LET ALL THE PEOPLE GO!

Parashat Bo
6 Shevat 5776 / 15-16 January 2016

Torah: Exodus 10:1 – 13:16

Haftarah: Jeremiah 46:13-28

For a full calendar of events and other info about our community, check out www.bethmeier.org

Please feel free to pass this on to a friend, and please cite the source.

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Candlelighting: 4:48 pm

Friday: Shabbat Evening Service – 8:00 pm. Oneg Shabbat follows.

Saturday: Shabbat morning service – 10:00 am. Kiddush lunch follows.

Sunday: NO Religious School and NO Adult Hebrew Class – MLK, Jr. weekend

Tuesday: Lunch and Learn – 12:00 noon

Friday, 22 January: Shabbat Evening Service – 8:00 pm. Oneg Shabbat follows.

Saturday, 23 January: Shabbat morning service – 10:00 am. Kiddush lunch follows.

Sunday, 24 January: Religious School – 9:30 am. Adult Hebrew Class – 10:00. Tu Bish’vat Seder – 10:30 am. Everyone is invited!

Shabbat Across America is coming – Friday, March 4 – Learners’ Service and Shabbat Dinner – mark your calendar and check your mail for details

Next time you come to Beth Meier, please bring some non-perishable canned and packaged foods and personal items (no glass) for SOVA.

This d'var torah is offered for a refuah shleimah for Avi Shmuel Yosef Hakohen ben Bella, Miriam Minya bat Alisa Batya, Sarah bat Devorah, Ken Bitticks, Elsbet Brosky, Jerry Daniels, Maya Fersht (Maya bat Esther), Dr. Samuel Fersht (Shmuel Natan ben Gittel), Leonard Foint (Eliezer Moshe ben Esther), Jerry Forman, Pamela Huddleston, Stephanie Kane, Elaine Kleiger, Philip Kovac, and Marsha Meyers.

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.

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LET ALL THE PEOPLE GO!

"... (Pharaoh) said to (Moses and Aaron), 'Go, worship the Lord your God! Who exactly is going?' And Moses said, 'With our young and old we will go; with our sons and daughters, with our flocks and herds we will go, for it is a festival to the Lord.'" Exodus 10:8-9.

In Chumash Etz Hayim, Rabbi Harold Kushner asks why Moses emphasizes "young and old." He cites several commentators as answering: "because no celebration is complete without children"; "a child without parents is an orphan, but a nation without children is an orphan people"; and, "We will go with our old people who feel rejuvenated at the prospect of living in freedom."

With Martin Luther King, Jr. Day coming on Monday, we should pause to reflect on what this passage, and the entire Exodus story, must have meant to African-Americans during their 350-year struggle for freedom. It was less than 150 years ago when an entire people was enslaved in America. Individual slaves might from time to time be set free - without their spouses, children, parents or siblings. This is exactly what Pharaoh would ultimately propose to Moses and Aaron - that only the adult men should go and worship God. What did "freedom" mean to those lucky few, in America or in Egypt, who were set free? What did it mean to those who remained in slavery? Dr. King knew, just as Moses did, just as we all know, that freedom means little, if anything, under those circumstances, because a person can not be free as long as others around him/her are slaves.

We may be fortunate, indeed, to live in a time and place when we have more freedom, religious and otherwise, than our ancestors could possibly have imagined. But from a spiritual standpoint, with that freedom comes an obligation - to bring our young and old, our sons and daughters, along with us. Everybody is invited to God's party - but the celebration simply can not be complete unless we bring everyone along with us.

Shabbat Shalom!

Rabbi Richard A. Flom

Congregation Beth Meier - Studio City , CA

www.bethmeier.org

Blogging at: http://rav-rich.blogspot.com

"From the place where we are absolutely right, flowers will never grow in the spring."

"מן המקום שבו אנו צודקים לא יצמחו לעולם פרחים באביב"

Yehuda Amichai

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