Shabbat Shira

Jewish tradition has assigned special names to certain Shabbats during the year. This Shabbat is also known as Shabbat Shira, the Shabbat of song. Shabbat Shira reminds us of one of the great moments in Jewish history, chronicled in this week’s Torah reading, Parshat BeShallach. After the Jewish people passed through the Red Sea as they escaped Egypt, they saw the Egyptians who had pursued them defeated. They then sang what the Torah calls the Shirat Hayam, a triumphant poem of praise and gratitude to God for their deliverance. It opens with the words, “I will sing to the Lord, for the Lord has triumphed gloriously; horse and driver the Lord has hurled into the sea” and ends with “Adonai will reign forever and ever.” 

Please click this link for a special Shabbat video message from our Rabbinic intern Samuel Gelman.
 
Please click this link for my recently established blog of past Shabbat messages and more!

Shabbat Shalom, 

Rabbi Arthur Weiner

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Jesus Was Not A Palestinian

Among the most pernicious aspects of Israel’s current war against Hamas has been the assault on truth, facts, and memory. As we have painfully learned, this brutal war is waged not only with military weapons, but also through an extensive disinformation campaign waged by Israel’s enemies, and their willing accomplices throughout the western world. We see this daily in irresponsible reporting in the media, the tolerance and even acceptance of antisemitic rhetoric and behavior on college campuses, and mouthed by politicians. We are told that Israel is a colonial enterprise, denying the 4000 year history of the Jewish people in the land of Israel. We were told that Arab and Muslim narratives regarding Israel must be accepted uncritically lest we be accused of racism and Islamophobia, while Jewish and Israeli narratives are subject to a level of scrutiny unparalleled in modern history. We are told regularly that Gaza is under Israeli occupation when the truth is that Israel withdrew
Read more

Jim Harbaugh Is No Hero

I’m not much of a college football fan. But I wanted to say something about the College Football Playoff championship game last Monday night, which saw the University of Michigan defeat Washington, 34-13. This tremendous victory was Michigan’s first national title since 1997. The Wolverines, as the Michigan football team is known, have a national following that numbers in the millions. They boast one of the premier sports programs in all of college sports. 38 former students are currently playing in the NFL.   The university has the largest stadium in the United States at 107,601seats, larger than any stadium used by an NFL team, and the third largest stadium in the world.   (By comparison, the largest NFL stadium, MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford NJ can seat 82,500.) They have sold out every game except one for the past 48 years.   The team deserves praise for their hard work, efforts, and stunning progress on the field.   Yet the Wolverines are not exactly a rags to riches sto
Read more

Now We Know

It has often been said -- were the Arab armies to lay down their arms for a day, nothing would happen. But if Israel were to do so, the response would be brutal and immediate. Sadly, now we know that these words were not just rhetoric or a talking point or an expression of moral superiority. Now we know that this is a statement of fact. The only thing that may have surprised observers was how immediate and how savage that truth would be.   We are experiencing one of the darkest periods in modern Jewish history. I cannot claim any greater insight or understanding than those reading my message today. But I would like to at least add some perspective and context that is often missing despite the sympathy demonstrated toward Israel at this moment.   The events of this past week are the largest single loss of Jewish life since the Holocaust. They recall the violence of the Pogroms in the late 19th and early 20th centuries that sent so many of our grandparents to these shores. They are r
Read more