 the same token, on Passover cipation to receive the Torah, our lives before it’s too late. the spirit of freedom is once www.alephne.org so do we count these 49 days (Maybe that’s what a mid-life [email protected] again in the air, and on Yom Kippur we access the energy of atonement. of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai), “because they did not act Which leads us to the one exception: the holiday of respectfully towards each other.” These weeks are therefore Sukkot. observed as a period of mourning, with various joyous acti- In the Torah reading of Emor, G-d commands Mo- vities proscribed by law and custom. On Lag BaOmer the ses: deaths ceased. Thus, Lag BaOmer also carries the theme of Speak to the children of Israel, saying: On the loving and respecting one’s fellow (ahavat Yisrael). fifteenth day of this seventh month is the festival of Sukkot, a seven-day period to the L-rd. In order that your [ensuing] generations should know that I had the children In Jewish History of Israel live in booths when I took them out of the land of Sunday, 7 Iyar, 5779 - May 12, 2019 Egypt. I am the L-rd, your G-d (Leviticus 23:34, 43). Jerusalem Walls Dedicated (335 BCE) We sit in the sukkah to remind ourselves that when The rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem was we left Egypt, G-d had us live in huts. But why do we cele- celebrated with great jubilation nearly 88 years after they brate the holiday six months after the Exodus, on a day that were destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar of Babylonia. is not the anniversary of any profound historical event? Venetian Ghetto (1516) Interestingly, Sukkot is the most joyous of all the On the 7th of Iyar, 1516, the Venetian City Coun- holidays. While on Passover there is no explicit command- cil decreed that all Jews be segregated to a specific area ment to rejoice, and the Torah mentions the word “joy” only of the city. once in relation to Shavuot, on Sukkot the Torah instructs Venice’s ghetto was surrounded by water, with a us to rejoice no less than three times. canal leading to its gates. At night the “guards” patrolled Sukkot teaches us that we don’t need to wait for the waters around the ghetto to ensure that the night an anniversary, when a unique energy flows from above. curfew wasn’t violated. At the same time of the establish- Through the very act of building the sukkah, we have the ment of this ghetto, numerous other degrading laws were power to sanctify an otherwise regular day. enacted, including the requirement that all Jews wear This explains why the mitzvah of sukkah is unique yellow stars as identification. in that it encompasses our entire being. The holiness is not Despite all these restrictions, the Jewish com- reserved for a specific action, such as eating matzah or hea- munity blossomed and functioned normally. In 1797, the ring the shofar, but rather it is all-encompassing. Anything ghetto was abolished by Napoleon during the course of we do in the sukkah—eating, drinking, reading the paper the French Revolution. or just relaxing—is a holy spiritual act that connects us to The site chosen to accommodate the Jews had the Divine. Because such is the power of the Jew: to sancti- once housed the city’s foundries, gettos in Italian -- and fy the mundane and to imbue daily activities with spiritua- thus the eventual popularization throughout Europe of the lity and holiness. word “ghetto” to describe the city sections where Jews On Sukkot our joy reaches its climactic peak were forced to reside. because Sukkot represents the ability to feel closeness Passing of Rabbi Shlomo Ephraim of Luntschitz, “Kli and love to our Beloved even on the days that are not our Yakar” (1619) wedding anniversary (Adapted from the teachings of the Rebbe, Born in the year 1550 in Luntschitz, Poland, with Likkutei Sichos, vol. 22, pp. 132ff). just the name Ephraim, the name Sholomo was added By Rabbi Menachem Feldman later during a life-threatening illness (a common practice in Judaism).