The Mitzvah of Tzedaka (Charity) obligates us to aid a needy individual with a gift or a loan.
This Mitzvah however is in many circumstances only a temporary solution, for the needy individual will become needy again when your gift or loan is used up.
The greatest Mitzvah of Tzedaka is to give a needy person financial independence by giving them a job or teaching them the skills/helping them to get a job.
Raising children is also a form of Tzedaka as children are needy for knowledge and life lessons.
It is a great Mitzvah to raise children and give them the gift of knowledge and values, keeping in mind that the greatest Tzedaka is when we enable an individual to be independent.
Educate a child in a way that the child becomes independent in their understanding of the life values and lessons we gave them, so that even when that child has grown to become old and we their teachers are no longer available, they are still living the wonderful life we have shown them and they in turn become the teachers for the next generation.
Wishing you a good Shabbos!
Rabbi Mendel and Elke Zaltzman
Shabbos Times
Friday, August 26
Candle Lighting: 7:20pm Evening service: 7:30pm
Saturday, August 27 Morning service: 10:00am
Kiddush Brunch: 12:00pm Evening service: 7:20pm
Shabbos ends: 8:19pm
Kiddush Sponsor Tamir and Dana Gerber
In honor of moving into their new home
Mazal Tov!! Daily Services Minyan
Join us for a delightful evening making your own traditional round challahs in honor of the High Holidays. Reserve your table with family and friends. Complimentary for Partners in Pride
Classes are filling up! Don't delay, register today!
Our Hebrew school offers learning and experiencing Jewish life in a
non-judgmental, interactive and warm environment. Hebrew reading, Jewish history, traditions, mitzvot, Israel and holidays come alive with creative and hands on lessons. First day of Hebrew school is Sunday, Sept. 11, 2022.
Jewish teens join for awesome fun and volunteering, as we kickoff the new year with a honey cake bake to distribute to seniors in our community!
No charge, come and bring your friends!
Open to all teens in grades 8-12
YOUR NEW COMMUNITY CALENDAR HAS BEEN SENT TO PRINT AND WILL BE MAILED SHORTLY
A BISSELE HUMOR
A very successful businessman had a meeting with his new son-in-law. "I love my daughter dearly, and now I welcome you into the family," said the man. "To show you how much we care for you, I'm making you a 50-50 partner in my business. All you have to do is go to the factory every day and manage the operations."
The son-in-law interrupted, "I hate factories. I can't stand the noise."
"I see," replied the father-in-law. "Well, then you'll work in the office and take charge of those responsibilities."
"I hate office work," said the son-on-law. "I can't stand being stuck behind a desk all day."
"Wait a minute," said the father-in-law. "I just made you half-owner of a moneymaking organization, but you don't like factories and won't work in an office. What am I going to do with you?"
"Easy," said the young man. "Buy me out."
WEEKLY eTORAH
Blessings and curses. Stirring stuff from the Bible this week as Moses again cautions his congregation. The great prophet reminds them that living a life of goodness will bring them blessings while ignoring the Divine call must inexorably lead to a cursed existence.
Moses prefaces his admonition with the Hebrew word Re'eh, "See." See, I present before you today a blessing and a curse. But why "see"? What is there to see? Did he show them anything at all? The Torah does not use flowery language just because it has a nice ring to it and sounds poetic. What was there to behold? Why Re'eh?
One answer is that how we look will, in itself, determine whether our lives will be blessed or cursed. How do we look at others, at ourselves? Our perspective, how we behold and see things, will result in our own lives being blessed or, G‑d forbid, the opposite.
The saintly Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev once chanced upon a strong, young man who was brazenly eating on Yom Kippur. The Rabbi suggested that perhaps he was feeling ill. The fellow insisted he was in the best of health. Perhaps he had forgotten that today was the holy day of fasting? "Who doesn't know that today is Yom Kippur?" responded the young man. Perhaps he was never taught that Jews do not eat on this day? "Every child knows that Yom Kippur is a fast day, Rabbi!" Whereupon Rabbi Levi Yitzchak raised his eyes heavenward and said, "Master of the Universe, see how wonderful Your people are! Here is a Jew who, despite everything, refuses to tell a lie!" The Berditchever was always able to look at others with a compassionate, understanding and benevolent eye.
How do we view the good fortune enjoyed by others? Are we happy for them, or do we look at them with begrudging envy? How do we look at ourselves and our own shortcomings? Are we objectively truthful or subjectively slanted? "He is a stingy, rotten good for nothing. Me? I am just careful about how I spend my money." "She is a bore of bores, anti-social. Me? I just happen to enjoy staying at home." "He is as stubborn as an ox! Me? I am a determined person."
Clearly, the manner in which we look at our world and those around us will have a major impact on the way life will treat us. Quite justifiably, Moses says, "See." For how we see things in life will undoubtedly affect life's outcomes.
The sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn (1880-1950), once told how when he was a young child he asked his father: "Why does a person have two eyes?" "The right eye," his father replied, "is to be used lovingly, when looking at a fellow Jew; the left eye is to be used discerningly, when looking at sweets or other objects that are not that important in the grand scheme of things."
The Parshah that is entitled Re'eh, "See," is a perennial reminder to all of us that even our vision can bring virtue or vice. Let us look at the world correctly and invite the blessings of G‑d into our lives.
