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Dear Chaverim:
I. RCA Updates
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This was a historic week for the RCA. Our President Zvi Engel brought together the officers from around the country to a full-day meeting in Chicago to discuss the Strategic Plan for the RCA. Elements of the plan will be shared at the upcoming Executive Committee meeting on August 27 for further discussion and review. Once that step has been taken, we will share with you more than TEN new initiatives at the RCA for the 5785 year! Stay tuned for exciting details – an get ready to volunteer. WE will need the help of our chaveirim to bring the RCA to its next steps.
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As our chaveirim are preparing their shul and school activity schedules for the year, they struggle to find new and interesting speakers and presentations. This week, I am reaching out for entertaining people with a special story or people that aren’t necessarily rabbis but have something special to say. Please send suggestions to my email https://mpenner@rabbis.org and I will, bli neder, share the results with the membership.
II. Member Updates (NEW!)
1) We would like to try harder, as an RCA family, to share our highs and lows together. This includes Personal happenings - Mazal Tovs, Refuah Shlaimah wishes and, r”l, Condolences - and Professional successes – new positions and significant achievements in your current positions. We need you – and your chaveirim who fill us in – to make this a shared family space.
- Refuah Shlaimah to our Director of Operations, R. Adam Dubin.
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Mazel Tov to our chaver R. Wes and Jessica Kalmar for on the bar Mitzvah of their son.
2) In Case You Missed It: Summary from CNN’s 5 Things Email on Campus protests
A federal judge ruled Tuesday that the University of California, Los Angeles, cannot allow pro-Palestinian protesters to block Jewish students from accessing classes and other parts of campus. This marks the first time a US judge has ruled against a university over the demonstrations against the Israel-Hamas war on college campuses earlier this year. In a lawsuit filed in June, three Jewish students at UCLA alleged that they experienced discrimination on campus during the protests because of their faith and that the school failed to ensure access to campus for all Jewish students. UCLA argued that it has no legal responsibility over the issue, but the judge ruled that the university is prohibited from providing classes and access to campus buildings if Jewish students are blocked from them.
III. (A lot of) Chomer Lidrush – Parshas Ve’eschanan / Shabbos Nachamu / Tu B’av
(We couldn’t help ourselves – and we know you’ve already had a long week)
1) Tu B'Av
Click here for a beautiful thought from R. Rafi Ostrof in an old Daf Kesher from Yeshivat Har Etzion (you must scroll down a bit). He weaves a thread of achdus through the various events that occurred on Tu B’Av. For more from YHE on Tu B’Av, click here.
2) Achdus Hashem
Why does Shema Yisrael appear where it does in our parsha? The Malbim offers a profound insight: it serves as a bridge between the commandments to fear Hashem and to love Him. In a world where good and evil were often attributed to different deities, the notion of loving God immediately after being commanded to fear Him would have seemed perplexing. After all, aren't fear and love emotions reserved for different gods?
The Shema introduces the concept of Achdus Hashem, the unity of God, to emphasize that the same God we are commanded to fear is the very One we are also commanded to love. This unity is not merely a theological statement but a transformative idea that challenges the pagan notion of multiple, conflicting deities.
It is crucial to convey to your kehillos that the recitation of Shema Yisrael is far more than a declaration of monotheism. It is a profound expression of the unity of God.
3) Ahavas Hashem
In Towards a Meaningful Life (p. 60-63), Rabbi Simon Jacobson explores, through teh thought of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, zt”l, the place of love in our lives as ovdei Hashem. With our parsha as a background for the love that Hashem has for His people, we can learn from R’ Jacobson’s exploration of “selfish love and selfless love” to realize that “what we call love is actually a search for God.” Full piece, worth reading, available here.
While on the topic of loving God, consider Rabbi Benjamin Blech's connection between the three mitzvot of loving God (enumerated in the Shema) with the love shown to each of the three Avot. Excerpt from Understanding Judaism (p. 114-122) here. This can be used for an in-depth derasha or a parsha shiur this week.
4) Shabbos
Focusing on the difference between the commandment of Shabbat in parshat Yitro to that in our parsha, Rabbi Ezriel Tauber (As in Heaven, so on Earth, 250 – 255) writes:
"The command of Shabbos is worded slightly differently in the first set of tablets of the Ten Commandments than it is in the second set (which is enumerated in parashas Va'eschanan, Devarim 5:6-18). Here, for instance, the command is to "remember (zachor) the Sabbath day," while in the second set it is to "keep (shamor) the Sabbath day."
See the rest of his worthwhile essay here.
5) What does Avodah Zarah translate to in the Modern World?
Rav Moshe Avigdor Amiel, in the translated Light for a Age of Confusion, has a wonderful drash on the issur of making an image of God, and the ultimate “costs and benefits” of this particular mitzvah:
"In short, our scrupulous observance of this prohibition has resulted in the tremendous loss of many national assets and possessions. But with that, we have retained the essential element: that most fundamental principle of Judaism, ‘I am the L-rd your G-d.’"
The full piece is powerful, and well worth the read – see it here.
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