First of all, our hearts go out to all the victims of the collapsed Champlain Towers in south Florida.
First of all, our hearts go out to all the victims of the collapsed Champlain Towers in south Florida. Our deepest concern for all those who are suffering through the terrible heat wave in the northwestern U.S. So much suffering continues around the globe due to Covid, especially, in India, Africa and Brazil.
We, here, are so fortunate, but, we cannot afford to become too relaxed and we cannot afford to be passive about the suffering of others. It has become clear that our government can and needs to do more.
We need to be more zealous about addressing those afflictions that undermine life. But how zealous should we be? There is good zealousness and there is bad zealousness. What we witnessed on January 6 was bad zealousness. When we stick our necks out for human rights and the disenfranchised that is good zealousness. We are, after all, the descendants of the Hebrew prophets.
In this week’s Parshat Pinchas, Pinchas, the priest, commits murder to stop a plague of idolatrous and rampant immoral sexual behavior in the Israelite camp. This grandson of Aaron is successful in preventing the failure of the Israelites experiment. The Divine, however, was not so sure about the Pinchas' zealousness. In giving Pinchas a gift of Shalom, the letter vav is broken!
On another point, Rosh Hashanah, briefly mentioned in this Parsha as the Day of the Sounding of the Shofar, will have renewed significance for us this year. Am Kolel, Kehila Chadasha, and our extended community will return to Walter Johnson High School and be zoomed live streamed as well. Stay tuned for more information in the coming weeks. Hopefully, our own zealousness in protecting ourselves and others around us has contributed to this happening.
Thank you, again, to all those who have donated to the June Appeal. We are still a bit short of our goal. We want to serve you better and we want to grow our community, but, can only do so with continued support.
Keep cool, tiheyu bari, in good health,
Reb David