Shabbat N'kabla - Receiving Shabbat Balak (Official TBZ Communication)

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Dear TBZ community:

This coming Sunday, the 17th day of Tammuz, is a fast day that commemorates the breach of the walls of Jerusalem and that ultimately leads to the destruction of the Second Temple. Shivah Asar b’Tammuz marks the start of a three-week period – between the breach of the walls and the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem – ending with Tisha B’av.

These three weeks are weeks of mourning in our Jewish calendar. It is a time that we commemorate the destruction in our past and we also attune ourselves to the destruction and mournings in our present. We recognize the brokenness and the suffering then and now.

The most powerful teaching of this period is that on and after Tisha B’av we recognize that there is hope and there is rebuilding. Our tradition powerfully teaches that mashiach, that redemption, will be born on Tisha B’av – from the midst of destruction, redemption will come. And just a few days after Tisha B’Av comes Tu B’av (the 15 day of Av). This is the day we celebrate love, friendship and companionship. It is also the beginning of the journey towards the High Holidays, a journey of teshuva, of repentance, a journey that holds in it the belief that change is possible, that rebuilding is possible, that healing is possible, and once again that redemption is at hand.

For me the summer, and July specifically, hold a similar rhythm of destruction and rebuilding. On July 18, next Monday, I will commemorate 28 years since my mother Julia Susana (Susy) Wolynski de Kreiman was killed along with eighty-four others in the AMIA bombing, in Buenos Aires Argentina. Her yartzeit, the Hebrew date of her death, is the 10 of Av, this year falling on Tisha B’av.

For me, these three weeks between 17 of Tammuz, July 18th, and Tisha B’av are a journey of mourning, painful destruction, sadness and loss, and yet the most traumatic loss in my life is followed by Tu B’Av, which is my wedding anniversary and my birthday and my Bat Mitzvah anniversary! So the next month is both Jewishly and personally a time that moves me from the depth of destruction and pain, to love, hope, rebuilding and the openness for blessing.

In addition to looking ahead, I want to tell you about where I have just come from. I have just returned from a 5 days retreat at the Institute of Jewish Spirituality – part of a two-year program for clergy. At this retreat, clergy from around the country and Canada, came together in contemplative practice, in silence, mediation, yoga practice and text study. Our intention is to deepen our own spiritual practices so we may serve our communities and bring spiritual practice and mindfulness home to them, to you. The theme of the retreat, as it was at our last gathering, was how to maintain and sustain a life of spiritual practice. We delved into chassidic text to help us look inward – asking ourselves how we can prepare ourselves like Noah and build an ark that will hold us, through life’s floods and challenges. We delved into text that spoke of building our own inner mishkan (tabernacle) that would merit God’s presence to dwell within it.

The Netivot Shalom, (Rabbi Shalom Noach of Berezovsky) teaches:

We put so much energy into building our own mishkan, to merit the Shechinah dwelling in us - but then, after all this effort we make mistakes and the whole thing comes apart. When that happens, our job is to turn around, take heart and set out to rebuild your spiritual home. Even if it comes apart again, we must rebuild it once again.

Netivot Shalom to Parshat Shemini, translation by Rabbi Jonathan Slater

I read this text and am reminded that things will come apart again and again although not always, as this text suggests, because of a mistake one makes, but because this is the way of the world. The dance between destruction, pain, suffering and rebuilding, healing and love is an ongoing journey of what it means to be alive. Some of us experience tragic loss, loss that is impossible to understand or explain. But, as it has been for me, holding the knowledge (the da’at) that redemption is at hand, that mashiach is born out of destruction is a profound guide for my life.

Another text that we studied (and I am only sharing with you some of the highlight quotes of long and very complicated texts) that speaks to me at this moment is the teaching of the Me’or Eynayim to Shemot who wrote:

But even during the times of darkness that are called “night”, if we recall our capacity to know that there is a great awesome God Who created something from Nothing and Who holds all things in their power. Then certainly night will become as bright as day, and we will depart from darkness.

Me’or Eynaim, Shemot, translated by Rabbi Jonathan Slater

I know that in my life, in the moments of profound darkness, in the moments that are called “night”, the emunah – the faith, the belief, the knowledge that day will come – has held me, like Noah’s ark, like an inner mishkan. As we continue to live during these difficult times when the world seems to crumble before us, and as we enter these three weeks that reminds us of what destruction and suffering is, we must also recall, or we must build, our capacity to know that there is a great and awesome God. The ark we build together holds us and reminds us that there is goodness, that there is beauty, that there is love and redemption in each and everyone of us, and that, God willing, we will bring the day which must always follow the “night”.

In memory of my mother and all of the 85 victims that were killed in the bombing on July 18, 1994 in Buenos Aires, I hold this belief daily: that redemption is at hand, even when its hard to see the light in the darkness.

It is the practice in commemorations of this tragic event to say the names of the victims followed by the word presente (they are present, they are with us). I invite you to read their names, and I am listing them below. May their memory be a blessing.

May this Shabbat bring renewal and blessings to all of you and your loved ones.

May we find strength, courage, and patience, and open our hearts with generosity.

May all those who are ill find healing.

May we have a joyful, sweet, and peaceful Shabbat.

Shabbat Shalom,

Rav Claudia

P.S: Please note that I will be writing one more Shabbat N’kabla next Friday July 22 and then take a break for the reminder of the Summer. Shabbat N’kabla will resume in September.

These are the names of the Eight Five Victims of AMIA Terrorist Atack

July 18, 1994. Buenos Aires- Argentina

Silvana Alguea de Rodríguez - Presente

Jorge Antúnez - Presente

Moisés Gabriel Arazi - Presente

Carlos Avendaño Bobadilla - Presente

Yanina Averbuch - Presente

Naum Band - Presente

Sebastián Barreiros - Presente

David Barriga - Presente

Hugo Norberto Basiglio - Presente

Rebeca Violeta Behar de Jurín - Presente

Dora Belgorosky - Presente

Favio Enrique Bermúdez - Presente

Romina Ambar Luján Boland - Presente

Emiliano Gastón Brikman - Presente

Gabriel Buttini - Presente

Viviana Adela Casabé - Presente

Paola Sara Czyzewski - Presente

Jacobo Chemauel - Presente

Cristian Adrián Degtiar - Presente

Diego De Pirro - Presente

Ramón Nolberto Díaz - Presente

Norberto Ariel Dubin - Presente

Faiwel Dyjament - Presente

Mónica Feldman de Goldfeder - Presente

Alberto Fernández - Presente

Martín Figueroa - Presente

Ingrid Finkelchtein - Presente

Leonor Gutman de Finkelchtein - Presente

Fabián Marcelo Furman - Presente

Guillermo Benigno Galarraga - Presente

Erwin García Tenorio - Presente

José Enrique Ginsberg (Kuky) - Presente

Cynthia Verónica Goldenberg - Presente

Andrea Judith Guterman - Presente

Silvia Leonor Hersalis - Presente

Carlos Hilú - Presente

Emilia Jakubiec de Lewczuk - Presente

María Luisa Jaworski - Presente

Augusto Daniel Jesús - Presente

María Lourdes Jesús - Presente

Analía Verónica Josch - Presente

Carla Andrea Josch - Presente

Elena Sofía Kastika - Presente

Esther Klin - Presente

León Gregorio Knorpel - Presente

Berta Kozuk de Losz - Presente

Luis Fernando Kupchik - Presente

Agustín Diego Lew - Presente

Andrés Gustavo Malamud - Presente

Gregorio Melman - Presente

Ileana Mercovich - Presente

Naón Bernardo Mirochnik (Buby) - - Presente

Mónica Nudel - Presente

Elías Alberto Palti - - Presente

Germán Parsons - Presente

Rosa Perelmuter - Presente

Fernando Roberto Pérez - Presente

Abraham Jaime Plaksin - Presente

Silvia Inés Portnoy - Presente

Olegario Ramírez - Presente

Noemí Graciela Reisfeld - Presente

Félix Roberto Roisman - Presente

Marisa Raquel Said - Presente

Ricardo Said - Presente

Rimar Salazar Mendoza - Presente

Fabián Schalit - Presente

Pablo Schalit - Presente

Mauricio Schiber - Presente

Néstor Américo Serena - Presente

Mirta Strier - Presente

Liliana Edith Szwimer - Presente

Naum Javier Tenenbaum - Presente

Juan Carlos Terranova - Presente

Emilia Graciela Berelejis de Toer - Presente

Mariela Toer - Presente

Marta Treibman - Presente

Angel Claudio Ubfal - Presente

Eugenio Vela Ramos - Presente

Juan Vela Ramos - Presente

Gustavo Daniel Velázquez - Presente

Isabel Victoria Núñez de Velázquez - Presente

Danilo Villaverde - Presente

Julia Susana (Susy) Wolynski de Kreiman - Presente

Rita Worona - Presente

Adehemar Zárate Loayza - Presente

READ PAST N'KABLA MESSAGESFROM RAV CLAUDIA HERE

Please note that we will not be using Zoom for the month of July during services. You can still live stream services on our YouTube channel. We are committed to returning to using Zoom services in August.