Filed under: Thoughts of the Week
This Shabbat occurred on Labor Day weekend and there was a bar mitzvah celebration in the community. The bar mitzvah spoke of his uncertainty about the Divine but the importance of doing right with other people.
The portion of this week was Ki Tavo – when you come into the land - details the connections between the people and the Divine. The section read in our community was Deuteronomy 27:11-28:3, dealing with a mystical scene with half of the tribes standing on one mountain, the older 6 tribes standing on a facing mountain, with the Levites shouting curses on those who did not follow the commandments of the Divine, blessings for those who do observe, then another series of terrible curses on those who hearken to the voice of the Divine. The closing curse concludes a threat that the Divine would bring the people back to Egypt in ships. The slave market would be so over-saturated that the people would not even be able to be sold as slaves.
The haftorah for this sixth Shabbat of Consolation is from Isaiah LX. It presents an optimistic, mystical, messianic image of a future in which the Divine will be an everlasting light and the days of mourning wll be ended. Written at the time of rebuilding of the second Temple after the Babylonian exile, it is a rallying song for those returnees from the empire’s capital, near Baghdad now, to recreate a society that had been overturned one hundred years before.
With these readings, we climb into a bright future if we make the right choices, choose life-affirming plans and are positive about tomorrow. On Labor Day weekend, we celebrate the last days of summer and plan for the future school year, prepare for the coming fall and winter, and hope for right choices and positive days ahead.
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