Shabbat Shalom - 10 Iyar

This evening’s community wide  Erev Shabbat Service will be held at Temple Anshe Sholom in Olympia Fields beginning at 8:00 pm, as part of the Cooperative Jewish Council’s Speaker in Residence Program. Rabbi Kinneret Shiryon will speak about the cultural revolution in Israel that has found so-called “secular” Jews returning to Judaism as they understand it.

Tomorrow’s Shabbat Service will be conducted by Rabbi Dreyfus, begnning at 10:00 am.  Jerry Levine will act as the Cantorial Soloist.

The Torah reading is the double portion Acherei Mot / K’doshim, Leviticus 16:1 - 20:27.  G-d speaks to moses after the death of Aaron’s two sons, and tells Moses to tell Aaron how to go about atoning for his sins and to atone for the sins of all of his people, with the usual burnt offerings and also the offering of a live goat upon whose head all of the sins of the people for the year shall be placed, the scape goat.  This shall all be done once a year.
We continue on with offerings, with prohibitions on eating blood, then prohibitions on cohabiting with, or even discovering the nakedness of close relatives or their women, with some severe penalties.  Then there are more positive things to do because the congregation of the Children of Israel should be holy, because G-d is holy. Wherefore G-d agrees to give to the Congregation a land flowing with milk and honey but prescribes the death penalty, and other penalties, for all sorts of transgressions including, not the greatest of them, the sin of a man lying with another as with a woman. or dealing with a wizard, or magician or what might be described in modern parlance as the dark side of the force.  Tough laws for tough times.  And tough to follow the commandment “to be holy”.