RESISTANCE IS NOT FUTILE – IT’S A TRADITION

Parashat Devarim

Torah: Deuteronomy 1:1 – 3:22

Haftarah: Isaiah 1:1-27 (Shabbat Chazon – Shabbat of Vision – the Third Haftarah of Rebuke)

Av 8, 5785 / August 1-2, 2025

Tisha B’Av reading: Megillat Eikhah – The Book of Lamentations

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This Shabbat is Shabbat Chazon, the Shabbat of Vision, so-called because we read on Shabbat morning the rebuking vision of Isaiah, leading into the observance of Tisha B’Av on Saturday night and Sunday, August 2-3, and the reading of the horrifying vision of the Book of Lamentations (Megillat Eikhah). Tisha B'Av, the Ninth of Av, commemorates the destruction of the First and Second Temples in Jerusalem, and numerous other calamities which have befallen the Jewish people on the same date.

This d'var torah is offered in memory of Sarah Labovitz Flom (my grandmother) and Martha Gottschalk Stern (Lynn's grandmother), whose yahrzeits fall Monday, August 4 (10 Av), and Wednesday, August 6 (12 Av), respectively. Both were US immigrants and asylum seekers, escaping antisemitic persecution from Romania (1902) and from Nazi Germany (1937 via France 1934). Their memories are blessings.

This d’var torah is offered for a refuah shleimah and a speedy and safe return of all the hostages being held by Hamas.

This d’var torah is offered for an end to the hunger crisis in Gaza.

Lunch and Learn will not meet until September 8.

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RESISTANCE IS NOT FUTILE – IT’S A TRADITION

In this week’s haftarah, Isaiah warns the people what will happen to them if they continue to disobey God’s instructions – particularly with regard to matters of justice.

“… Your hands are full of blood. Wash yourselves clean; Put your evil out of My sight. Cease your evil ways. Learn to do good; devote yourselves to justice; aid those who have been wronged. Uphold the rights of the orphan; defend the cause of the widow.” Isaiah 1:15-17

“If you refuse and disobey, you will be consumed by violence – for it was the Lord who spoke.” Isaiah 1:20

"Your rulers are rogues and cronies of thieves, every one of them avid for bribery and greedy for illicit gifts; They do not give the orphan justice, and the widow's case never reaches them." Isaiah 1:23

This Saturday night and Sunday, Jews remember and mourn the destruction of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem, twice, on the 9^th of Av – in 587 BCE by the Babylonians, and in 70 CE by the Romans. Other calamities suffered by the Jewish people are attributed to or very close to the 9^th of Av.

The Book of Lamentations (attributed, probably incorrectly, to Jeremiah) describes the destruction by the Babylonians. The Talmud, in a number of places, attributes both destructions, particularly that by the Romans, to baseless hatred among the people.

Thus, we may read the Talmud as teaching that failure to take to heart the teachings of Isaiah leads to the moral and physical destruction of society.

We’ve seen resistance to injustice before. Abraham argued with God for the sake of Sodom and Gomorrah – he lost the argument, but he was not afraid to make the challenge - for people he didn’t know, for people who were not so nice, but who were nevertheless fellow human beings. Our Rabbis taught that one of the reasons God ultimately destroyed the cities was because of “the cry of the maiden” – a woman who was executed in Sodom for the crime of giving food and water to the poor and to immigrants.

More famously, Moses demanded justice from the Pharaoh of Egypt – and set an enslaved people free. It took a while, and God’s intervention, but our Rabbis teach that had Moses refused to do this, had he remained silent, the Israelites might still be slaves. This story of the Exodus led to constant reminders to love the Other because “you were strangers in Egypt” and “you know the heart of the stranger”. On this point, we learn specifically, “You will love the stranger, because you were strangers in Egypt.” Deuteronomy 10:19

Abraham, Moses, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and virtually all of the other Biblical prophets, have a few things in common. They challenged the status quo of an immoral and unjust power structure, and they demanded that the people act more justly. “For it is lovingkindness I desire, not sacrifice.” Hosea 6:6

At BT Pesachim 66a, Hillel the Elder says of the Jewish people, "If they are not prophets (who have directly heard the voice of God), they are the children of prophets (and thus will know and do the right thing)."

Remember where you come from. Do the right thing. Resistance is not futile - ever.

Shabbat Shalom! And have a meaningful fast.

Rabbi Richard A. Flom - Rabbi Emeritus

Temple B'nai Hayim

הרחמן הוא יברך אותנו כולנו יחד בברכת אחוה, ובברכת אהבה,  ובברכת שלום

May the Merciful One bless us, all of us as one, with the blessing of brotherhood, the blessing of love, and the blessing of peace.

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PERFECTION? DESTROY THAT NOTION!

Parashat Chukkat

Tammuz 9, 5785 / July 4-5, 2025

Torah: Numbers 19:1 - 22:1

Haftarah: Judges 11:1-33

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This d’var torah is offered for a refuah shleimah for the hostages.

This d’var torah is offered for a refuah shleimah for the wounded and injured.

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Lunch and Learn meets Mondays at 12:30 PM on Zoom and Facebook Live. 

On July 7, we'll be at Ein Ya'akov Yevamot, p. 39 (BT Yevamot 49b) - 

 '... תניא בן עזאי אומר' - "We are taught that Ben Azai says..."

Ein Ya'akov (Glick edition) is available for on-line reading or as a downloadable PDF at:

https://hebrewbooks.org/9630 
A pointed Hebrew text version with different pagination is available at Sefaria: 
https://www.sefaria.org/Ein_Yaakov?tab=contents  
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PERFECTION? DESTROY THAT NOTION!

And the Lord spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying, "This is the ritual law which the Lord has commanded, saying, ‘Speak to the Children of Israel, that they bring you a red heifer without spot, which has no blemish, and upon which there has never been a yoke.'" Numbers 19:1-2

How could the slaughter of a perfect red heifer, and the scattering of its ashes on someone who is ritually impure, make that person ritually pure? How does the ritual of the red heifer actually function? And, what does it mean for us today?

I have read many attempts at rationalizing this ritual; I am not about to try to formulate my own explanation. Rabbi Harold Kushner, z’l, in Chumash Etz Hayim, suggests the following, from a modern commentator whom he does not name. He says that the ritual serves a vital psychological purpose. For one who is burdened by a sense of wrongdoing, who feels spiritually impure, we offer up to God a perfect animal, as if to say that perfection has no place in this world - it cannot exist in this world.

What a relief! Let's expand on that. We know intuitively that we are not perfect, and that we cannot become so. (And we have all sorts of not nice ways to describe someone who thinks they are perfect!) But we also know that very often we try or are pressured to achieve perfection. When we fall short of that impossible goal, when we feel impure and guilty, we can offer up, we can sacrifice the very idea that we can be perfect. We can destroy that notion, take up the ashes and scatter them, and re-establish our sense of wellbeing.

Note also: We all too often expect perfection from others. We need to smash that notion as well. For when we demand perfection from others, it is so damaging that it could be understood as a sign that we really want to have no relationship with them at all. (Note: in this parashah, Moses is punished for demanding too much of the Israelites) And when someone demands it of us, we must call them out.

It is true that we are instructed to emulate God, by feeding the hungry, and clothing the naked, and by trying to perfect (better I should say "improve") the world. Although we cannot be perfect, we have the ability and the obligation to strive to be better, to be the best that we can be. Don't let perfection be the enemy of the good.

Shabbat Shalom! And have a meaningful and thought-provoking Independence Day.

Rabbi Richard A. Flom, Rabbi Emeritus

Temple B'nai Hayim

.הוּא הָיָה אוֹמֵר, לֹא עָלֶיךָ הַמְּלָאכָה לִגְמֹר, וְלֹא אַתָּה בֶן חוֹרִין לִבָּטֵל מִמֶּנָּה

He [Rabbi Tarfon] used to say: It is not your duty to finish the work, but neither are you at liberty to neglect it. Pirkei Avot 2:16

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