The Jewish Center - The Modern Orthodox Center for Jewish Life and Learning 131 W. 86th Street, New York, NY 10024 • www.jewishcenter.org • 212-724-2700

OCTOBER 12, 2019 • 13 TISHREI 5780 • PARSHAT HA’AZINU

The Jewish Center SHABBAT BULLETIN

SHABBAT SCHEDULE EREV SHABBAT 6:04PM Candle-lighting 6:10PM Young Leadership Kabbalat Shabbat (1st floor) 6:10PM Minchah (Main Sanctuary, 3rd floor) SHABBAT 7:45AM Hashkama (4th floor) 9:00AM Shacharit (Main Sanctuary, 3rd floor) 9:15AM Hashkama Shiur with Rabbi Elie Buechler (5th Floor) 9:30AM Young Leadership (1st floor) 10:00AM Youth Groups 11:00AM Sermon by Rabbi Noach Goldstein 4:00PM Bikkur Cholim/Bikkur in the Home (meet at 730 Columbus Ave.) 4:45PM-6:00PM Tween Time (5th floor) 5:10PM Daf Yomi 5:55PM Minchah (Main Sanctuary, 3rd floor) Seudah Shlishit with Yossi Siegel, What I Learned Talking About Water 7:04PM Shabbat Concludes

DAILY SERVICE TIMES

WOMEN’S TEHILLIM GROUP: Monday, October 28th, 2019 at 7:15PM

Contact Joyce Weitz for more information at 212-877-1176

THANK YOU TO OUR USHERS Penina Blazer and Michael Jacobs

Thank you to our CSS members whose efforts help

maintain a safe shul for our community.

COMMUNITY ANNOUNCEMENTS

Special thanks to our guest Chazzan this Shabbat, Nathan Cepelinkski

Special thanks to our guest Chazzan this Sukkot Elie Landau

JOIN US FOR SEUDAH SHLISHIT Shabbat October 12th

with Yossi Siegel What I Learned Talking About Water

SCHOLAR IN RESIDENCE DR. RUTH WISSE Shabbat, November 2nd Who Needs Anti-Semitism?

Antisemitism is one of the most useful and popular ide-ologies—or tools—of modern politics. Whom does it serve? How, and why?

Sponsored by The Chill Family

Please join us for a Gala Seudah Shlishit Shabbat October 26th at 6:25PM

MAZAL TOV TO OUR SIMCHAT TORAH CHATTANIM: Chattan Maftir - Rabbi Noach Goldstein

Chattan Bereishit - Avi Schwartz Chattan Torah - George Blank

SHABBAT BEREISHIT KIDDUSH October 26th following davening

Rabbi Yosie & Rachel Levine invite you to join them for a special Kiddush on Shabbat Bereishit following services. We look forward to seeing you then.

Sunday, October 13 Erev Sukkot 7:45AM Daf Yomi 8:30AM Shacharit 6:00PM Minchah 6:02PM Candle Lighting Shiur with Rabbi Yosie Levine Monday, October 14 Sukkot Day I 9:00AM Shacharit 5:15PM Daf Yomi 6:00PM Minchah Shiur with Rabbi Elie Buechler 7:01PM Candle Lighting Tuesday, October 15 Sukkot Day II 9:00AM Shacharit 5:15PM Daf Yomi 6:00PM Minchah Shiur 6:59PM Yom Tov Concludes

SUKKOT SCHEDULE

Wednesday, October 16 - Thursday, October 17 Chol HaMoed Sukkot 6:45/7:45AM Shacharit

7:45AM Daf Yomi 6:00PM Minchah

Friday, October 18 Chol HaMoed Sukkot 6:45/7:45AM Shacharit

7:45AM Daf Yomi 5:55PM Candle Lighting

6:00PM Minchah

JOIN US FOR A SPECIAL SERMON BY RABBI BENJAMAN BLECH SHABBAT BEREISHIT

October 26th at 11:00AM

THANK YOU TO OUR KIDDUSH SPONSORS: Hashkama Kiddush: The Kalfus Family upon completion of Kaddish for Frayda bat Nussen Community Kiddush: Rona & Ira Kellman in memory of Ira’s brother, Martin Kellman

The Jewish Center Sukkah is open throughout the week, on Yom Tov and Chol Hamoed. On Chol HaMoed, Daf Yomi takes place in the Sukkah at 7:45AM and a bagel breakfast is served after each of our Shacharit minyanim (6:45AM/7:45AM).

Bring your lunch, a book or a game to play and celebrate with us early and often.

Youth Sukkot Divrei Torah Each year our Sukkah meals are enhanced with beautiful Divrei

Torah from our youth. Thank you in advance to our list

of speakers: Sunday Dinner: Abe Newton

Monday Lunch: Jonathan Symonds Monday Dinner: Daniel Wagman

Tuesday Lunch: Emma and Chloe Pfefferman

Friday Night Dinner: Nili and Ayden Louzon

Shabbat Lunch: Yehoshua Levine

AUSCHWITZ NOT LONG AGO. NOT FAR AWAY Monday, November 4, 2019 Tour Will Begin at the Museum of Jewish Heritage at 1:30 pm Tour Cost: $22.00 Visit jewishcenter.org to register! The Jewish Center and Advanced Leadership are arranging a guided tour of the acclaimed Auschwitz exhibit at the Museum of Jewish Heritage d u r i n g t h e w e e k commemorating the 81st anniversary of Kristallnacht.

The Hebrew Free Burial Association Sunday, November 10th from 10AM-11:30AM The Jewish Center will be participating in a Cemetery Clean Up Project at Mount Richmond Cemetery in Staten Island (accessible by public transportation). Mitzvah Manicures Thursday, November 21st • 7PM – 9PM Get a manicure and help benefit Sharsheret at the same time. This event will bring our community together for manicures in support of Sharsheret and raise awareness about breast cancer prevention. All proceeds will go to the organization. Details and registration to follow. Sharsheret Speaker: Melissa K. Rosen Shabbat afternoon, November 23rd Melissa K. Rosen, Sharsheret’s Director of Community Education, will be speaking at Seudah Shlishit. Melissa oversees outreach efforts throughout the country, amplifying Sharsheret’s reach and connecting as many as possible to the support and resources of Sharsheret. Herself a breast cancer survivor, she is passionate about the Jewish community and cancer support and advocacy. Sharsheret materials will be available for review. For more information and to get involved please

email Becca Herman at beccaherman@yahoo.com

UPCOMING EVENTS

AIPAC POLICY CONFERENCE 2020 Dear Friends, Today, we find ourselves in a moment of unprecedented divisiveness and uncertainty. As Israel continues to face mounting threats, it is perhaps more important than ever that we stand together--and act together. This coming Spring, members of our congregation will attend the 2020 AIPAC Policy Conference, from March 1-3, in Washington, D.C. This is our chance to collectively stand with Israel. AIPAC is America's pro-Israel lobby. AIPAC is bipartisan and works with Congress and the administration to maintain and strengthen the US-Israel alliance. This annual gathering is a one-of-a-kind experience and is the largest gathering of the pro-Israel movement in the United States. It attracts more than 18,000 community and student activists from all 50 states as well as countless policymakers and thought leaders. Last year, many members of our community attended the conference. We are thrilled to announce a special $200 Policy Conference discount that will last from Rosh Hashanah through Simchat Torah (Sept,.30th- Oct. 22nd). To take advantage of this promotion please visit policyconference.org and use the code HOLIDAY5780

Please contact Batsheva at batsheva@jewishcenter.org for more information.

SAVE THE DATE CHESED OPPURTUNITES

Yosie Levine Rabbi

Eliezer Buechler Assistant Rabbi

Noach Goldstein Assistant Rabbi

Ora Weinbach Community Educator

Shua Brick

William Fischman Rabbinic Intern

& Teen Coordinator

Aaron Strum Executive Director

Batsheva Leibtag

Director of Programming and Communications

Sarah Cromwell Youth Director

OFFICERS Andrew Borodach

President

Mark Segall First Vice President

Len Berman Vice President

Aliza Herzberg Vice President

Michael Jacobs Vice President

Scott Black Treasurer

Daniel Solomons Assistant Treasurer

Naomi Goldman Secretary

LOCAL RESOURCES Yoetzet Halacha Shiffy Friedman

nycyoetzet@gmail.com 646-598-1080

Jewish Center Chevra Kadisha

212-724-2700 x555

UWS Mikvah 212-579-2011

Hatzoloh 212-230-1000

Eruv Status 212-724-2700 x4

The Redemptive Qualities of Sukkot Parshat Ha’Azinu 5780

Rabbi Shua Brick, William Fischman Rabbinic Intern & Teen Coordinator

There is a medrash (Tehillim 76) that I have been mesmerized by since I first heard it. It describes God having just finished creating the world, and the first thing God does after a successful creation is He constructs a sukkah, enters it, and prays “May it be My Will that the Jews will do My Will.” This is a perplexing depiction of God. It is certainly confounding that He prays, though this source is not singular in depicting the Divine amid supplication. Putting this aside - and focusing on what is germane to our current holiday - considering that God has created a wonderfully beautiful and complex universe why is the sukkah His next step, the most notoriously flimsy and impermanent of structures? And why would He enter the sukkah and pray on our behalf? I first heard of this medrash when I was studying in the Old City of Jerusalem which was then home to the late Rabbi Yeshayahu Hadari z”l, an expert in many things including medrash. When I recounted this medrash to him, his face immediately lit up in delightful recognition, and told me he would have to explain it to me “on one foot” as he was leaving. He told me, “at the beginning, Hashem made a picture of the end.” He then walked away grinning and with a spring in his step. The Sukkah in our liturgy is often used to describe the End of Days or messianic times. Nightly, during maariv’s hashkivenu prayer we ask for Hashem to spread his Tabernacle of Peace (which may sound familiar as we read the same phrase in our weekly recitation of a prayer for the welfare of the State of Israel and the United States Government). This prayer of hashkivenu is referred to by the Talmud (Berachot 4b) as a geulah arichta, a more thorough depiction of the redemption.

Why does the sukkah most aptly portray the Redemptions? A sukkah is a structure whose component parts are incredibly insignificant to its structure. It is intended to be impermanent, and not necessarily protective from the elements. The main accomplishment of the Sukkah is to demarcate space, space which we share with Hakadosh Baruch Hu. Our time there is completely reliant on Hashem, making it hospitable for us to share the space with Him. A sukkah is essentially a place to gather, where all of the Jewish people can join and be one. (Vayikrah 23:42; Sukkah 27b) The Sukkah is a reenactment of our very first act as a nation where we subjected ourselves to the elements and entered the desert with expectation that Hashem would deliver us to the Promised Land, and He dotingly remembers the closeness implied by this act. “So says Hashem: I remember the devotion of your youth, the love of our honeymoon, when you followed me into the wilderness, into a barren wasteland.” (Jeremaih 2:1) Similarly, heaven is often depicted with an image of the righteous at a banquet in the Sukkah of the Leviathan. The Leviathan that is described as being God’s daily playful companion. (Avodah Zarah 3b) The sukkah is a place where we have the opportunity to dwell with the divine, which is just a sample of the redemption where we will return to a permanent dwelling with God. In the beginning, God built a sukkah, and prayed that we should be successful in this world at heeding His word, so that we can join Him in the shade of the Tabernacle of Peace. It is already constructed and God waits in anticipation for the day that we will join Him there.

ISRAEL UPDATE October 11, 2019

Israel and Gulf States Working on ‘Historic Pact’ to End Conflict Between Them Israel is reportedly negotiating with several Gulf states on a “non-aggression pact” between them as they face off against an increasingly emboldened Iran. The deal, which Israel’s Channel 12 News described as potentially “historic,” aims to put an end to the state of conflict between the Gulf states and Israel, and reportedly provides for friendly relations, cooperation in a variety of fields, and no war or incitement against each other. Advancing the Israeli initiative, Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz met on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly last month with several foreign ministers from Arab Gulf states, as reported Saturday night. On September 23, Katz tweeted that he had held talks with an unnamed counterpart from an Arab country, with which Israel does not have formal relations, and said they discussed “ways to deal with the Iranian threat” and a process for boosting “civilian cooperation.” Katz presented his Gulf counterparts with a draft text of the intended pact, which was drawn up by the Israeli Foreign Ministry, the TV report said. It reportedly highlights the opportunity to advance common interests in the context of the threat posed by Iran, and is drafted in accordance with principles of international law. Our synagogue partners with AIPAC, America’s pro-Israel lobby, in educating our community on issues affecting the U.S.-Israel relationship. We encourage you to learn more by contacting AIPAC at (202) 639-5200 or by visiting www.aipac.org.