SHABBAT SHALOM

Shoftim

Candle Lighting 6:55pm

Havdalah 8:24pm

Parashah
Deuteronomy 16:13-21:9
(pgs 468-477 Artscroll Bible)

Haftarah
Isaiah 51:12-52:12
(pgs 1044-1047 Artscroll Bible)

Our Condolences To:

Sandra & Douglas Green
on the passing of Sandra's sister,
Valerie Fokoloff, on August 15th.

Rabbi Finley's Teachings on CD

CDs are sold in the courtyard after services, or by telephone at either (818) 769-8223 or (310) 278-9049. For more information and to view the CD catalogue, please CLICK HERE.

Prices for CDs are:
 $12 for Members
 $17 for Non-members

Two-Disc Special Offer:
 $20 for Members
 $30 for Non-Members

 

Shabbat Policies

Attire

Men and boys must wear kippot/yarmulkes while attending Ohr HaTorah.

Please dress up a little to respect and honor the Sabbath (no blue jeans, t-shirts, flip flops, immodest dress, etc).

Cell Phones

Cell phones and pagers must be turned off in the sanctuary. If you must make or receive a call, find a private place.

Young Children

All parents with infants are kindly requested to leave the service when their child needs immediate attention. We ask that parents with young children sit in the back rows to help minimize any disruption to the service.

Morning Study

The morning study session (9:00 - 9:45am) is part of the adult education program at Ohr HaTorah. It is open only to members, prospective members and visitors for their first few times at Ohr HaTorah. If you are not a member of Ohr HaTorah (if you are a visitor or prospective member), please sign in at the front table.

Rabbi Finley’s Morning Study Session begins at 9am sharp.  Please arrive early enough to be seated when study begins.

Doors close at the beginning of Rabbi’s 9am study session, so that people don’t continuously walk into the session as the rabbi is teaching. Anyone leaving the session will not be readmitted until the study session is completed.

Doors re-open after the study session and remain open through the remainder of the morning.

Those entering during the rabbi’s Torah study (11:30am - 12:00pm) should be seated in the back of the sanctuary, and not seek a seat in the front of the sanctuary.

Message to Newcomers

Ohr HaTorah is somewhere between Reform and Conservative in our various practices and norms.  Our prayer service leans to the Conservative side:  it is chanted in Hebrew and there are no English readings.

We announce page numbers so that no one is lost, and we have a "Guide to the Prayer Service" that contains explanations of the service and transliterations of prayers and songs that might not be contained in our prayer book.  If you are not familiar with a traditional service, please use our guide.  The guide will remind you that it is more important to find your heart than the right page during the service.

Share This Message

If your friends and family can't get to Ohr HaTorah for a synagogue service, you can still share this message. By forwarding this e-mail to friends and family all over the world, you can share a little bit of Rabbi Finley's study and your OHT experience!

Contact Us

ohrhatorah.org
office@ohrhatorah.org
(310) 915-5200

Shabbat Shofetim 5768

Dear Friends,

Here is an overview of my teachings this Shabbat.

Friday Night Shabbat Services

For our Friday night Shabbat services, I will continue to offer thoughts on the prayer book, and after services lead a Q&A. I will also bring a brief Chasidic text to discuss, just in case there aren't a lot of questions and you want to study a little gem of Jewish spirituality.

Shabbat Morning Study Session

For the past several weeks, I have been focusing on several themes that, together, help us understand what "Sovereignty of the Divine" might mean, since the idea of the Sovereignty of the Divine is one of the core concepts of the Jewish High Holy Days. I proposed that realized life includes conscious in at least these seven areas:

• Life of intimacy with others
• The creative life
• Our work
• Community
• Self-knowledge
• Knowledge of the Divine
• A life of virtue

In each of these areas there are truer ways to live in the presence of the Divine, and in each of these areas there is profound resistance to living a realized life. The Hebrew term for that resistance is "the yetzer ha-ra" — the urge toward destructive behavior. In our last two sessions, I devoted my talks to the nature of that resistance.

For tomorrow's study session, I'd like to offer a few thoughts about a particular kind of resistance – the resistance to clarity, the attachment to confusion. People sometimes become so attached to a feeling, an emotion, a judgment about others or the world, giving in to a particular drive or impulse, that they actively resist thinking clearly. Clarity and good judgment are spiritual virtues once necessary for living truly in the presence of the Divine.

Torah Study

This week's Torah portion, Shofetim, has several passages exceedingly rich in good reward for their proper study. One passage concerns what the Talmud calls "the rebellious elder" — the one described in our Torah portion (Deuteronomy 17:8-13) who defies the rulings of the court. The Talmud (especially in Sanhedrin 86b-88b) is highly distressed by this possibility — an elder, steeped in tradition and learning, can ultimately get it so wrong. We think of rebels as being young and impressionable; this is the case of something much more intriguing.

Along with the other spiritual concepts from each Torah portion that I have been teaching lately — love of God, awe and reverence, and heresy — I would like tomorrow to discuss another one: the rebel.

Shabbat Shalom!
Rabbi Finley

Attention:
Religious School Families!
Religious School Begins September 13th

We hope you and your children are enjoying your summers! We are eagerly planning for the coming year of religious school and looking forward to being in our new home. We wanted to let you know two important pieces of information:

1. Religious School will begin Saturday, September 13th at 9:00am.

2. There will be a mandatory parents' meeting on that same day from 9:00-9:45am. At that time we will go over curriculum and staff for the year, review religious school policies and leave time to field any questions you may have. Please plan on arriving at the new building (11827 Venice Blvd) by 8:50am in order to park and get your children to their new classrooms.

Enjoy the remaining days of summer, and we will see you next week!

Reserve your tickets today!

OHT Members are entitled to High Holy Days tickets for themselves and their dependent children. All you have to do is request them! Ticket request forms were included in the e-mail regarding membership renewal and can also be downloaded at OhrHaTorah.org (click here to go there now) or picked up in the lobby at Shabbat.

Click here to go to our website and view or download the schedule and forms, buy tickets for non-members, order prayer books and more!

Remember, we will assume you are not coming
if we don't receive a request from you!

_________________________

We're looking for a few good men... and women, for that matter! Ohr HaTorah needs people to lend a hand at High Holy Days: ushers, ticket-takers, and a handful of other supportive roles. You can volunteer for a single shift or for several, but by all means, volunteer!

Services are, of course, at the Wilshire Ebell, on September 29th and 30th for Rosh Hashanah and October 8th and 9th for Yom Kippur. For further details or to sign up to volunteer, please contact Masoud Moradzadeh at masoud@ohrhatorah.org.

SOVA High Holiday Food Drive
September 29th - October 9th

Ohr HaTorah will be collecting donations of food and necessities for SOVA's High Holy Days Food Drive at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre during our High Holy Days services. Bring your donations of canned goods or other non-perishables on Rosh Hashanah and/or Yom Kippur to participate!

Right now, more people need our help than ever before. Each month, SOVA's three pantries provide groceries to over 5,000 men, women and children of all ages, cultures and ethnicities. They depend on your donations to meet the challenge of the growing hunger crisis!

Share Your Good News!

We want to make sure everyone in our community knows about any simchah or other important news about you or your family... just email Robyn Roth with the info!

Congratulations to...

Arianne & David Styne
on the birth of their daughter, Oona Mitsue Styne,
on Thursday, August 7th at 10:23pm.

Luciana and Larry Klein
on the birth of their son, Noah Souza Klein,
on Thursday, August 21st at St. John's Hospital.

Rachel and Joseph Einstein,
on the birth of their daughter, Charlotte Eliza Einstein,
on Saturday, August 9th at Cedar's-Sinai.

Raise Money for OHT...
just by shopping!!

Register your Ralphs card, Vons card and more...
You'll help Ohr HaTorah each time you shop!

Renew your Ralphs club card participation online annually so that Ohr HaTorah can continue receiving revenue generated by your everyday shopping. It only takes a minute to register, and you don't have to do anything else — except, of course, for your normal shopping! And, most importantly, it counts toward your annual scrip commitment!

Go to OhrHaTorah.org/membership/escrip.htm for step-by-step directions and direct links to sign up or renew your Ralphs, Vons or Target cards, or to take advantage of eScrip or SchoolPop!

	Attention Ralphs Club Members!
Ralphs recently launched its new "Ralphs Rewards" program, so all customers will be receiving a new Ralphs card. The new card does not automatically keep on contributing funds to Ohr HaTorah — you will have to go to Ralphs.com and re-enroll!

Thank you for helping Ohr HaTorah raise funds.
Find more ways to support OHT at OhrHaTorah.org/membership.