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Shabbat Beshalach
Week of February 7th, 2025
Shevat 5785
Wishing you and your family 
Shabbat Shalom and a Happy Tu Bi'Shvat!

Friday February 7th ,2025 * Shevat 9,  5785

• Erev Shabbat: Candle lighting at 5:03 pm

• Shacharit Services in Shul will begin promptly at 9:30 am, followed by a Kiddush at 12:00pm, all are welcome!
  Kiddush this week is sponsored by Margie Segal in memory of her mother, Renee Segal (Rivkah Bat Bayla V’ Yitzhak). We thank Margie for her generosity.
  
  If you would like to sponsor Kiddush in the future, please reach out to info@stantonstshul.com.
   
• Women's Tefilah Group is back! Shacharit begins at 9:30 am and the Torah Reading will take place at approximately 10:30 am. We hope to see many familiar faces and also new ones! ​​​​​​​

• Weekly Shiur with Rabbi Birkeland- in person and on  ZOOM ​​​​​​​

• Tu Bi'Shvat - Happy Birthday to Trees!

COMMUNITY ANNOUNCEMENTS

Birthdays:
Tuesday, February 11, 2025   •   13 Shevat 5785

• Happy Birthday to Jessica Spector and Jonah Sampson-Boyarin!
   

Torah Inspiration with Rabbi Birkeland

Dear Friends,
This week we read Parshas Beshalach. We have just witnessed the ten plagues in Egypt and Pharaoh has finally agreed to let the Israelites go. Still, once the Israelites are on their way, Pharaoh has a last minute change of heart and he mobilizes his chariots to chase after them in the wilderness. The Egyptians corner the Israelites at the Sea of Reeds and God and Moshe perform a final miracle with the splitting of the sea in which the Israelites escape on dry land and the Egyptians are drowned, thus guaranteeing the Israelites’ new found freedom. 
The parshah continues with the beginnings of the Israelite wanderings in the wilderness complete with ups and downs that will continue to define the desert experience. I’d like to focus on the exodus itself, though, and some of its ramifications. Because we are already familiar with God’s promises to the patriarchs that the Israelites will be brought out of Egypt and up to Eretz Yisrael, we probably take it for granted that when the Israelites are finally freed, they leave. We maybe lose sight of the fact that this is not usually the dynamic that plays out in most struggles for freedom. 
In his work, Peninei Halakha, Rabbi Eliezer Melamed notes the uniqueness of the exodus. In one of his introductions to the laws of Passover, he notes that, historically, when there is a rebellion, it leads to an inversion of the power dynamic and the oppressed often becomes the oppressor. Rather than an exodus, we maybe would have expected the Israelites to take over Egypt, exacting revenge upon the Egyptians and greatly consolidating their own power. Rabbi Melamed notes that “Israel, however, did not try to enslave the Egyptians, even after completely defeating them; they only sought their own freedom. This was the first time that freedom appeared in the world as a moral value” (Peninei Halakha- Laws of Pesah).
Central to the exodus, and thus to the Jewish experience and ethic, is the fundamental importance of human freedom as its own value. This is not just for Jews. Earlier in his analysis, Rabbi Melamed notes that our experiences in Egypt are supposed to awaken us to the misery and suffering that we are capable of inflicting on each other so that we can then move forward to build a world that is free of such suffering. He states that Passover “embodies the foundation of human freedom and consequently of moral responsibility for every individual and societal act.” Our exodus from Egypt tells us that the answer suffering and oppression is not to shift its focus onto the other but rather to eliminate it for everyone.   
Shabbat shalom,
Rabbi Birkeland

Women's Tefillah Group

Thank you to all who have joined us for services this year! 
Our schedule for 5785 is below:
Shabbat Parshat Beshalach - February 8
Megillat Esther Reading - March 13
Shabbat Parshat Emor - May 17
Shabbat Parshat Nasso - June 7
Shabbat Parshat Korach - June 28
If you would like to layn, lead services, or give a d'var Torah with us, or if you have questions, please be in touch!

StantonKIDS
Shabbat Programming for 5785

Happening in the City

Dear Stanton Community, 
Thank G-d in recent weeks we have been welcoming back Israeli hostages returning from Gaza. Israeli citizens, among them Americans, are still hostages in Gaza. You can find information on them and on their families' efforts to release them  here. Over 1,800 Israelis are dead with many more wounded. There are also innocent civilians caught in the line of fire in Gaza and Lebanon. 
 
This has been an unprecedented and the most deadly attack on Israel in a generation. We must take action!

​​​​​​​In addition to our prayers, we ask you to consider making a generous donation to one of the listed causes.
 
The One who makes peace on high,
may He bring peace down below to us.
Amen

ONLINE ARCHIVES

If you missed services this past shabbes, or arrived too late to hear the drasha, you can go to our archives and read a copy! 
Click here for an archive of shiurim
Click here for an archive of drashot
Click here to go to our YouTube Channel for an archive of all of our ZOOM classes