October SA/TO Snap

Halloweens tonight! Candy is the best part of Halloween but it has a downfall. While everyone is walking from house to house they start to eat their candy. This results in a lot of candy wrappers on the ground. So when your out tonight bring an extra bag and try to pick up all the trash you see on the ground. Hope everyone gets lots of candy tonight!

D'var For Bereishit!

Hey everyone! This week, we read the first parshah from the Torah, Bereishit!

G‑d creates the world in six days. On the first day He makes darkness and light. On the second day He forms the heavens, dividing the “upper waters” from the “lower waters.” On the third day He sets the boundaries of land and sea, and calls forth trees and greenery from the earth. On the fourth day He fixes the position of the sun, moon and stars as timekeepers and illuminators of the earth. Fish, birds and reptiles are created on the fifth day; land animals, and then the human being, on the sixth. G‑d ceases work on the seventh day, and sanctifies it as a day of rest.
G‑d forms the human body from the dust of the earth, and blows into his nostrils a “living soul.” Originally Man is a single person, but deciding that “it is not good that man be alone,” G‑d takes a "side" from the man, forms it into a woman, and marries them to each other.
Adam and Eve are placed in the Garden of Eden, and commanded not to eat from the “Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.” The serpent persuades Eve to violate the command, and she shares the forbidden fruit with her husband. Because of their sin, it is decreed that man will experience death, returning to the soil from which he was formed, and that all gain will come only through struggle and hardship. Man is banished from the Garden.
Eve gives birth to two sons, Cain and Abel. Cain quarrels with Abel and murders him, and becomes a rootless wanderer. A third son, Seth, is born to Adam; Seth’s eighth-generation descendant, Noah, is the only righteous man in a corrupt world.

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"Bereishit in a Nutshell." Chabad.org. Chabad, n.d. Web. 27 Oct. 2016. <http://www.chabad.org/parshah/article_cdo/aid/3137/jewish/Bereishit-in-a-Nutshell.htm>.  

D'var For Chol Hamoed Sukkot!

Chag sameach everyone! This week's d'var, for Chol Hamoed Sukkot, is written by Ohad Klopman.

When I last wrote a D’var Torah for this portion, it was three years ago for my bar mitzvah. I was not yet thirteen by the Gregorian calendar, but in the eyes of God I was finally an adult. That was the day I was entrusted with my own future as a Jew in the local and world community, and since then I have made Judaism a premier component in my character. Since my bar mitzvah, I started bringing my own kosher lunch to school, and my family has dedicated our kitchen to kashrut, just to name a few examples.

This week’s portion reminds me that we are all entrusted with the privilege and responsibility to carry out the words of God. In this portion, God gives Moses and his Israelites a second chance after their slip-up with the Golden Calf. On this day, we finally get to keep our Ten Commandments, and a new covenant is drawn between the Israelites and God. This day in Jewish history marks the metaphorical bar mitzvah of the entire Jewish people. We are all now children of the mitzvot, of God’s words, of the commandments.

I have not always been the perfect mensch we all idealize. I’ve lied. I’ve gossipped. I’ve cheated on keeping kosher, because I can’t control myself around clam chowder. But each day is a new day, and we should all be thankful that we can wake up each day to a new sun and a new breath in our soul, for God always gives us another chance to rethink our Golden Calf moments. We’re more like sukkot than we are like the mishkan; we’re imperfect, but we all have the potential to be strong. No one, not even God, expects us to be perfect. If God did, then we wouldn’t need the Ten Commandments, and then six hundred and three more, to teach us how to behave. What matters is how we choose to move on, how we learn, and how we wake up each day ready to be better.

D'var For Vayelech!

This week's d'var is written by Michael Berelowitz.

The parshah, Vayelech, describes the last day of Moses’s life on Earth. He was 120 years old, and his time was up. He turns his responsibilities as the Israelite leader over to Joshua and finally fully completes the writing of the Torah, which is to be kept in the Ark of the Covenant by the Levites. The mitzvah of hakhel (meaning “gather”) is given, which instructs that every seven years, during Sukkot, the Israelites must gather the Holy Temple in Jerusalem where the king will read from the Torah to them. At the end the the parshah, G-d tells Moses that the Israelites will abandon G-d’s commandments, worship false gods, and turn away from their covenant with G-d. G-d also then says that as a result, G-d will “hide His face from them”, causing bad things to fall upon them as a result. He also, however, promises that their descendants will never forget the words of the Torah.