GOOD VERSUS EVIL

Parashat Ki Tetze
11 Elul 5773 / 16-17 August 2013
Torah: Deuteronomy 21:10 - 25:19
Haftarah: Isaiah 54:1-10 (Fifth Haftarah of Consolation)

 

Dedications and Calendar of Events follow. 

 

Check out our website: http://www.bethmeir.org

 

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Good Versus Evil

 

“When you go out to battle against your enemy, and the Lord your God delivers him into your hands, and you take him captive.” Deuteronomy 21:10

Babylonian Talmud Berakhot 5a: R. Levi ben Chama teaches in the name of R. Shimon ben Lakish - A person should always stir up the good inclination (yetzer hatov) against the bad inclination (yetzer hara).

R. Isaiah ben Abraham Halevi Horowitz, in his "Shnei Luchot Habrit", says that God helps those who seek to purify themselves. When one challenges his yetzer hara (which is his enemy), God delivers him, by returning his sins to him (which he “captures”).

 

The word for "capture", shavah, is used as a play on the word "teshuvah”, which means repentance, or return (to God). This is the verse, he says, from which our Rabbis teach: “Great is teshuvah, through which sins are transformed into merits.”

We are well into the month of Elul. Now more than ever is the time for us to confront and resist the evil inclinations within us, to seek to purify our souls, to gird ourselves for the great day of the shofar. Capture your enemy now!  Rosh Hashanah is less than three weeks away!

Shabbat Shalom!

 

Rabbi Richard A. Flom - ZSRS '00

Congregation Beth Meier
Studio City , CAhttp://www.bethmeir.org/
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"For the sake of Zion I will not be silent; for the sake of Jerusalem I will not be still" Isaiah 62:1

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Beth Meier Calendar:

Candlelighting: 7:20 pm

Friday: Shabbat Evening Service – 8:00 pm. Oneg Shabbat follows.
Saturday: Shabbat Morning Service – 10:00 am. Haftarah: Barry Glass. Kiddush luncheon follows.

Sunday: Congregation Beth Meier Membership and Religious School Open House –10:00 am – noon. All congregants and prospective members, including current and prospective Religious School families, are invited and encouraged to come. Light snacks provided.
Tuesday: Lunch and Learn - Noon. Our discussion of Rambam’s Hilkhot Teshuvah (The Laws of Repentance) continues. Lunch provided. Donations accepted.
Friday, 23 August: Shabbat Evening Service – 8:00 pm.
Saturday, 24 August: Shabbat Morning Service – 10:00 am.

 

DON'T FORGET TO SUBMIT YOUR FORMS FOR MEMBERSHIP RENEWAL AND HIGH HOLY DAY TICKETS.

 

See our ads and articles about Beth Meier in the current issues of the Studio City-Sherman Oaks-Encino News and The Tolucan Times.

 

This d'var torah is offered for a refuah shleimah (complete healing) for Dov Nechemya Hakohen ben Rachel Chaya Sarah, Eve Beatty, Howard Ehrlich, Joshua Erenmark, Jerry Forman, Beth Goldstein, Pamela Huddleston, Rose Jordan, Sara Lanxner, Frank Marcovitz, Phil Raider, Rachel Robbins, and Virginia Sullivan.

 

Please let me know if there is anyone you would like to add to this list or if there is anyone who may be removed from this list.

 

My weekly divrei torah are also available via e-mail from Cyber Torah.

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