Shabbat Shalom

CONGREGATION SONS OF ISRAEL

Shabbat Shalom

5/5/2023

Tonight beginning at 5:45pm

CSI Religious School

Family Kabbalat Shabbat

SISTERHOOD SHABBAT - Saturday, 5/6, at 9:10am

Join us for a Sisterhood-led Shabbat morning service

followed by Kiddush.

You may help sponsor Kiddush here.

Thank you to those who have already donated!

A CHANCE TO SCHMOOZE! Let's usher in Shabbat together by starting at 6pm with "bring your own" hors d'oeuvres and drinks.

Services will begin at 6:30pm. Candle Lighting 7:38pm

KABBALAT SHABBAT ZOOM LINK

LIVE STREAM LINK HERE

PDF of our prayer book here

10 Minutes of Torah

with Rabbi Kane

LINK HERE

This week's learning is dedicated by the CSI Sisterhood in celebration of Sisterhood Shabbat.

If you are interested in dedicating or sponsoring Ten Minutes of Torah, please make a donation to the CSI fund of your choice, email Rabbi Kane specifying which Torah portion, who it's in memory of/in honor of, and the person's Hebrew name.

LIVE STREAMING , SATURDAY, 5/6, at 9:10am.

LIVE STREAM LINK HERE

This Week's Torah Reading:

Emor - Leviticus: 21:1 - 24:23

Emor begins with the laws concerning cohanim, and in particular the Cohein Gadol. If the Cohein Gadol is to lead a holy people, he then must be protective of his holiness. While serving God he is to wear particular clothing, not shave his head or cut the corners of his beard or make gashes on his body. He is restricted as to whom he may marry. A cohein is not supposed to enter into any place where there is a dead body, including, of course, a cemetery, except for immediate family. Today we still keep some of these traditions. Later, the custom of recognizing the special status of a cohein by calling them up first to say the blessings over the Torah reading was instituted. We continue this custom at CSI, including calling up women as bat cohein.

The second part of the parasha is a calendar of all the holy days of the year. "These are the set times of the Lord, the sacred occasions, which you shall celebrate each at its appropriate time." (Lev. 23:4) It begins with Shabbat and then continues with Pesach, Shavuot, Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur and Sukkot. Emor concludes with a short miscellaneous collection of laws.

We are in the midst of fulfilling the commandment mentioned in the parasha, of counting the days between Pesach and Shavuot, “And from the day after the sabbath (understood as the day after Pesach begins), you shall count off seven weeks, until the day following the seventh week…fifty days…on that same day you shall hold a celebration; it shall be a sacred occasion for you (i.e. Shavuot).” (Lev. 23: 15-16; 21). Since the counting involved the days of barley harvest, it is called “the counting of the omer,” as omer means a sheaf of barley. This week, Tuesday, will be the 33rd day of the counting, otherwise known as Lag Ba-Omer. It is considered to be a special day because on that day, the Talmud teaches us, a plague that the students of Rabbi Akiva were suffering from, ended.

Lag Ba-Omer is not a formal holiday in which we cease from working, but rather very much like another day when we celebrate nature, Tu B’Shvat. Lag Ba-Omer is also a day on which people traditionally get married, since it is a semi-holiday. In Israel, the custom is to gather around bonfires at the end of the day. While the origins and meaning of this custom are uncertain, many relate it to the mystic Rabbi Shimon Bar Yohai, a student of Rabbi Akiva, who is said to be the author of the most important work of Jewish Mysticism, the Zohar. It is said that since Lag Ba-Omer is his yahrzeit, the bonfires are thought to symbolize the light that Rabbi Shimon brought into the world through his wisdom and teachings. Whatever their origin, both the end of a plague (see: Covid) and the bringing of knowledge into the world are worth celebrating, as we do on Lag Ba-Omer.

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Steven C. Kane