Your donation will be tax deductible in the US to the extent allowed by the IRS.
To make a tax-deductible donation by wire transfer in the US, please contact:
Avrum Lapin, North American Representative
Toll-free: 1-866-830-3321
Email: schechter@thelapingroup.com
To make a tax-deductible donation in Israel, please contact:
Dina Gudai, Israeli Representative
Phone: 074-7800643
Email: dina@schechter.ac.il
Please mail your check to:
The Schechter Institutes, Inc. (a 501(c) 3 tax exempt organization)
Box #3566
PO Box 8500
Philadelphia, PA 19178-3566
Attn: Mr. Avrum Lapin, North American Representative
Toll-free: 1-866-830-3321
Email: schechter@thelapingroup.com
Please indicate the donation is "for your joint Schechter Institutes program."
Checks should be made payable to the Jewish Theological Society of Canada and mailed to:
Jewish Theological Society of Canada
c/o Camp Ramah in Canada
3845 Bathhurst St., Suite 310
Toronto, ON, M3H 3N2
Phone: 416-789-2193, ext. 2139
E-mail: accounting@campramah.com
Please mail a check to:
The Schechter Institutes
Attn: Dina Gudai, Finance Department
PO Box 16080,
Jerusalem, 9116002
Israel
For assistance, please call Dina Gudai at 074-780-0643 (8:00 AM – 3:00 Israel time Sunday through Thursday).
Your donation will be tax deductible in the US to the extent allowed by the IRS.
To make a tax-deductible donation by wire transfer in the US, please contact:
Avrum Lapin, North American Representative
Toll-free: 1-866-830-3321
Email: schechter@thelapingroup.com
To make a tax-deductible donation in Israel, please contact:
Dina Gudai, Israeli Representative
Phone: 074-7800643
Email: dina@schechter.ac.il
Please mail your check to:
The Schechter Institutes, Inc. (a 501(c) 3 tax exempt organization)
Box #3566
PO Box 8500
Philadelphia, PA 19178-3566
Attn: Mr. Avrum Lapin, North American Representative
Toll-free: 1-866-830-3321
Email: schechter@thelapingroup.com
Please indicate the donation is "for your joint Schechter Institutes program."
Checks should be made payable to the Jewish Theological Society of Canada and mailed to:
Jewish Theological Society of Canada
c/o Camp Ramah in Canada
3845 Bathhurst St., Suite 310
Toronto, ON, M3H 3N2
Phone: 416-789-2193, ext. 2139
E-mail: accounting@campramah.com
Please mail a check to:
The Schechter Institutes
Attn: Dina Gudai, Finance Department
PO Box 16080,
Jerusalem, 9116002
Israel
For assistance, please call Dina Gudai at 074-780-0643 (8:00 AM – 3:00 Israel time Sunday through Thursday).
As Humans, Jews, and Israelis we face ḥurban: destruction and desecration. This Tisha B’Av we hope our hostages will be free.
Every week when I prepare I never know what is going to be in the world by the time of this תורה מציון. But this week, it is Rosh Hodesh Menachem Av and honestly, Monday, but who knows what will be in Israel and the world on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday when you hear this more than ever.
I want to share with you a word of where my heart is, where my mind is, where my soul is.
This Shabbat is Shabbat Devarim, and the Haftarah that we read from, Chazon (Vision) the first chapter of Yeshayahu (Isaiah). The chapter Chazon Yeshayahu when he asks, “The heavens and the earth to hear and to listen.” (Isaiah 1:2) What does it mean to hear and to listen?
In our Torah, our parasha, Moshe tells the story of appointing, appointing leaders. When he says, actually in the beginning, he says
הָב֣וּ לָ֠כֶ֠ם אֲנָשִׁ֨ים חֲכָמִ֧ים וּנְבֹנִ֛ים וִידֻעִ֖ים׃
“Appoint people that are wise and understanding and known” (Deuteronomy 1:13)
But he says
וָאֶקַּ֞ח אֶת־רָאשֵׁ֣י שִׁבְטֵיכֶ֗ם אֲנָשִׁ֤ים חֲכָמִים֙ וִֽידֻעִ֔ים
“Wise people and known people,” (Deuteronomy 1:15) – but he doesn’t say understanding people.
Honestly, I feel right now that we are walking in a world where so much of the destruction right now, that we are walking in a world where we don’t understand and we don’t know what are we seeing and what are we hearing and what are we listening to?
Do you know that in the First Nations there is a word for shoes that actually means ‘blindfold for the eyes.’ Because right now, we are walking on the ground. You now it used to be – in the world in which I born into – the ground we buried dead people into the ground.
Right now, right now, I am living in a world where live people are living under the ground not so far away from where I live here in Yerushalayim: Our Hostages.
You may look at my dress and you may say to yourself “What is she wearing?” A sticker that says “150 & 150 & 4?”
Did you know Rachel Polin Goldberg, she asked us to say Tehillim (Psalms) one for every day of captivity for her son Hersch and all the captives (kidnapped on October 7th)? We came to day 150 and then what? She said 150 is a day in praise of God, Psalm 150 praise of God. So we will say 150 and then we will say one. Then we came to 150 and 150. Then what do you do? Day 300 = say 150 and 150 and you say 4 today, as well because it is day 304, but it is 150 and 150 and four.
Right now we are walking a world where we don’t know what we are seeing, we don’t know what we are hearing.
I pray, pray right now, now is the devastation we are living in – now that is the ḥurban, that is the desecration.
You know, we are taught that a time will come when Tisha B’Av, the 9th of Av, will be a day of celebration. We say to ourselves: What can celebration look like in the time that we are in right now, so close to what ḥurban: desecration and destruction look like?
You know, here I am. This is a library of Schechter right now. There is a ladder because we are in destruction. We are in construction. What world are we living in now?
But, I say to myself, perhaps right now, perhaps if the hostages came home on Tisha B’Av there would be a celebration. Master of the World, there are nine or eight days to bring them home – bring them home tomorrow, we can celebrate.
You know, I don’t know. I am walking in a world right now I don’t understand what I see. Honestly, I don’t understand what I hear.
I pray for a vision, a fixing of the vision that Yeshayahu saw: a vision of destruction.
I am praying that this Shabbat, as we come into it, that we can ask for a fixing of our ears so that we can hear what people are saying.
So much destruction is that when we walk in the world we do not hear what people are saying. They are asking for help, asking for forgiveness, asking to be heard as we walk by and we don’t see them.
I pray that really, the beginning of the fixing of our lives that the world we are in, so that we can hear each other and we can see each other and we start to fix the world in that way.
If we can do that, if we can allow the Shabbat to see and hear each other, it will force us to stop for a moment and to listen and to hear and to look and to see.
Shabbat Shalom
Reb Mimi serves as the Mashpiah Ruchanit (spiritual mentor) of the Rabbinical School, and teaches Talmud and Hassidic Thought. She will guide and walk with the rabbinical students on their personal-spiritual journeys. She served as the Mashpiah Ruchanit of the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies in Los Angeles for the last 16 years. Prior to this Reb Mimi was one of the founding administration and faculty members of the “Yakar” Beit Midrash and community.
