Dear Congregation Kehillah and Friends,

Our parasha this week is Va-etchanan, which means "And I pleaded", referring to Moses' plea to God to be allowed to enter the Land of Israel with the people. The "Shema", which means "listen" or "hear", is introduced in Va-etchanan.
 
This Shabbat is also designated as Shabbat Nachamu, the Shabbat of Consolation, referring to the Haftarah* from the prophet Isaiah which offers consolation and hope to the people after the heartbreaking, watershed moment of the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem on the ninth day of the Hebrew month of Av ( Tisha B'Av).

*Haftarah sounds a bit like Torah, but the words are not connected. A haftarah is a selection from one of the biblical books of our prophets (historically, from when our ancestors were already in the Land of Israel, often teaching about key values and related, sometimes more clearly, other times tangentially, to the Torah selection for that week).