E-TORAH
PARSHAS MASSEI
ROSH CHODESH MENACHEM AV
AUGUST 1st – 29 TAMMUZ
CANDLE LIGHTING 7:51 PM
SHABBOS ENDS 8:55 PM
What Is New @ FREE
Friday Night Live! This Week at 8:30 PM is Friday Night Live! Come & Bring Your Friends For A Special Evening of Delicious Food, Great discussions, Socializing, and More. We Can’t Wait To See You! This week is co sponsored by Meyer Emanuel in honor of his engagement to Miriam Robbins, Mazel Tov!
HebrewSchoolPicnic! Save the Date August 17th 12:00 PM for a special Hebrew School picnic. Special kid’s entertainment, great food, lots of fun, meet the new teachers, the new students, Bring your friends & guests and have a blast. 20550 Saunders Rd.
Grand Raffle! FREE’s Hebrew School presents a grand Raffle for a brand New 2008 Nissan Quest or $12,000 cash. Help support Jewish Children’s Education, and enter for your chance to win. Click here to purchase your tickets online.
Tisha B’Av The Nine days leading up to Tisha B’AV remembering the destruction of our Temple, begins this coming week. Click here to learn more about the laws and customs of these days
HebrewSchool!Once again we would like to invite you to sign up for next year’s Sunday Hebrew School. We have incorporated new teachers, curriculums and program. Our exciting and unique program that is guaranteed to inspire your child(ren). Please visit our website for more information or to register online .
A Torah Thought!
This week's Torah portion is Masei. Masei beings: "These are the journeys of the children of Israel by which they went out of the land of Egypt." Why is the plural of journey used here. For, although it took 42 journeys for the Israelites to reach the Holy Land, 41 of those stages were not going "out of the land of Egypt." Leaving Egypt took only one journey - from the Egyptian city of Ramses to the place called Sukot, outside of Egypt's borders.
The Hebrew word for Egypt, "Mitzrayim," is derived from the word "meitzar" which means limitations. The exodus from Egypt was not only a physical liberation from the outside forces of enslavement, imprisonment and "limitations," but also a spiritual liberation of the Jews from the idolatrous depravity of Egyptian culture as well as from their own "limitations" - their bad habits and inclinations. This inner liberation took many progressive stages, many "journeys," and each journey was an exodus from the "Egypt" - the limitation - of the previous stage. For today's accomplishments in self-liberation from evil are tomorrow's "Egypt." Yesterday the person freed himself, to a certain degree, from his former unwholesome traits, he left Egypt. But today he cannot be satisfied with yesterday's standards of accomplishment. Not only is yesterday's liberation from evil insufficient, imperfect - it is, for today, a limit, an Egypt from which an exodus must be experienced.
The daily service of man through prayer reflects a similar pattern of successive stages or journeys "out of Egypt."
First, one prepares to pray. One contemplates, "I am a person with a G‑dly soul entrapped within a physical body. I am about to pray to the Alm-ghty, Who is infinite and utterly without limitations." This sobering thought is uppermost in his mind when he prepares to pray. The very act of setting himself to pray has driven his material concerns out of his mind — he has already left Egypt.
But his sense of self, his "ego" though now refined, is still ever-present in his awareness. However, as he starts to say the actual words of prayer, he begins to leave even this limitation, this "Egypt." Finally, the climax of prayer, the Amida (Shemona Esrei) is reached and all Egypts are left behind. The worshipper loses all sense of "self"; he stands "as a servant before his master." He has reached a level of complete self-abnegation. The final exodus has been accomplished. One has arrived in the "Holy Land."
Adapted by Rabbi Y.M. Kagen (obm) from the works of the Lubavitcher Rebbe for A Thought for the Week.
Long before the destruction of Jerusalem at the hand of the Roman oppressors, Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakai had foreseen the city's tragic fate. He was detached from all political entanglements, yet, when he saw the futility of the struggle against Rome and realized the inevitability of the fall of Jerusalem, he determined to establish a place of refuge for Judaism.
One day, Rabbi Yochanan called to his nephew, Abba Sikra. Abba Sikra was the head of the zealots - a faction of Jews adamantly against any type of dialogue with the Romans. "How long are you going to let your people die of hunger in the streets?" Rabbi Yochanan asked Abba Sikra.
"These matters are no longer in my hands," was Abba Sikra's sorry reply.
"Will you help me, then, to get out of the city and try to speak with the Roman general Vespacian?" Rabbi Yochanan appealed.
Sikra agreed to help. He suggested that Rabbi Yochanan pretend to be ill. He would "die" and could then be taken out of the city to be buried. From there he could stealthily make his way to the Roman general.
And so it was. But when Rabbi Yochanan's students carried his coffin near the gates of the city, the zealots stopped the procession.
"Let us stab the coffin with our swords to make sure the Rabbi is truly dead," they said.
Abba Sikra intervened. "Surely it is not befitting a great and holy sage like Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakai to behave in such a manner."
The zealots hesitated and finally agreed to let them go. Rabbi Yochanan was able to enter the Roman camp.
"Peace unto you, king," Rabbi Yochanan greeted Vespacian.
"You are guilty of treason for calling me king," replied the general.
"Ah, but I know through prophecy that Jerusalem will only fall by the hands of a king. You, certainly, will soon become the Caesar."
While they were yet speaking, a messenger came, informing Vespacian that the Caesar had died and he had been chosen the new ruler of the Roman Empire.
It is said that Vespacian received this news when he had one boot on, and one off. When he tried to remove his boot, he couldn't. And when he attempted to put on the other boot, he couldn't do that either. Rabbi Yochanan explained that "Good tidings makes one's bones fat" (Proverbs 18:5), and that if he were to look at someone he didn't like, his feet would return to normal.
Vespacian was so impressed by Rabbi Yochanan's wisdom that he offered, "Ask of me anything that your heart desires and I will fulfill your wishes."
Rabbi Yochanan's first request was that the city of Yavneh become a place of refuge and an academy be established there. Second, to spare the life of the descendants of Rabbi Gamliel, so that the royal House of David shouldn't be destroyed. (The Roman custom was to liquidate the entire ruling family). Finally, Rabbi Yochanan requested the services of a physician to cure Rabbi Tzadok - a great sage who fasted for 40 years to try and save Jerusalem from destruction.
Vespacian readily granted these seemingly modest requests, not realizing their far-reaching implications for the survival of the Jewish people. The establishment of the new Torah center in Yavneh set the foundations for the spiritual rebirth of the Jewish nation even after its national independence was lost to the mighty Roman Empire - an empire which has since been wiped off the map.
Have A Wonderful Shabbos!!