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Friday

6:15 PM

Shabbat Evening Services

In-person and live-streamed

Saturday

9:30 AM

Shabbat Morning Services

followed by Kiddush Luncheon

In-person and live-streamed

Saturday

10 AM

Babysitting

Saturday

8:15 PM

Please note that the colored "every day" Torah covers will be changed over to

our new, white High Holiday Torah covers during this evening's event.

This event will be available on zoom for those who wish to attend virtually.

Sunday

9 AM

FIRST DAY OF

SHUL SCHOOL

Sunday

9:15 AM

Minyan with Men's Club

followed by breakfast

In person and available on Zoom

Sunday

5 PM

Young Adult Selichot with YAS, Tribe, and JNOLA: Strike Our Your Sins

at AMF All-Star Lanes

3640 Williams Blvd.

RSVP HERE

Click image to enlarge

In the mid-1990’s, Michael Drosnin wrote a book called The Bible Codes. It was an expansion of a paper published in a mathematical journal by an Israeli professor named Eliyahu Rips. Rips argued that if you took the letters of the Torah, removing all the spaces between them, and selected letters equidistant from one another – e.g., letters seven spaces apart, or nine spaces – then the Torah could be shown to contain secret messages. The most famous example was a sequence which seemed to predict the assassination of Prime Minister Rabin.

Skeptics abounded, and I was certainly among them. The codes “revealed” only information which was already known. In other words, you could probably manage to find a letter sequence about the death of a certain rabbi – who had been dead for hundreds of years! Show me how I can use the Bible codes to predict the winner of this year’s Super Bowl and you’ll be on to something. 

Our Sages were also skeptical that G-d communicated in such a direct way. In commenting on this week’s first Torah portion, Nitzavim, that the Torah “is not in heaven” (Deuteronomy 30:12), we read the following Talmudic passage (Baba Metzia 59a):

• R. Eliezer used numerous arguments to prove his halachic point, but the other sages did not accept them. Then he said: "Let this carob-tree prove that the law is as I have said;" the carob was [miraculously] thrown off to a distance of one hundred cubits, and according to others four hundred cubits. But they said: The carob proves nothing. He again said: "Let, then, the spring of water prove that the law is as I have said." The water then flowed backwards. But again the sages said that this proved nothing. He said again: "Let it be announced by the heavens that the law is according to my view," whereupon a heavenly voice was heard, saying: "Why do you quarrel with R. Eliezer, whose opinion is correct!" R. Joshua then got up on his feet and proclaimed (Deut. 30: 12) “The Law is not in heaven.” What is the meaning of “The Law is not in heaven?” Said R. Jeremiah: "It means, the Torah was given already to us on the Mount Sinai, and we do not pay attention to a heavenly voice.”

This is an audacious but important claim that the sages of the Talmud make for themselves. The meaning is that human reason, at least as they understand it, is the final word as to the “true” meaning of the Torah.  G-d doesn’t communicate with us directly, with heavenly voices or Bible codes, but indirectly, through logic and wisdom.

But if you know the winner of this year’s Super Bowl, and want to share it, I promise to keep the secret.

- Rabbi Scott Hoffman

Parashot Nitzavim + Vayeilech

Torah: Deuteronomy 29:9 - 30:14

Maftir: Deuteronomy 30:11-14

Haftarah: Isaiah 61:10 - 63:9

The Torah reading for this week is in the panel above. If you do not have a Chumash at home, you can find it on the link below. We are reading Triennial Year 1, but you might like to read the full portion (“Full Kriyah”).

Our Shabbat brochure with yahrzeits and simchas for this week is attached. You might wish to take special notice of those who are sick, and take a moment to direct your thoughts towards them.

Thank you to all those listed below who performed the mitzvah of supporting our community this past week.

Shir Chadash Website

Online Giving

Great Non Profits Reviewed

USCJ

Crescent City Jewish News

Southern Jewish Life

Jewish Community Day School

PJ Library

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