Of these, you MAY eat...

Of these, you may NOT eat...

Congregation Beth Israel of the Palisades שבת מברכים פרשת שמיניApril 14, 2018 Nisan 29, 5778

Of these, you may NOT eat...

TORAH STUDY

For haftarot, we follow S’fardi custom.

CBIOTP STANDARDS & PRACTICES

1. Men must keep their heads covered in the building and must wear a talit when appropriate. Women may choose to do either or both, but it is not mandatory.2. Anyone accepting a Torah-related honor must wear a talit, regardless of gender.3. Only one person at a time may take an aliyah.4. No one should enter or leave the sanctuary during a K’dushah.One should not leave the sanctuary when the Torah scroll is being carried from or to the ark.5. No conversations may be held in the hallway outside the sanctuary, or while standing in an aisle alongside a pew.

6. The use of recording equipment of any kind is forbidden on sacred days.7. Also forbidden are cell phones, beepers and PDAs, except for physicians on call and emergency aid workers (please use vibrating option).8. No smoking at any time in the building, or on synagogue grounds on Shabbatot and Yom Kippur.9. No non-kosher food allowed in the building at any time.10. No one may remove food or utensils from the shul on Shabbatot. An exception is made for food being brought to someone who is ailing and/or homebound.

IN THE MIDDLE OF IT ALL, THE KOSHER LAWS, BUT WHY?The second half of Sh’mot, and the first part of Vayikra form a carefully structured narrative. The Mishkan is constructed; the list of

sacrifices are given; the kohanim are inducted.What happens next, though, is unexpected: We are given the dietary laws, a list of permitted and forbidden species, animals, fish, and

birds. What is the logic of these laws? And why are they placed here? What is their connection with the Mishkan?As I have noted elsewhere, construction of the Mishkan was meant to parallel Creation. The first command God gave the first human

at Creation was a dietary law. “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil….” The dietary laws this week parallel that prohibition. As then, so now, a new era in the spiritual history of humankind, preceded by an act of creation, is marked by laws about what one may and may not eat.

Eating is one of our two most primal activities, sex being the other. Without sex, there is no continuation of the species. Without food, even the individual cannot survive. Hence the transformative Judaic imperative to sanctify the activities of eating and sex. From this imperative flow the dietary laws and the laws of family purity, two key elements of k’dushah, the life of holiness.

As Iyuv (Job) teaches us, man is not the center of the universe, nor are we the measure of all things. Some of the most glorious aspects of nature have nothing to do with human needs, and everything to do with the Divine creation of diversity. One of the few Jewish thinkers to state this clearly was Maimonides. The universe, he wrote, “does not exist for man’s sake, but that each being exists for its own sake, and not because of some other thing…. (Guide for the Perplexed, III:13)

We now understand what is at stake in the prohibition of certain species of animals, birds and fish, many of them predators. They exist for their own sake, not for ours. The vast universe, and earth itself with the myriad species it contains, has an integrity of its own.

With His covenant with the Israelites, God invites humanity to begin a new chapter in history. This is not yet the Garden of Eden, paradise regained. But, with the construction of the Mishkan—a symbolic home for the Divine presence on earth—something new has begun. One sign of this is the fact that the Israelites are not permitted to kill any and every life-form for food. Some species must be protected, given their freedom, granted their integrity, left unsubjected to human devices and desires. The new creation—the Mishkan—marks a new dignity for the old creation—especially its wild, untamed creatures. Not everything in the universe was made for human consumption.

—Adapted from the writings of Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks.

This Week: Shabbat M’varchim Parashat Sh’mini Vayikra 9.1-11.47, pages 630-642

THIRD ALIYAH: We are not told the offense for which Nadav and Avihu died, nor are we given their motive. What and why did they do wrong, and why is the Torah silent about it?

SIXTH ALIYAH: This is only the second time the Torah reports that God spoke to Aharon as well as Moshe. The first related to Nisan and Pesach. Why include Aharon now?

A special haftarah, Sh’muel Alef 20.18-42, begins on Page 1216.

Next Week: Shabbat Parashiot Tazria-M’tzora Vayikra 12.1-15.33, pages 649-670

FIRST ALIYAH: A woman does not “produce seed” for her eggs, so why does the Torah use the verb tazria to describe childbirth—and what does a serpent have to do with it?

SEVENTH ALIYAH: Much has been made about the inequality of the laws of impurity as they apply to women. What laws here suggest that no inequality is intended?

The haftarah, M’lachim Bet 7.3-20, begins on Page 676.

THE IMAHOT:Following is the text adopted by the Ritual Committee for use by the Prayer Leader in reciting the Amidah, and those wishing to insert the Matriarchs in their Amidot:

This week’s Shabbat Booklet is being sponsored by

LIBBY & WILLY HENIK

to mark the yahrzeit earlier this week of Libby’s mpther,

SYLVIA ADELMAN, ז״ל may her memory be for a blessing

Присоединяйтесь к нам дл освящение и обед

This week’s kiddush and luncheon are sponsored by

LILI WEITZEN AND THE CHALOM FAMILY,

to mark the yahrzeit earlier this week of their late mother,

HENRIETTE CHALOM, ז״ל may her memory be for a blessing

Please join the Chalom family and us.

MAZAL TOV CORNER [If we don’t know about it, we can’t print it;

if we can’t print it, we can’t wish it.]

HAPPY BIRTHDAYTuesday Adam Belson

Wednesday Henriette Weitzen, Meir Chalom,

Rene Chalom, Gabriel Chalom

BLOOD DRIVE in the CBIOTP Social Hall

Sunday, April 22, 10 a.m.to 3 p.m.

Please call 1-800-RED CROSS (1-800-733-2767) or visit redcrossblood.org and enter: Beth Israel

or email nadia22678@gmail.comSchedule your appointment right after Shabbat!

Excavating the history of words can sometimes be as revealing as excavating the ruins of an ancient city. Take the English word “enthusiasm.” Today, we see this as something positive. One dictionary defines it as “a feeling of energetic interest in a particular subject or activity, and an eagerness to be involved in it.” People with enthusiasm have passion, zest and excitement, and this can be contagious. It is one of the gifts of a great teacher or leader. People follow people of passion. If you want to influence others, cultivate enthusiasm.

The word, however, did not always have a favorable connotation. Originally, it referred to someone possessed by a spirit or demon. In 17th century England, it came to refer to extreme and revolutionary Protestant sects, and more generally to the Puritans who fought the English Civil War. It became a synonym for religious extremism, zealotry, and fanaticism. It was looked on as irrational, volatile, and dangerous.

David Hume (1711-1776), the Scottish philosopher, wrote a fascinating essay on the subject (“Of Superstition and Enthusiasm,” in Essays Moral, Political, and Literary (1742-1754). He begins by noting that “the corruption of the best things produces the worst,” and that is especially true of religion. There are two ways, he says, in which religion can go wrong: through superstition, and through enthusiasm. These are quite different phenomena.

Superstition is driven by ignorance and fear. We can sometimes have irrational anxieties and terrors, and we deal with them by resorting to equally irrational remedies. Enthusiasm is the opposite. It is the result of over-confidence. The enthusiast, in a state of high religious rapture, comes to believe he is being inspired by God himself, and is thus empowered to disregard reason and restraint.

Enthusiasm “thinks itself sufficiently qualified to approach the Divinity, without any human mediator.” The person in its grip is so full of what he takes to be holy rapture that he feels able to override the rules by which priestly conduct is normally governed. “The fanatic consecrates himself and bestows on his own person a sacred character, much superior to what forms and ceremonious institutions can confer on any other.” Rules and regulations, thinks the enthusiast, are for ordinary people, not for us. We, inspired by God, know better. That, said Hume, can be very dangerous.

We now have a precise description of the sin for which Nadav and Avihu, the two elder sons of Aharon, died. Clearly

the Torah regards their death as highly significant because it refers to it on no less than four occasions (Vayikra 10.1-2, 16.1, B’midbar 3.4, 26.61). It was a shocking tragedy, occurring as it did on the day of the inauguration of the service of the Mishkan, a moment that should have been one of the great celebrations in Jewish history.

The sages themselves were puzzled by the episode. The text itself merely says “they offered unauthorized fire [eish zarah] before Hashem, that He had not commanded. So fire came out from the presence of Hashem and consumed them, and they died before Hashem.” Evidently, the sages felt there must have been something else, some further sin or character flaw, to justify so dire and drastic a punishment. Putting together clues in the biblical text, some speculated that—

• the two young men were guilty of entering the Holy of Holies (this is based on the statement in Vayikra 16.1, that the two died when “they drew near before Hashem,” implying that they had come too close, i.e. they had entered the Holy of Holies);

• they had given a ruling of their own accord without consulting Moshe or Aharon;

• they had become intoxicated;• they were not properly robed;• they had not purified themselves with water from

the laver;• they were so self-important that they had not

married, thinking no woman was good enough for them; or,• they were impatient for Moshe and Aharon to die so

they could become the leaders of Israel.Some speculated that the sin for which they were punished

did not happen on that day at all. It had occurred months earlier at Mount Sinai. The text says that Nadav and Avihu along with 70 elders ascended the mountain and “saw the God of Israel” (Sh’mot 24.10). God “did not raise his hand against the leaders of the Israelites; they saw God, and they ate and drank” (Sh’mot 24.11). The implication is that they deserved punishment then for not averting their eyes, or for eating and drinking at so sacred an encounter. But God delayed the punishment so as not to cause grief on the day He made a covenant with the people. (The 70 elders supposedly were punished at a later date.)

These are all midrashic interpretations: true, valid and important, but not the plain sense of the verse. The text is clear. On each of the three occasions where their death is mentioned, the Torah says merely that the two priests offered

TWO MYSTERIOUS DEATHS: THE DANGERS OF ENTHUSIASM

“unauthorized fire.” They did something that had not been commanded. They did so, surely, for the highest motives. Moshe said to Aharon immediately after they died that this is what God meant when he said, “‘Among those who are near Me I will be sanctified” (Vayikra 10.3). A midrash says Moshe was comforting his brother by saying, “They were closer to God than you or I.”

The history of the word “enthusiasm,” though, helps us understand the episode. Nadav and Avihu were “enthusiasts,” not in the contemporary sense, but in the sense in which the word was used in the 17th and 18th centuries. Enthusiasts were people who, full of religious passion, believed that God was inspiring them to do deeds in defiance of law and convention. They were very holy, but they were also potentially very dangerous. David Hume, in particular, saw that enthusiasm in this sense is diametrically opposed to the mindset of priesthood. In his words, “all enthusiasts have been free from the yoke of ecclesiastics, and have expressed great independence of devotion; with a contempt of forms, ceremonies, and traditions.”

Priests understand the power, and thus the potential danger, of the sacred. That is why places, times, and rituals that are holy must be guarded with rules, the way a nuclear power station must be protected by the most careful insulation. Think of the accidents that have occurred when this has failed: Chernobyl, for example, or Fukushima in Japan in 2011. The results can be devastating and lasting.

To bring unauthorized fire to the Mishkan might seem a small offense, but a single unauthorized act in the realm of the holy causes a breach in the laws around the sacred that can grow in time to a gaping hole. Enthusiasm, harmless though it might be in some of its manifestations, can quickly become extremism, fanaticism and religiously motivated violence. That is what happened in Europe during the wars

of religion in the 16th and 17th centuries, and it is happening in some religions today. As David Hume observed: “Human reason and even morality are rejected [by enthusiasts] as fallacious guides, and the fanatic madman delivers himself over blindly” to what he believes to be Divine inspiration, but what may in fact be overheated self-importance, or frenzied rage.

We now understand in detail that the human brain contains two different systems, what Daniel Kahneman calls “thinking fast and slow.” The fast brain, the limbic system, gives rise to emotions, particularly in response to fear. The slow brain, the prefrontal cortex, is rational, deliberative, and capable of thinking through the long-term consequences of alternative courses of action.

It is no accident that we have both systems. Without instinctive responses triggered by danger, we would not survive. On the other hand, without the slower, deliberative brain, we would find ourselves time and again engaging in destructive and self-destructive behavior. Individual happiness and the survival of civilization depend on striking a delicate balance between the two.

Precisely because it gives rise to such intense passions, the religious life in particular needs the constraints of law and ritual, the entire intricate minuet of worship, so that the fire of faith is contained, giving light, and also giving a glimpse of the glory of God. Otherwise, it can eventually become a raging inferno, spreading destruction and claiming lives. After many centuries in the West, we have tamed enthusiasm to the point where we can think of it as a positive force. We should never forget, however, that it was not always so. That is why Judaism contains so many laws and so much attention to detail—and the closer we come to God, the more we need.

—Adapted from the writings of Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks.

please join us as we honor

the memories of the men and women

who gave their lives for

the Jewish people and

the Jewish state.

At 6:30 p.m. on the eve ofYom Hazikaron, Israel’s Memorial Day,

Tuesday evening, April 17,

May He who blessed | מי שברךMay He who blessed our ancestors bless and heal all those whose names are listed here, those whose names will be called out,

and those whose names we do not know because either we are unaware of their illness or they are.We pray He mercifully quickly restore them to health and vigor. May He grant physical and spiritual well-being to all who are ill. אמן

Sydelle KleinBonnie Pritzker AppelbaumDeenah bat Sarah LeahRut bat EstherMiriam Zelda bat Gittel D’vorahMiriam Rachel bat ChanahHarav Mordechai Volff ben Liba MiryamMichael BybelezerM’nachem Mendel ben Chaya DinaSimchah bat ZeldaAdina bat FreidelBaila bat D’vorahChavah bat SarahChayah bat FloraDevora Yocheved bat YehuditEsther bat D’vorahHaRav Ilana Chaya bat Rachel EstherMalka Leah bat RachelMasha bat EtilMasha bat RochelMatel bat FrimahMindel bat D’vorahNinette bat Aziza Pinyuh bat SurahRuchel Leah bat MalkahRita bat Flora

Rifkah bat ChanahSarah Rifka bat SarahShimona bat FloraSura Osnat bat Alta ChayahTzipporah bat YaffaYospeh Perel bat MichlahMichelle BlatteisDiane FowlerMarj GoldsteinRuth HammerGoldy HessFay JohnsonMicki KuttlerKatie KimElaine LaikinMira LevyRobin LevyKaren LipsyKathleen McCartyGail SchenkerLinda StateMary ThompsonMichelle LazarNorma SugermanJulia YorkeSusan Yorke

Avraham Akivah bat Chanah SarahAvraham Yitzhak ben MashaAharon Hakohen ben OodelChaim ben GoldaEzra ben LuliGil Nechemiah ben YisraelaHarav R’fael Eliyahu ben Esther MalkahHarav Shamshon David ben Liba PerelHarav Shimon Shlomo ben Taube v’AvrahamYisrael Yitzhak ben ShayndelYitzchak ben TziviaYonatan ben MalkaYosef ben FloraZalman Avraham ben GoldaLarry Carlin Harry IkensonShannon JohnsonItzik KhmishmanAdam MessingGabriel NeriJeff NicolFred SheimMark Alan TunickJay Yorke

We pray for their safe return...May He who blessed our ancestors bless, preserve, and protect the captive and missing soldiers of Tzahal—Ron Arad, Zecharia

Baumel, Guy Chever, Zvi Feldman, Yekutiel Katz, and Zeev Rotshik—as well as those U.S. and allied soldiers, and the civilians working with them and around them, still missing in Afghanistan and Iraq, and all other areas of conflict, past and present.

And may He bless the men and women of the U.S. Armed Forces and Tzahal, and those who serve the United States and Israel in foreign lands in whatever capacity, official or unofficial, members of our community or related to members, and their colleagues and companions. Guide them in peace and return them speedily to their families alive and unharmed. אמן

Are we in your will? Shouldn’t we be?When people prepare their wills, they usually look to leave a mark beyond the confines of their families. Thus it is that general

gifts are left to hospitals, and other charitable organizations. All too often ignored, however, is the synagogue, even though its role in our lives often begins at birth, and continues even beyond death. We come here on Yom Kippur and other days, after all, to say Yizkor, the prayer in memory of our loved ones. Our Virtual Memorial Plaques remind everyone of who our loved ones were, and why we recall them. All of us join in saying the Kaddish on their yahrzeits.

Considering this, it is so unfortunate that, in our final act, we ignore the one institution in Jewish life that is so much a part of us. The synagogue is here for us because those who came before us understood its importance and prepared for its preservation. By remembering it in our wills, we will do our part to assure that the synagogue will be there for future generations, as well.

Think about it. We have always been here for anyone who needed us in the past. Do not those who need us in the future have the same right to our help? Of course they do. Do not delay! Act today! Help secure the future of your communal home.

yahrzeits for today through next FRIDAY!May their memories be for a blessing — זכרונם לברכה

14 Lucy Hanlon Skinne, mother of Hope Ruth Thoon15 Anna Faren* Mattie Lowenbraun* Joseph Koerner, husband of Dora Koerner16 Louis Felsen* Norman Schatell* Sol Star* Annie Wolowitz* Mordecai Feifer*17 Yidel Margainick, father of Yevgeniya Roytman Martin Silver, father of Judith Silver Shyrl Saltzman, sister of Bob Saltzman Samuel L. Abelowitz Herman Kupferberg* Abe Schlesinger * Pauline Katz*

18 Fred Silberman, father of Brooke Zychick Benjamin Solkof, father of Rona Spiegel Lena Schwartz* Bonnie Woltz* Israel Glaser*19 Harry Wien, father of Barry Wien Helen Barmad Seitel* Seymour N. Schwarz* Mary Cash*20 Bernard Rosenberg Leta Cohen, friend of Sue Glick Rose Ginsburg* Henry Broatman* Sally Weissbard* Louis A. Rachowitz* Maurice Emerson, grandfather of Nancy Sutta Berns

Form of bequest to CBIOTPThe following form is suggested for guidance in preparing a bequest:

I, the undersigned, give and bequeath to Congregation Beth Israel of the Palisades, or its successor, the sum of $_______ for its educational and religious work.Signed

Witness 1: Date:

Witness 2: Date:

Is there a yahrzeit we should know about?

Kaddish listRobert CohenFrancine FederNancy FriedlanderEvyatar Shebbetai GidaseyJay GreenspanSusan Jane GreenbergLisa Beth HughesHarvey JaffeJudith LorbeerQingshui Ma

Norman Harry RiedermanDavid RosenthalLenore Levine SachsEvan SchimpfBila SilbermanPaul SingmanLeah SolomonAbe TauberRegina TauberRandolph Tolk

* A plaque in this person’s name is on our memorial board.

Congregation Beth Israel of the Palisadesק״ק בית ישראל של הפליסד207 Edgewater Road, Cliffside Park, NJ 07010-2201

207 Edgewater Road

Cliffside Park, NJ 07010-2201

Office: 201-945-7310;

Fax: 201-945-0863

websiteL www.cbiotp.org

general e-mail: shul@cbiotp.org

Shabbat ends tonight with havdalah at 8:21 p.m. DST

Shammai Engelmayer, Rabbi rabbi@cbiotp.orgNadia Massuda, Co-President nadia@cbiotp.orgCraig H. Bassett, Co-President craigbassett@cbiotp.orgJudy Golub, Vice-President judygolub@cbiotp.orgErrol Kaget, Secretary membership@cbiotp.orgAl Glick, Co-Treasurer alglick@cbiotp.orgGarrison D. Miller, Co-Treasurer garymiller@cbiotp.org

Next Friday night and Shabbat morning,join us as we mark

Friday night at 6:30 p.m., Kabbalat Shabbat & Maariv Shabbat morning at 9:30 a.m., Morning services....

AND—There is still time to sign up for the celebratory Daven 'n' Dine Friday Night following services

(please note late fees apply to reservations at this point)