Welcome to the DAT Minyan! Shabbat Emor

May 18, 2019 - 13 Iyar 5779 Joseph Friedman, Rabbi | Mark Raphaely, President

Candle Lighting

(earliest)

(latest)

Havdalah

6:39p

7:51p

8:57p

DAT Minyan is a dynamic and friendly Modern Orthodox synagogue for all ages and dedicated to meaningful personal spiritual development, community growth, youth involvement, Torah education, and Religious Zionism.

DAT Minyan - 560 S. Monaco Pkwy., Denver, CO 80224 - 720-941-0479 - www.datminyan.org

D’var Torah with Rabbi Jonathan Sacks There is something unique about the way Parshat Emor speaks about Shabbat. It calls it a mo’ed and a mikra kodesh when, in the conventional sense of these words, it is neither. Mo’ed means an appointed time with a fixed date on the calendar. Mikra kodesh means either a sacred assembly, a time at which the nation gathered at the central Sanctuary, or a day made holy by proclamation, that is, through the human court’s determination of the calendar. Shabbat is none of these things. It has no fixed date on the calendar. It is not a time of national assembly. And it is not a day made holy by the proclamation of the human court. Shabbat was the day made holy by God Himself at the beginning of time.

The explanation lies in the context in which the passage containing these terms appears, the chapters of the Torah whose primary theme is holiness (Lev. 18–27). The radical claim made in these chapters is that holiness, a term normally reserved for God, can be acquired by human beings when they act like God. The festivals stand to Shabbat the way the Sanctuary stands to the universe. Both are humanly created domains of holiness constructed on the model of divine creation and sanctification as they appear at the beginning of Genesis. By inviting human beings to create a sanctuary and determine the monthly and yearly calendar, God invests us with the dignity of a holiness we have not just received passively as a gift, but acquired actively as co-creators with God.

Mikra kodesh and mo’ed as they appear in Leviticus have an extra sense that they do not bear elsewhere because they evoke the opening verse of the book: “He called [Vayikra] to Moses, and the Lord spoke to him in the Tent of Meeting [Ohel Mo’ed], saying…” (Lev. 1:1). The focus is on mikra as “call” and mo’ed as “meeting.” When the Torah uses these words uniquely in this chapter to apply to Shabbat as well as the festivals, it is focusing on the encounter between God and humanity in the arena of time. Whether it is God’s call to us or ours to Him, whether God initiates the meeting or we do, holy time becomes a lovers’ rendezvous, a still point in the turning world when lover and beloved, Creator and creation, “make time” for one another and know one another in the special form of knowledge we call love. If this is so, what does Parshat Emor tell us about Shabbat that we do not learn elsewhere? The answer becomes clear when we look at two other passages, the two versions of the Decalogue, the Ten Commandments, as they appear in Exodus and Deuteronomy. Famously, the wording of the two versions is different. The Exodus account begins with the word Zachor, remember. The Deuteronomy account begins with Shamor, “keep, guard, protect.” But they differ more profoundly in their very understanding of the nature and significance of the day. Here is the Exodus text:

Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labour and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work…. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth… but He rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. (Ex. 20:7–9)

According to this, Shabbat is a reminder of creation. The Deuteronomy text gives a very different account:

Six days you shall labour and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant… Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the Lord your God brought you out of there… Therefore the Lord your God has commanded you to observe the Sabbath day. (Deut. 5:11–14)

Here there is no reference to creation. Instead the Torah speaks about a historical event: the Exodus. We keep Shabbat not because God rested on the seventh day but because He took our ancestors out of Egypt, from slavery to freedom. Therefore, Shabbat is a day of freedom even for servants, and even for domestic animals. One day in seven, no one is a slave.

Of course, both are true, and we integrate both accounts into the text of the Kiddush we make on Friday night. We call Shabbat a remembrance of creation

(Continued on Page 2)

We kindly ask you to pay any outstanding balances owed

to the shul from last year. Please call the shul office or pay

online after logging into your account at

www.datminyan.org. Dues owed for the second half of our

current fiscal year have now been posted to all applicable

accounts. Thank you!

Shabbat Schedule (All services take place in the BMH-BJ Fisher Hall, 560

S. Monaco Pkwy)

Please help make our prayer service more meaningful by refraining from talking during the service.

FRIDAY

6:20 pm: Mincha / Kabbalat Shabbat / Maariv

(Shema should be recited after 8:56 pm)

SHABBAT

Parasha: Page 672 / Haftarah: Page 1176

7:50 am: Hashkama Minyan

8:20 am: Daf Yomi

8:30 am: Tefillah Warm-up with Ellyn Hutt

9:00 am: Shacharit

(Shema should be recited before 9:22 am)

Kiddush is generously sponsored by Nicki and Aaron Toys in honor of the Bar Mitzvah of their

son, Max

6:25 pm: HS Boys’ Gemara Class will meet with Nathan Rabinovitch at the Rabinovitch home

6:45 pm: Shabbat Afternoon Class with Sondra Oster Baras, “Who are the Christians who love Israel and what do they mean to us?” (See back page for more details)

7:45 pm: Mincha followed by Seudah Shlisheet, sponsored in honor of the Bar Mitzvah and siyum of Max Toys by his grandparents Joan and Selwyn Struck and Susan and Sammy Toys

8:57 pm: Maariv / Havdalah ——————————————————

Weekday Schedule (Weekday services Sunday through Friday morning

take place at DAT School, 6825 E. Alameda Ave.)

SHACHARIT Sunday: 8:00 am Monday through Friday: 6:35 am

MINCHA/MAARIV Sunday through Friday: 6:25 pm

D’VAR TORAH CONTINUED

Please help make our prayer service more meaningful by refraining from talking during the service.

(zikaron lemaaseh bereishit) as well as a reminder of the Exodus (zekher liyetziat Mitzrayim). However, once we set the Leviticus account in the context of these other two, a richer pattern emerges. If we play close attention, we can hear three primary voices in the Torah: those of Kingship, Priesthood, and Prophecy. These are the three fundamental leadership roles and they have distinctive modes of knowledge.

Priests, Prophets, and the governing elite (the wise, the Elders, Kings and their courts) each have their own ways of thinking and speaking. Kings and courts use the language of chochmah, “wisdom.” Priests teach Torah, the word of God for all time. Prophets have visions. They have “the word” of God not for all time but for this time. Prophecy is about history as the interaction between God and humanity. Is it merely accidental that there happen to be three voices, when there could have been four, or two, or one? The answer is no. There are three voices because, axiomatic to Jewish faith is the belief that God is encountered in three ways: in creation, revelation, and redemption.

Wisdom is the ability to see God in creation, in the intricate complexity of the natural universe and the human mind. In contemporary terms, chochmah is a combination of the sciences and humanities: all that allows us to see the universe as the work of God and human beings as the image of God. It is summed up in a verse from Psalms (104:24), “How many are Your works, O Lord; You have made them all in wisdom.”

Revelation, Torah, the speciality of the Priest, is the ability to hear God in the form of the commanding voice, most characteristically in the form of law: “And God said,” “And God spoke,” “And God commanded.” Revelation is a matter not of seeing but of listening, in the deep sense of hearing and heeding, attending and responding. Wisdom tells us how things are. Revelation tells us how we should live. Prophetic consciousness is always focused on redemption, the long and winding road towards a society based on justice and compassion, love and forgiveness, peace and human dignity. The prophet knows where we came from and where we are going to, what stage we have reached in the journey and what dangers lie ahead. The prophetic word is always related to history, to the present in relation to the past and the future: not history as a mere succession of events, but as an approach to or digression from the good society, the Promised Land, and the Messianic Age.

Creation, revelation, and redemption represent the three basic relationships within which Judaism and human life are set. Creation is God’s relationship to the world. Revelation is God’s relationship with us. When we apply revelation to creation, the result is redemption: the world in which God’s will and ours coincide.

We now understand why the Torah contains three distinct accounts of Shabbat. The account in the first version of the Ten Commandments, “For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth,” is the Shabbat of creation. The account in the second version, “Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the Lord, your God, brought you out,” is the Shabbat of redemption. The Parshat Emor account, spoken in the Priestly voice, is the Shabbat of revelation. In revelation, God calls to humankind. That is why the middle book of the Torah (that more than any other represents Torat Kohanim, “the law of the Priests,”) begins with the word Vayikra, “and He called.” It is also why Shabbat is, uniquely here, included in the days “which you shall proclaim (tikre’u) as sacred convocations (mikra’ei kodesh),” with the double emphasis on the verb k-r-a, “to call, proclaim, convoke.” Shabbat is the day in which, in the stasis of rest and the silence of the soul, we hear the Call of God.

Hence too, the word mo’ed, which in general means “appointed times,” but here means “meeting.” Judah Halevi, the eleventh-century poet and philosopher, said that on Shabbat, it is as if God had personally invited us to be dinner guests at His table. The Shabbat of revelation does not look back to the birth of the universe or forwards to the future redemption. It celebrates the present moment as our private time with God. It represents “the power of now.”

Not only is this threefold structure set out in the Torah, it is embodied in the prayers of Shabbat itself. Shabbat is the only day of the year in which the evening, morning, and afternoon prayers are different from one another. In the Friday night Amidah, we refer to the Shabbat of creation: “You sanctified the seventh day for Your name’s sake as the culmination of the creation of heaven and earth.” On Shabbat morning we speak about the supreme moment of revelation: “Moses rejoiced at the gift of his portion….He brought down in his hands two tablets of stone on which was engraved the observance of the Sabbath.” On Shabbat afternoon we look forwards to the ultimate redemption, when all humanity will acknowledge that “You are One, Your name is One, and who is like Your people Israel, a nation one on earth.”

Creation, revelation, and redemption form the basic triad of the Jewish faith. They are also the most fundamental structuring principle of Jewish prayer. Nowhere is this clearer than in the way the Torah understands Shabbat: one day with three dimensions, experienced successively in the experiences of evening, morning, and afternoon. What is fragmented in secular culture into science, religion, and political ideology is here united in the transforming experience of God who created the universe, whose presence fills our homes with light, and who will one day lead us to a world of freedom, justice, and peace.

Rabbi Sacks (Continued from Page 1)

This Day in Jewish History - 18 May / 13 Iyar May 18, 363 C.E. - The first of a pair of massive earthquakes over a two-day period rocks the Galilee and nearby regions. The quakes

occurred on the Dead Sea Transform fault system between the Dead Sea and the Gulf of Aqaba. As a result of the quakes, Nabratein (northeast of Safed) and the synagogue there were completely destroyed, and the cities of Sepphoris (northwest of Nazareth) and Petra, in what is now Jordan, were severely damaged.

13 Iyar 5162 (1402) - After centuries of dealing with expulsions and religious persecution, Jews living in Rome are granted new liberal privileges by Catholic Pope Boniface IX. Among the liberties are a reduction in their taxes, ordering Shabbat to be protected, placing them under the jurisdiction of the Curia (the central government of the Catholic Church), protecting them from oppression by Roman officials, and declaring that all Jews living in the city be regarded and treated as full Roman citizens.

May 18, 1876 - Legendary American west frontiersman and gunslinger Wyatt Earp starts work as Assistant Marshal of Dodge City, Kansas. Earp was not Jewish, but his last common-law wife, Josephine Sarah Marcus, was. As a result, when he died in 1929, the wealthy and powerful Marcus family was able to circumvent the usual restrictions and have Earp’s ashes buried in a Jewish cemetery, Hills of Eternity Memorial Park, in Colma, California, just south of San Francisco. Hopefully, this information should lay to rest (no pun intended) any speculation that Earp’s famous gunfight at the “O K” Corral had anything to do with a battle over kosher certification!

May 18, 1994 - Israel completes the removal of its armed forces from Palestinian towns and refugee camps in the Gaza Strip, ending 27 years of occupation since having acquired the territory in the 1967 Middle East War. The withdrawal of Israeli troops left some 800,000 residents of Gaza to determine their fate. Under the terms of the agreement to remove troops, Israeli forces were to remain at the borders and in the buffer zones surrounding the 19 Jewish settlements in Gaza, an area that in combined size would make up more than one-third of the coastal strip.

DAT MINYAN NEWS, EVENTS AND MILESTONES

Please help make our prayer service more meaningful by refraining from talking during the service.

Mazal Tov to Max Toys, parents Nicki and Aaron Toys, grandparents Joan and Selwyn Struck and Susan and Sammy Toys, and the entire Toys-Struck family on the occasion of Max’s Bar Mitzvah!

Mazal Tov to Sara and Roy Kaluzshner on the birth of a baby girl last Saturday!

Welcome to our guest speaker this Shabbat, Sondra Oster Baras!

Our annual Graduation Kiddush will take place Shabbat, May 25th. Sponsorships and graduation tributes can be registered online at www.datminyan.org/form/graduation-kiddush-2019 .

We are delighted to welcome Rebetzen Rivka Alter as our Scholar-in-Residence the weekend of May 24th - 25th. Please see the flyer on Page 5 for additional information.

Thank-you to all of those who contribute to our Shabbat services by signing up to help with our weekly leining. We remain in need of continued help with this and all able-leiners are encouraged to please volunteer! In addition, with a goal of expanding our roster of Haftarah readers, we have now opened up the weekly Haftarah portions for sign-up as well. The sign-up website is www.datminyan.org/laining. Slots are open from now through July. Please contact Steve Hutt for questions and additional information.

COMMUNITY ANNOUNCEMENTS Lawrence and Lisa Stroll invite the DAT Minyan community to an open house L’Chaim, Motzei Shabbat (May 18), 9:45 pm at their

home, honoring the engagement of their son Yitzy to Chayala Rosenberg.

Ladies and teen girls in the community are invited to “Lighthearted Lag B’Omer,” a concert featuring several of Denver’s lady musicians and a multimedia presentation. The event is a benefit for Eitam Farm, an at-risk youth program in Israel, and takes place Wednesday, May 22nd, at Kohelet, 428 S. Forest St., at 7:30 pm. For information: 720-309-8276, chayasarahtene@gmail.com .

Kol Nashim, the women’s choir of the Colorado Hebrew Chorale, presents Woman to Woman 2019, a concert for women only benefitting the Jerusalem Shelter for Battered Women, Thursday, May 23rd, 7:00 pm at Temple Sinai, 3509 S. Glencoe St. To purchase tickets: www.coloradohebrewchorale.org .

Please join Merkaz Torah V’Chesed & Kehilas Bais Yisroel in welcoming Rabbi Motty and Rebbetzin Twerski to Denver for a community-wide Shabbos-shel-Chizuk, hosted by local shuls and organizations. Shabbos Parshas B’Chukosei, May 31st – June 1st. The Shabbos will include communal davening, meals, and Divrei Torah from Rabbi and Rebbetzin Twerski. For more information: emailinfo@merkaztorah.org or 720-881-2741 .

The Denver Community Kollel will hold its 4th annual Learn-A-Thon on Sunday, June 2nd, 3:30-5:30 pm at the Ethel A. Beren Auditorium, 1261 Zenobia. Join the communal completion of a tractate of Talmud in the course of one hour of Torah study! Men, sign up and study a preassigned section of Tractate Sukkah with a chavrusah. Women, sign up and attend a special study session or study a special curriculum with a chavrusah. There is no charge for the Learn-A-Thon, but sponsorship opportunities are available. To sign up or sponsor, visit denverkollel.org, email info@denverkollel.org or call 303-820-2855.

We would like to thank our Legacy Society donors for investing in our future by naming the DAT Minyan with a gift in their will, trust, retirement account or life insurance policy. Our Legacy Society includes:

Rob Allen Graeme and Irit Bean

Myndie Brown

Steve and Ellyn Hutt Nathan and Rachel Rabinovitch

Mark and Sarah Raphaely Harley and Sara Rotbart

Michael Stutzer Steve and Lori Weiser

You can add your name to this list with a legacy gift to the DAT Minyan. To arrange for your gift or for more information about our Legacy Society program, please contact any of the following Committee Members: Rob Allen, Myndie Brown, Sarah Raphaely or Steve Weiser.

THANK YOU FOR INSPIRING FUTURE GENERATIONS WITH YOUR GENEROSITY

DAT Minyan acknowledges the following milestones* of our members this Shabbat and in the coming week:

Raizel Rivkah Earlix, Steve Kaplan, Lenny Kark, Hadassa Levandovsky, Harley Rotbart, Matanel Sunshine

Nettie Allen - Mon., 5/20/19 (15 Iyar) Erwin Friedman - Wed., 5/22/19 (17 Iyar) Vera Lieber - Fri., 5/24/19 (19 Iyar)

*These details were obtained from the DAT Minyan database, which contains information provided by the members when they joined. We apologize for any omissions or errors. For changes, please log on to your account and update the information as needed, or contact the

synagogue office at 720-941-0479.

Refuah Shelayma Please include the following names in your prayers. May each be granted a Refuah Shelayma. Names are kept on the list until the next Rosh Chodesh. Help us keep the list accurate by verifying the necessary details each month on the Cholim Document

at https://goo.gl/aeyJG2.

Bella bat Malka Benyamin ben Hinda Sarah Eliyahu Chaim ha Cohen ben Sara Rifka Eliyahu Dovid ben Ita Sheiva Gitel Sarah bat Ita Golda Guy Chaim ben Rita Leibel ben Harriet

Levick Yitzchak ben Bracha Leya bat Sara Mascha bat Rus Mayer Benya ben Nechama Meir Leib ben Sarah Mendel Ila ben Frida Miriam Michel ben Leah

Michoel Zisel ben Barbara Noach ben Minna Batsheva Raphael Lior ben Miriam Roshka bat Bryna Yonatan Zeev ben Netaa

Learning Opportunities @ the DAT Minyan

• Kitzur Shulchan Aruch: Daily, after Shacharit

• Daf Yomi Shiur (30 min): after Shacharit on Sun through Fri , and 8:20 am on Shabbat

• Mishnayot: Daily, between Mincha and Maariv

• “Short & Sweet Talmud Class” (30 min-never longer): Wed, 9:20 am, DAT Minyan offices at BMH-BJ (men only)

EDUCATIONAL AND YOUTH ANNOUNCEMENTS

All teens are invited to join us this Shabbat for

“Morning Motivation”

10:30 am in the Library

We welcome all children through 6th grade to join our Junior Congregation Program.

ALL youth groups meet at 9:00 am

Please help make our prayer service more meaningful by refraining from talking during the service.

Important Security Reminder

For the safety and security of everyone attending the DAT Minyan, we

ask that all children either be in attendance at one of our childrens’

programs or with a parent AT ALL TIMES when in the building. Children

may not be left unescorted to roam hallways.

Yom Yerushalayim

Celebration Sunday, June 2—Iyar 28

Start the day with a Tefilla Chagigit at 8:00 am...

Then join us for a BYOB (bring your own barbeque) picnic at

Great Lawn Park (across from Big Bear Skating) @ 5:00 pm

Bring a grill, Frisbees, softballs, volleyball…

Come Celebrate the Miracle!

On Shabbat afternoon, our guest speaker will be Sondra Oster Baras, Director, Israel Office, CFOIC (Christian Friends of Israeli Communities) Heartland. Sondra Oster Baras was born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio, and attended the Hebrew Academy of Cleveland. Upon graduation from high school, Sondra studied religious studies at the Jerusalem College for Women in Israel. She completed her B.A. in history and English at Barnard College (Columbia University) and obtained her J.D. at Columbia University’s School of Law. In 1984, after practicing law in New York for a short time, Sondra moved to Israel. Sondra continued her legal career in Israel, after being accepted to the Israeli bar. In 1985, the Baras’ joined Neve Aliza, a group of North American Orthodox Jews that were building a new neighborhood in the small Samarian town of Karnei Shomron. Sondra soon became an active member of the governing board of the group and moved into the new neighborhood in 1987. Shortly thereafter, the first Intifada began, and Ms. Baras was drawn into activities advocating for the settlement movement. Since then, Baras has been an active spokesperson for the communities of Judea and Samaria. Baras maintained contact with CFOIC Heartland since its inception in 1995, and in 1998, she opened the Israel office in an effort to enhance the organization’s activities in support of the communities of Judea, Samaria and Gaza. Since then, Sondra has been the director of the Israel office, coordinating much of CFOIC Heartland’s community support programs world-wide. CFOIC Heartland is the only Christian organization to focus exclusively on the communities in the heartland of Biblical Israel. CFOIC Heartland raises funds for the communities and encourages tourism to biblical sites in these areas as well. They have become a resource in Israel for connecting Christians to the people of Biblical Israel, while working in close cooperation with Christian organizations in the Land and with Jewish organizations interested in linking with Christians from around the world. In addition to the main U.S. and Israel offices, there are CFOIC offices in Germany and Holland. Baras and her husband Edward, a computer programmer, raised five children in Karnei Shomron, where they still reside today. In her spare time, Baras enjoys spending time with her grandchildren, and studies and teaches Bible, her greatest passion.