WEEKLY NEWSLETTER

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In the Rabbinical Council of America's newsletter for Toldot they presented, in memoriam, a video of the recently departed Lord Rabbi Jonathan Sacks. One quandary he endeavored to elucidate was Isaac's relationship with his wayward son Esau. Was he fooled or not?

Rabbi Sacks suggests that he wasn't fooled and, on the contrary, when a parent senses their child slipping away, his approach was more love, not less, rather than pointless rebuke. And even though he may have "failed", Rabbi Sacks says it was an honorable failure. Indeed, it was a mirror image of God's relationship with us,  love, despite all our shortcomings. 

Downtown Minyan joins us again for this Shabbat. All Shabbat services will be outdoors.

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It's interesting to contrast the lack of comment by our sages regarding the great war of the 5 kings vs the 4 kings, of last week's portion, with the ocean of comments by our sages regarding the first story of Vayera this week, namely Abraham's legendary hospitality. The Torah perspective of history is such that war is a necessary evil but the focus should be on highlighting acts of lovingkindness, best exemplified by our patriarch Abraham, the paragon of chesed, kindness.

They say that imitation is the highest form of flattery and this is what Abraham hoped to achieve with his life's work. He was inspired by his observing God's merciful providing for all living things, and dedicated his life to emulating the creator.

Our Virtual Synagogue comes back to life!

Dr. Roz Bernstein makes a fascinating presentation at the Sunday Night Shmooze

The great Basya Shechter performs at our Havdalah/Kumzitz

Congratulations to Mariana Veiga who completed her process of conversion this week and is now a Bat Yisrael!

Downtown Minyan will be joining us again this Saturday morning.

Rabbi Barry Gelman of Houston, Texas suggests that actually Noah couldn't bring himself to leave the ark in anticipation of a very different world, a world totally devoid of its previous existence. He just didn't have the energy to rebuild, so he needed God's insistence on leaving to start anew.

As we get closer to emerging from our present challenge, undoubtedly we will have to deal with a world and a community completely different from the one we knew. We might feel overwhelmed by the task to rebuild our lives into one that will adapt to the new life awaiting us. Let us pray for the same divine strength that accompanied Noah at that auspicious time in human history. 

The TriBeCa Synagogue extends a tremendous Mazal Tov to Dr. Elan Goldwyn and Michelle Ross, longtime generous members and trustees, for the Bar Mitzvah of their son Benjamin this weekend!

The Downtown Minyan will be joining us this Shabbat so preliminaries will begin at 10am and the communal service will begin at 10:30am. All services are being held outdoors with all covid protocols in force.

This Sunday Shmooze we present our longtime member Dr. Roslyn Bernstein, former Chairman of the Journalism Department at Baruch College, to discuss her most recent book Engaging Art: Essays and Interviews from around the World.

Tonight and tomorrow is the last official day of Sukkot but it has an important overlay of being yet another day of judgment, yet another chance to make good on our resolution to become better people and regret our past misdeeds. This day is called Hoshana Rabah, or the big hoshana, because at the morning service the lulav circles the Torah 7 times and we perform the arava ritual. 

Next comes the holiday of Shemini Atzeret, debatably called the 8th day of Sukkot, but is essentially a separate holiday dedicated to the special relationship that the Jewish nation enjoys with the Almighty. The confusing part is that we still sit in the sukkah on that day like every other holiday that is observed for an extra day in the diaspora, dating back to ancient times when word of the holiday would take too long to get out. We then observe a second day of Shemini Atzeret which is given its overlay of Simchat Torah when we complete the Torah and celebrate that accomplishment.

It is similar to Shavuot, celebrating the giving of the Torah on the beginning of the 8th week after Passover; so we have a "second" Shavuot on the 8th day after the beginning of Sukkot. The connection being that while the number 7 represents the natural order, then the number 8 signifies transcending nature which is what we hope to accomplish with the study and the observance of the Torah. 

TriBeCa Synagogue's Journey through the Holidays in Pictures:

Annulling vows on the eve of Rosh HaShana

Kol Nidrei on Zoom attended by 40 participants

Procession with the Lulav and Etrog

Note: Shemini Atzeret will be very different this year firstly because of our virus protocols but also because we welcome back the Downtown Minyan for this Saturday and Sunday morning. All services will continue to be held outdoors. A detailed schedule of events will be forthcoming shortly.

TriBeCa Synagogue is grateful to Board Member Eve Goldberg and Executive Vice President Neil Wallin for sponsoring kiddush Saturday morning commemorating the yahrtzeit of Eve's father William Goldberg-Zev ben Binyamin, of blessed memory.

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All this points to the awareness we must have of our responsibility to ourselves and the community, hopefully making us extra careful in ALL our actions throughout this auspicious period.

The parsha this week is Haazinu, a profound poem calling heaven and earth as witnesses to Moses' last address to the Israelite nation.

The Downtown Minyan joins us this Shabbat and we request RSVP's asap to monitor attendance: rabbi@tribecasynagogue.org 

This will be the last Shabbat of zoom programming for some time due to the upcoming holidays. After the holidays we will restructure the virtual synagogue to adapt to the changing times.

All Zoom classes will continue uninterrupted.

From the expressions of inclusivity such as "children, wives, sojourners" and "from woodcutters to water drawers" the commentators derive the introduction of the important concept of collective responsibility (Arevut). Beyond our individual requirement to be servants of the Almighty we would need to look into the spiritual welfare of our fellow Jew. How this is to be handled is a very involved conversation but a lot of it is self explanatory. Certainly the past few months have provided many opportunities to inquire and empathize with the physical, financial and spiritual struggles of many in our community. 

Since TriBeCa Synagogue has opened its "doors" on July 1st an amazing development has transpired with multiple Jewish groups flocking to the plaza for activities not possible elsewhere. They include the Jewish Latin Center, The Downtown Minyan, Meor, JCP and Chabad of TriBeCa and a wonderful article in the TriBeCa Citizen regarding this can be accessed here:

https://tribecacitizen.com/2020/09/04/tribeca-synagogue-is-putting-its-outdoor-space-to-good-use/

We are honored to be able to do our part in looking after the needs of our fellow Jews in our community!

Congratulations to David Holmberg for the completion of his conversion this week!

Congratulations to Ken and Jennifer Paskar celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary today!

Tomorrow we observe the 19th anniversary of the 9/11 tragedy, albeit in muted fashion.

Tomorrow morning Chava Chalom will observe the yahrtzeit for her father at morning minyan with Tehillim.

We will soon be entering the month of Elul which is when we begin to take stock of how we managed this great gift. We recite Birkat HaChodesh this Saturday for Elul taking place next Thursday and Friday and the molad, or mean conjunction, is Wednesday, August 19th at 1:54am and 16 Chalakim.

The TriBeCa Synagogue congratulates Rabbi and Mrs. Glass for the upcoming bar mitzvah of their grandson, Yissochor Yosef Bronstein, this weekend in New Jersey.

Jeremiah is reminding us of our previous existence with the Temple, the priests and the vibrancy of the land, to show us that even though they are gone now, the fact that they were part of our history remains with us. We are better and enriched as a people for having them as our heritage. And it is this fiber of our national being that is the foundation of their return, please God, speedily in our days!

We read the second portion of Dvarim this Shabbat with Vaetchanan, which includes the review of the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai.

And check out the latest from our own Dr. Freema Gottlieb in the Jewish Week! https://jewishweek.timesofisrael.com/moses-teaches-us-something-new/

TriBeCa Synagogue is thrilled to announce the birth of a daughter to our devoted members Jeff and Liubasha Dagowitz this past weekend! Everyone is doing very well.

Content note: Because Torah study is prohibited on Tisha B'Av, today's parsha class will be devoted to the Talmudic rendition of the destruction of the Second Temple as recorded in Tractate Gittin 55a. ID # 886-2130-2762 no password.

We continue to maintain a blending of in person services and a virtual synagogue as detailed on the calendar side.

One reason for this overriding concern and emphasis derives from the nature of our power of speech, which is what creates these expressions. Although our speech is essentially just another part of our physical entity, when you think about it, it is the closest part of our bodies to the spiritual. While it is an energy wave which can be measured by machines, it still is far more ethereal than the rest of our corporeal identity. As such, the Torah is very concerned that we guard its "sanctity" in any way we can and keeping our word is the most important way to do that. 

Wednesday is Rosh Chodesh Av, which ushers in the second, and more severe stage of mourning leading up to the 9th of Av. This year, most rabbinic authorities feel that the normal additional restrictions of this time period can be relaxed due to the extra care needed to protect ourselves from the virus. 

We are pleased to announce that our in person services are proceeding apace with Shacharit every day at 7:30am. Our reopening has been documented by Carl Glassman of the TriBeCa Trib in this article: http://tribecatrib.com/content/shows-were-back-praying-again-tribeca-synagogue-al-fresco

(If you have any availability for the morning minyan we appeal for your help to attend, contact rabbi@tribecasynagogue.org)

In person Friday night services will begin this Friday on the plaza at 6:45pm. Morning services for Rosh Chodesh this Wednesday morning will be held at 7:15am.

Check out our Sunday Night Shmooze this Sunday featuring our own Dakota Jackson to talk about his amazing career in Magic and Furniture Design and so much more! Sunday 7pm on Zoom with ID # 882-8489-4096 and no password.

Last week we omitted to credit this photo to Carl Glassman of the TriBeCa Trib:

We apologize for the omission.