Mizmor LeDavid -- a psalm of thanksgiving

It has been a hard year for us all -- but we all respond to the problems and pressures of the moment in different ways. Our esteemed member Max Stern, a leading light among modern Israeli composers, has responded creatively. He writes:

“In these troubled times I managed to record this song that David wrote when he brought the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem (with almost the original instruments).

 וַיֹּאמֶר דָּוִיד, לְשָׂרֵי הַלְוִיִּם, לְהַעֲמִיד אֶת-אֲחֵיהֶם הַמְשֹׁרְרִים, בִּכְלֵי-שִׁיר נְבָלִים וְכִנֹּרוֹת וּמְצִלְתָּיִם--מַשְׁמִיעִים לְהָרִים-בְּקוֹל, לְשִׂמְחָה

May it bring us a blessing in our days as well.”

We asked Max what inspired him and where his idea came from. He told us this:

"I got the idea to set this to music from reading this commentary:

This Song of Thanksgiving was written by King David for Asaph and his brother Levites following the celebrations in bringing the Holy Ark to Jerusalem (1 Chr. 15). It was sung in the Tabernacle which David erected as accompaniment to the daily sacrifices: the first 15 verses (1 Chr. 16:1-15) during the tamid-offering in the morning service, and the last 14 verses (1Chr. 16:23-36) during the mincha-tamid-offering in the afternoon. It continued to be sung for 43 years until Solomon inaugurated the Temple. They were later incorporated into liturgy, as pesukei d’zimra (verses of praise) in the daily morning service of the synagogue.

I then read the passage from 1 Chronicles which gives the instruments he used:

16 And David spoke to the chief of the Levites to appoint their brethren the singers, with instruments of music, psalteries and harps and cymbals, sounding aloud and lifting up the voice with joy.

Because I didn't have a Levitical choir or harps to work with I substituted them with local singers and piano. But this could be done with many harps & trumpets and a 2-part choir as well. Maybe someday..."

You can enjoy Max’s song on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNL9tAfO4iQ

Confusing the satan

Have you ever wondered about our shofar-blowing in the month of Elul? Why do we blow and blow, day after day--but fail to do so on the very last day before Rosh Hashanah? What does this have to with the satan? How can he be confused as to when Rosh Hashanah starts? And why can't he remember from year to year how we annually confuse him? If you find all this puzzling, we're here to enlighten you. 

Last Wednesday Rabbi Joel Kenigsberg took over the f ourth and final slot in the OU's Beit Midrash Rechavia program and gave a stunning shiur with the tantalising title "Confusing the Satan". Reviewing a wide spread of sources, he laid this topic open for all to enjoy.  This blogpost offers no plot-spoilers, so if you want to know the real story behind the satan and his confusion, just follow this YouTube link.

Renewing the covenant: Nitzavim-Vayelech 5784

This week’s Torah reading provides a fitting conclusion to the year. At the end of his long life and after decades of service to the Jewish people, Moshe renews the covenant between God and the people of Israel. Addressing the new generation of Jews standing before him, Jews who were neither part of the Egypt experience nor present at the moment of revelation at Sinai, Moshe make it clear that the original covenant between God and the Jewish people remains in force. Not only that, but it will continue to be so throughout the Jewish future. This covenant cannot be repealed, altered or ignored: it is the basis for all Jewish life, the leitmotif of all Jewish history. Moshe concedes that there will be times and events and occurrences in the story of the Jewish people that will seem cruel, inexplicable and irrational. As he phrases it, there will be many “hidden, mysterious” events ahead of them.

Moshe offers no easy explanation for those events except to say that they are somehow related to the attempts of sections of the Jewish people to annul the covenant—and to the consequences of those attempts. The “hidden” part of the covenant belongs to God but its revealed part—the obligations of Torah commandments and Jewish life—belongs to the Jewish people and is relevant in every generation and locale. The Jewish people and the Jewish State will always be judged through their commitment to this eternal pact, the existence of which has caused us much pain and angst throughout the centuries. The other nations of the world harbor resentment against us because of the uniqueness of our relationship to the Creator, which this covenant exemplifies. Many Jewish thinkers have attributed anti-Semitism, both in its virulent or more benign forms, to a jealousy over the existence of God’s pact with the Jewish people.  

The covenant has remained the rock of Jewish identity throughout the ages. Just the knowledge of its existence has created a stubborn Jewish people which possesses a resolve to maintain its faith and lifestyle though a very small minority in a world of many billions. The Torah details its terms and conditions, and its study helps formulate the life that Jews are expected to live. That is why the Torah demands that we study and are aware of these terms morning and night, whether traveling or at home, in all times and places. 

There were, and unfortunately still are, those amongst us who wish to discard the covenant and its obligations and merely to blend in with the surrounding society. The Lord, so to speak, has warned us many times that He would not allow this to occur. All Jewish history teaches us regarding its strength and eternity. In the year that is now dawning, we should all resolutely renew the covenant in our hearts, minds and actions, in order to be blessed with a year of health, success and peace. 

Shabbat shalom, Rabbi Berel Wein

Emunah and Bitachon in times of crisis

An audience of nearly 60 people came to Beit Knesset Hanassi last night to hear what Tziva Mor (right) had to say about the Tikva Forum -- a band of families of hostages who maintain that, whatever the personal cost to themselves and their loved ones, the interests of the State of Israel come first. 

Tzvika's son Eitan, who was guarding the Nova Festival, was captured by Hamas on 7 October. The eldest of eight siblings, he was only 23 at the time and the family have heard no news of him since March. Tzvika spoke movingly and eloquently about the impact Eitan's absence has had on the family, and of their collective decision to be brave for his sake, knowing that he would not want to be a bargaining chip in a Shalit-style exchange deal.

The Tikva Forum, Tzvika explained, represents around one-third of the hostage families. Of the rest, approximately one-third are pressing the government vociferously to bring back the hostages at any price. The rest are silent, do not make their views known and do not greatly engage with the rest.

Tzvika cited references in Tanach to no fewer than nine instances of hostage-taking, pointing out that in none of these cases did the innocent party indulge in negotiations. This showed, he argued, that the right path is through victory over the forces of evil, not entering into discussion with them. The correct path, therefore, is to refuse to have to do anything with our enemies and to stand up to them wherever necessary.

The talk concluded with a question-and-answer session in which several members of the audience were asking what they could do for the hostage families and how they could offer support, financial or otherwise, to the Tikva Forum. Tzvika confessed that he had nothing to do with the fund-raising side of things: it simply wasn't in his mission statement. He did however urge anyone who was interested to take to the social media and spread the word.

All in all, the evening was informative, educational, stimulating and well worth the effort that went into putting it on. 

Beit Knesset Hanassi thanks the Iriyah, Yerushalayim, for its support for this event.

Living in turbulent times

At the invitation of the Women's League, Rebbetzin Sori Teitelbaum (right) gave the pre-Rosh Hashana shiur to the ladies this morning at Beit Knesset Hanassi. Having prefaced her shiur with two perakim of Tehillim, she went on to give us a thoughtful message to help us prepare for the upcoming Yamim Noraim.

Speaking about living in turbulent times of terror and increased antisemitism, the Rebbetzin explained how it affects our faith and religious practice. We live, she said, in a time when we need to recognize our flaws and remember that, as humans, we are not perfect and still need to strive to become better.

Rebbetzin Teitelbaum then cited parshat Bereishit, going day by day through the world’s creation in order to highlight the middot of Hashem that are reflected in two of his names, as the God of Justice and the God of Mercy. Enriching her points with anecdotes from Pinchas Wallerstein and others, she observed that on Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur the 13 middot of Hashem are repeated on many occasions—a clear signal to us of how central the middot are to these awesome days.

The Rebbetzin’s main message was that we should learn that, as humans, we need to make allowances for our frailties. We must work on fixing ourselves and not others. We need to look into our own souls and to be the best person that we can be. Only we can do this because it is only ourselves, as individuals, who can stop ourselves from changing.

Thank you, Kathy Wallach, for providing this note—and thank you, Ann  Rosman, for your photos.

Further thanks to Rebbetzin Sori for letting us have this link to her inspiring words (leave time to enjoy it: it's just under 38 minutes long).

Jewish history in just two scenarios: Ki Tavo 5784

This week’s parsha reflects the whole of Jewish history in two relatively short scenarios. The opening section describes a promise: the Jewish people will enter the Land of Israel, settle there. develop the country, build the Temple and express their gratitude to God for the blessings that He has bestowed upon them. They will harvest bountiful crops and commemorate these achievements by bringing the first fruits of their labor as a thanksgiving offering to the Temple and the priests of the time. They will then recite a short statement of Jewish history, a synopsis of events that led from the time of the patriarchs until their own time.

 In the first scenario the Torah promises blessings and serenity to the people of Israel. Though it does not minimize the toil and travail that led to the moment when these offerings arrived in the Temple, it does convey a sense of satisfaction and achievement, of  gratitude and appreciation, for the accomplishments of the Jewish people, individually and nationally, regarding the Land of Israel and its bounty.

When a spirit of wondrous gratitude marks the accomplishments of the individual farmer and of the people generally in settling and developing the Land of Israel, the set text that accompanies this offering has little room for hubris and self-aggrandizement. Rather, its wording highlights the relationship between God, the Land and the people of Israel.

The second scenario in the parsha is far more somber and even frightening. It describes the events, travail and persecution that will visit the Jewish people over the long millennia of its exile. In vivid detail, the Torah describes the horrors, defeats and destruction that this exile will inflict. In our generation, tragic evidence of this portion of the Torah reading can actually be seen on film and in museums.

We are witness to the fact that not one word of the Torah’s description of dark future events was an exaggeration or hyperbole. This period of trouble and exile lasted far longer than the initial scenario of the offering of the first fruit in the Temple. And, unfortunately, the residue of this second scenario is still with us and within us as we live in a world that manifests its hostility towards the Jews.

Be that as it may, we should still be heartened by the concluding words of this parsha, which promises that it will be the first of our two scenarios that will eventually prevail. Even though so much of the negative is still with us, we must be grateful for our restoration to sovereignty, for dominion over our own homeland and for the bounty of the land that we currently enjoy.

All of this is a symbol of the beginning of the resurrection of the first scenario and the diminution of the effect of the second. May we all be wise enough to realize this and adjust our attitudes and actions accordingly.

Shabbat shalom, Rabbi Berel Wein

BKH goes to Habayta

Habayta is an organization for new and old immigrants alike.  In terms of Jewish and Israeli identity, Habayta seeks to create a broad and spectacular social mosaic. In doing so, it strives to create a meaningful community experience for olim that will strengthen their sense of identity and belonging, shedding light on their path to becoming part of the Israeli story while still preserving their own unique cultural voice.

Last week Beit Knesset Hanassi participated in the Habayta conference which was held in nearby Heichel Shlomo. This event, which attracted over 250 people, offered sessions in Hebrew, Russian, Spanish and Portuguese and its focus was on how to accept olim, especially in this time of war. The impressive cast of speakers included Minister for Aliyah and Integration Ofir Soffer, MK Oded Forer, Rabbi Leo Dee and Rachelle Fraenkel, among many others.

Habayta offers a variety programs from which members of the shul may benefit. You can find them on the Habayta website at https://habayta.org.il/en/.

Thank you, Paul Bloom, for contributing this item.