Category: Torah

Moses looks at the Promised Land by the banks of the river Jordan, and continues his final speech to the Israelites before he dies. He pleads with God to allow him to enter the Land of Israel, but he is refused. Once again Moses stresses to the Israelites the importance of keeping God’s commandments when they enter the land of Israel; repeats the “Ten Commandments” and utters the Shema and Ve-ahavta. Finally, Moses informs the Israelites that they are God’s chosen and treasured people who will be loved by God if they remain loyal to God’s covenant.The Shema may not be the most important prayer in our liturgy, but it is certainly amongst the contenders, and for many people it is the prayer which they always remember. Taken from the Torah, the first paragraph (less the second line – baruch shem kevod malchuto leolam va’ed) appears as part of this week’s portion. While we often focus on the words and meaning of the Shema it is interesting to look at it in its original context, outside of the service and in our Torah.There it appears in relation to the Promised Land, and “our” well-being in the land, after we have entered it. But on a symbolic level it represents a quest for a place of promise, aspiration and hope. In this way the Promised Land represents an idealised situation for which we strive rather than a specific geographic location, and in this regard the Shema may therefore be seen as a five-point blueprint for reaching the Promised Land.The first requirement of the Shema is to love God, we need to be in a relationship with something greater than ourselves. This is then followed by the need for education, teaching the next generation, our children. And no opportunity for education should ever be missed, when we’re sitting in our homes, walking on the streets, lying down or rising up – all of them are opportunities. Then these values must be taken and made a part of our very being, bound to our heads as the place of thought and our arms as the place of action. Finally we need to make these values a part of the homes which we build, inscribing them on our doors and at our gates.Seen in this light the Shema is not just a piece of Torah, not just a prayer in our liturgy, it is also an action plan for how we might achieve the Promised Land today.                                                               – Rabbi Adrian M Schell (based on a text from Rabbi Danny Burkeman)Torah Reading for Shabbat NachamuParashat Va’etchanan: Deuteronomy 3:23-7:11Haftarah: Isaiah 40:1-26Podcast of Rabbi Schell’s Radio Sermons on Radio Today, follow http://betdavid.podomatic.com/. 

Parashat Devarim, Deuteronomy Chapter 1:1-3:22 (Plaut p.1161; Hertz p.736) Haftarah Isaiah 1:1-27 (Plaut p.1180; Hertz p.750)Words have always had a central place in Judaism. As Jews, we have understood that words have real power: words create – words destroy – words are holy. The Torah begins with words being the tools of creation – paired with the imaginary power of God we witness the beautiful results of these words.  And later on, we see, how words, combined with fear, egoism, and/or anger nearly destroyed the world. We learn how mighty words can be. That’s why the Torah never stops to educate us, again and again, about this power. I think it doesn’t come as a surprise that also the last book of the Torah, Devarim – Words, continues to teach us to choose our words wisely.In the fifth book of the Torah we can listen one more time to Moses, sharing God’s values with the Israelites and recounting to them their journey of the last forty years. Moses reminds those assembled that it was words that stung so deeply and painfully that they ultimately led to the destruction of that entire generation. The spies who had gone to scout the Promised Land came back and gave a report that explicitly documents the destructive action of words, reporting that the Israelites are weak and powerless, and ignoring the protective shield of the Eternal. The destructive impact of words is highlighted by Moses when he recounts this moment: “Our kinsmen have taken the heart out of us…” (Dtn 1.28).The Hebrew for “words”, devarim, is written in the Torah scroll with no vowels, and it can be read and vocalised more than one way. It can also be read as devorim, “bees”. Words can be sweet and sustain like the honey of a bee, but can also hurt and even lead to death, like the sting of a bee. Words create environments that are holy or unholy. It is on us to choose our words in a ways that we create holy environments wherever we go, following God’s footsteps in creating an awesome world.– Rabbi Adrian M Schell (Source: Rabbi S. Roberts – Words like bees)Podcast of Rabbi Schell’s Radio Sermons on Radio Today, follow http://betdavid.podomatic.com/.

Once a month students from the Bet David Introduction to Judaism Course (ITJ) will write for the Ad Kan.Yola Tome’s contribution: Parashat Mattot speaks of making a vow to the Lord. Whether woman or man you are bound to your vow made to the Lord. The parashat goes on to speak of the Israelites fighting against the Midianites, holding women and children captive. Moses is enraged that the women are spared. He commands the people of Israel to get rid of all women who have had intimate relations with men but to spare young women that have not. The people of Israel are to cleanse themselves and stay outside the camp for seven days, should they have taken a life or touched a corpse. The theme that stood out the most to me is that of making vows and promises. What does it mean to keep a vow or a promise – to the Lord, to oneself or to others? This boils down to the individual. To some keeping a promise may be more important than to others. We are all different but is it important to keep a promise? I would say it is very important – not only to keep a promise to the Lord and others but particularly to yourself. Self-discipline comes to mind here because if you don’t have self-discipline or even self-respect you will not deem it necessary to keep promises. For example if you promise yourself that you are going to eat healthier in an attempt to follow a healthy lifestyle, will it matter if you cheat and have a chocolate a day? Who will you be cheating – the Lord, others or yourself? From my perspective it will be that you are cheating yourself and possibly even the Lord as He wants you to be happy with your choices and cheating daily will not get you closer to your weight loss goal or to that of a healthy lifestyle.Parashat Massei outlines the Israelites long journey to the land of Canaan. A lot of places are mentioned, among them, Mount Hor is mentioned as this is where Aaron the priest dies.The Lord commands the Israelites to take possession of the land of Canaan as this land had been assigned to the Israelites by the Lord. The land was to be apportioned according to the tribes.The theme for me here, is that of obeying the Lord and being rewarded for it. The Israelites went on a long journey with various challenges in their path but were rewarded by the Lord in the end by way of their own apportioned land in the land of Canaan. – Yola Tome

Leviticus 1:1-5:26 (Reading Lev. 5:5–5:26 Plaut p.660; Hertz p.410)Haftarah for Shabbat Ha Chodesh: Ezekiel 45:16-25 (Plaut p.1457; Hertz p.1001)This Shabbat we start with the reading of the third book of the Torah, called Leviticus, or in our Jewish tradition Vayikra (And he called). The very first parashah of the book, also named Vayikra, launches the book with a complex discussion of burnt offerings to be brought to the priests for a variety of circumstances, from voluntary gifts to offerings for one’s well-being, atonement, and more. This leads to what seems to be endless chapters of animal sacrifices, purification, and expiation rites; forbidden sexual relations; and rituals for the dead and diseased, all faithfully administered by the priests. And yet, at the heart of the book there is an almost insubordinate chapter that “echoes the beauty of our prophetic tradition and our most humanistic values” (R’ Kelman), includes the list of our most noble, ethical mitzvot, commandments, of our religious tradition, such as “Love your neighbour as yourself!” (Leviticus 19:18). It is as if we are being asked to flip the entire book on its head to examine what it means to worship God.How do these two sides of the book Vayikra fit together, and how can we, as progressive Jews, find meaning in rituals that seem to us as ancient and without meaning for our lives nowadays?Rabbi Naama Kelman points to a wonderful bridge that our Jewish heritage provides for us, to answer this question and to bring both different sides of Leviticus together:

“The Hebrew word for sacrifice, korban, … derives from the root kuf-reish-bet, which means to get close. Our rites and rituals – and their interpretation into today’s worship of God – are designated to get us closer to holiness and God. … The mitzvot we find in Leviticus 19 [are] acts of loving-kindness and compassion. … One Chasidic reading of this takes the word mitzvah and rereads it not as tzivui, command, but rather tzavta, togetherness, or acts that bring us closer to one another “ (Kelman, Noble and Difficult Texts).

The chapters we are going to read in the next few weeks aren’t always easy to understand, and they contain many parts that are challenging and need to be discussed, but this doesn’t mean that they are meaningless or of any less value for us. On the contrary: More than any other book of the Torah, Leviticus calls us to come closer, closer to God, closer to the world and closer to the people that are surrounding us, sharing with us the idea that we need to be in a constant dialogue with God, the world, and ourselves. Its’ ethics teaches us to create a just world, based on these ethical values, and a society that respects and honours all its members. – Rabbi Adrian M SchellShabbat HaChodesh is the fourth of the five special Shabbatot before Pesach. In the special Torah reading for this Shabbat (Exodus 12:1-20), God instructs Moses and Aaron on how to observe the first Passover. The special Haftarah reading from Ezekiel discusses the observance of Passover in the Temple. These special readings are meant to draw our attention to the fact that Passover is approaching and to encourage us to begin our preparations.

If you have missed the last “Devotion” by Rabbi Schell at Radio Today, or if you like to hear it again, you may find the Podcast here: http://goo.gl/3mXyi1The D’var Torah is providing a general introduction to the third book of the Torah “Vayikra”.

Rabbi Schell’s Dvar Torah in this week’s Jewish Report: http://www.sajr.co.za/docs/default-source/pdf/13-march-2015.pdf

If you have missed the last “Devotion” by Rabbi Schell at Radio Today, or if you like to hear it again, you may find the Podcast here:http://betdavid.podomatic.com/ent…/2015-03-11T02_34_28-07_00The D’var Torah is focusing on the Jewish Temple, it’s Progressive Jewish conception and why Jerusalem has an important role for all Jews.

If you have missed the last “Devotion” by Rabbi Schell at Radio Today, or if you like to hear it again, you may find the Podcast here: http://betdavid.podomatic.com/entry/2015-03-05T23_55_41-08_00the sermon focus on the lesson we can derrive from the Golden Calf story in the Torah.