Table Talk for Shabbat Ki Tavo, August 27-28, 2010

This week’s Torah portion, Ki Tavo, like the rest of Deuteronomy, continues Moses’s series of speeches to the Israelites before the Israelites enter the Promised Land without Moses.  And just like the Torah portions for the last several weeks, this week’s Torah portion contains many, many laws that Moses gives the Israelites to help them create and continue living in a caring, peaceful community once they are settled in the Promised Land.

In the very beginning of this week’s Torah portion, Moses teaches the Israelites the laws about what to do with the very first fruits or products in their harvests.  When the Israelites settle the land, a great number of them will become farmers, growing fruits, vegetables, and grain in their fields and raising farm animals both to eat and to work the land.   

Every third year, Moses teaches the Israelites, they should set aside a tenth of their entire crop to be given to the priests, widows, orphans, and strangers living with them, so they can have food to eat.  And when you do that, Moses tells the Israelites, you should say, “I have cleared out the special portion from the house, and I have given it to the Priest, the stranger, the orphan, and the widow, just as you commanded me to do.  I have not sinned or forgotten to do any of your commandments.” 

This Torah portion reminds us not only to remember to say “thank you” – to our parents, siblings, friends, and neighbors, when they have done something nice for us or cared for us, but it also reminds us that we need to be kind to those whose lives are not as easy as our own.  No matter how much we have or how little we have, no matter how rich or poor we are, there will always be someone who is in need, there will always be someone who has less than us and needs our help. 

In Pirke Avot (“The Wisdom of our Fathers”), Rabbi Tarfon teaches:  “It is not our job to finish the task, neither are we free to desist from it.”  This means, that we should not have to feel like we need to personally do all the work to make the world a better place, because that would be impossible.  But at the same time, we cannot allow ourselves to feel upset and defeated, thinking that with so much to fix in the world, so many poor people in need of help and food, that our small amount of help we can give will never make a difference.  Any amount of help we can give, any money we can give to tzedakah, any clothing we can give to the poor, any food we can give to the hungry—it makes a difference.

This week’s Torah portion, viewed through the eyes of Rabbi Tarfon and Pirke Avot, teaches us that not only must we be thankful for what we have, but we also must do our very best to help those in need, and we must have faith that our work in this world makes a difference.

There is a story of an old man who was strolling on the beach one day when he walked by a little boy who was reaching down to the sand and one by one, picking up starfish and throwing them abck into the ocean.  The old man was curious and asked the boy, “Why are you throwing starfish into the ocean?”  The boy said, “The sun is up and the tide is going out, and if I don’t throw them then they’ll die!”  The old man replied, “But don’t you realize that there are miles and miles of beach and starfish all along it?  You can’t possibly make a difference!”   The young man listened politely, then bent down, picked up another starfish and threw it into the sea, and said, “Well, I made a difference for that one.”

Discussion Questions:

(1)    When was the last time you said thank you?  Who did you say it to?  Why?  How did you say it?

(2)    If you get an allowance, could you give a tenth of it (10 cents from every dollar) to charity?  How would that make you feel?  Would it change your life?  Would it change someone else’s life?  Ask your parents to help you figure out how much money you could give in a year if you gave 10% (or a tenth) of your allowance to charity.

(3)    What is one thing you can do this week to help someone?  What is one thing you did last week to help someone?

(4)    Have you ever made a difference in someone’s life?  When and how?

(5)    Does change happen slowly or quickly?  What kind of change happens slowly?  What kind of change happens quickly?  Give examples of each.  

Table talk for Shabbat Ki Teitzei, August 20-21, 2010

In this week’s Torah portion, Ki Teitzei, we find a long list of commandments.  Much of the book of Deuteronomy is devoted to several speeches Moses gives to the Israelites, as we mentioned last week, in the hopes that the commandments and rules he presents help the Israelites to establish a peaceful, harmonious, happy society once they enter the Promised Land and become established. 

Many of the rules in this week’s Torah portion have to do with being kind and nice to our families and friends and members of our community.  But not all of the members of the community that this week’s Torah portion reminds us to protect and be kind to are human—they are animals! 

A few commandments in particular teach us about how to be kind to animals.

"If an animal has fallen on the road, you must help its owner lift it up."  (This means that even if you are not friends with the animal’s owner, even if the animal’s owner is mean to you, you have to think of the pain of the animal and help for the animal’s sake.)

"If you see a mother bird on her nest, you must let her go before you can take her eggs or baby birds."  (This means that you must show kindness to the feelings of animals—even birds.  Many scholars have studied and thought about this commandment, and many think that letting a mother bird go free before taking her eggs or baby birds, you make sure the mother is not sad or pained to see her eggs or baby birds go.)

"You shouldn’t plow using two different kinds of animals."  (This commandment is talking about farm animals.  If two are tied together doing farm work, and one is stronger than the other, it can be really hard or even painful for the weaker, smaller animal to keep up, and it causes discomfort to the bigger, stronger animal that has to work harder.)

"Do not muzzle an ox when it is threshing."  (This is also talking about a farm animal that is helping to collect the crops at harvest time.   Essentially an animal is tied to a post or a pivot and walks in circles treading, or walking, on the corn to break it up.  If the animal has to wear a muzzle, that covers its mouth, this means that it can’t eat, even though oxen love corn.  Picture being in room, full of your very favorite food but you aren’t allowed to eat any of it!  This would be very unkind to an animal, working hard to help with the harvest, but not allowed to eat any of its favorite food.  Therefore we should, in a way, be kind to an animal, especially an animal that helps us.)

This week's Torah portion, among many other important lessons, reminds us that our actions toward other people remain very important, but our actions toward animals under our care and other animals we encounter, are also very important and can teach us about how we treat all beings, including humans.

Discussion Questions:

• How do these commandments show us how to be kind to animals?  How do you show kindness to animals?  To your friends?  To your family (parents, siblings, grandparents)?  Talk about a time you went out of your way to be kind to someone you know, or even someone you didn’t know.
  
  
• How do you behave toward animals—your pets, your friends’ pets, or animals you see in other places?

Some scholars have called these commandments—the commandments that show us how to be kind to animals—“easy” commandments, because they don’t take any preparation.  You do not have to prepare in advance in order to help your neighbor lift her fallen animal.  Rather, you would happen to see your neighbor in the road and rush to her aid without having do prepare in any special way.

• Do you agree that commandments that show us how to be nice to animals are "easy"?  Why or why not?
  
  
• If a commandment is “easy,” does this mean that it is not as good or as valuable as commandments that are hard to do?  Why or Why not?
  
  
• What are other easy commandments?  Are they important or less important than commandments that are hard or challenging to do?
  
  
• Can commandments about animals teach us about how we should treat people?  What can they teach us about how we should treat our families, friends, neighbors, and even strangers?  

Table Talk for Shabbat Shoftim, August 13th-14th, 2010

This week’s parashah (Torah portion) is called Shoftim, which means “Judges” (Deuteronomy 16:18-21:9). In this part of the story of the Israelites, Moses is talking to them about what will happen when they enter the Promised Land, Israel. He is giving them many laws and rules that tell them what they should or should not do when they finally get to enter the Promised Land.

Moses warns the people not to break any rules or laws, including the rule to not practice idolatry (worshipping or believing in other gods than our God, Adonai, the God of the Israelites). Then Moses tells them about how justice should be carried out. Moses says judges have to be fair and not biased; they can’t make their friend win just because they are friends or make a rich person win because they hope to get a present or bribe from them.

This Torah portion also discusses appropriate punishments and contains the phrase “a tooth for a tooth, an eye for an eye” when talking about how a punishment should fit the crime. While many believe that this describes a very harsh way of punishing people for what they did wrong (as in, if you knock someone’s tooth out, someone should knock your tooth out), it really means that the punishment should make sense based on what a person did wrong. It doesn’t mean that if your brother hits you, you should hit him back because he deserves it. It means, he should have to do something to make up for it. It doesn’t mean that if you lie, people should just lie to you because you deserve it. Instead, it means that you should have to do something to earn their trust again.

By giving the Israelites all of these rules and laws to follow, Moses hopes to help them create a peaceful wise, and moral community that runs smoothly.



Table Talk Questions:


(1) Have you ever had to figure out who to believe or whose side to be on when two of your friends had a fight? What happened? Was it hard to be fair or was it easy? Why?

(2) Has there ever been a case when your mom or dad had to decide who to believe or who was right when you had a fight with your sister/brother? Do you think it was hard for him/her to be fair? Why?

(3) Can you think of a time when a teacher was fair or not fair? What happened?

(4) How are punishments or consequences chosen in your family? How does the punishment fit the misbehavior? How do you think punishments should be chosen or given?

(5) What do you think a judge—or any person who has to listen and decide between two people—should do to make sure to be fair? How can you tell if someone is being fair?

(6) If you were Moses, what rules would you tell the Israelites to follow when they entered the Promised Land?


Shabbat Shalom!

Welcome to Shabbat Sha-blog!

Hello Temple Jeremiah family!  I am excited to welcome you to our new Shabbat Sha-blog, where each week I will be posting a brief description of the Torah portion, or excerpt from the Torah portion, with a few thoughts and guiding questions.  I hope you and your family will use this blog to bring a bit of learning to your Shabbat dinner table each week.   I would love to hear about how you celebrate Shabbat, anything special that happened on your Shabbat, and what shape your dinnertable discussion took.  So each week, please feel free to post a comment telling me about your Shabbat and your discussion!

In this way, I hope we can deepen our connection to Torah, to Shabbat, to our families, and to each other. 

If you would like to review the blessings traditionally recited at the Shabbat dinner table (over candles, wine, and challah), I encourage you to click here where you will find the blessings written in Hebrew, transliteration, and English, and on audio recording. 

If you would like to learn a bit about the traditions of Shabbat and see a list of wonderful resources on Shabbat for your family, click here.

I am looking forward to sharing this Shabbat journey with you!