Religion

Listen to our soul’s deepest voice

By Rabbi Shmuel Klatzkin Chabad of Greater Dayton

Our holidays each bring out a very particular energy, each one appropriate to the time in which it comes. Yet that energy is meant to infuse us throughout the year.

Thus, we do not stop thinking of freedom once Pesach is over, remove teshuvah (repentance) and atonement from

our minds after the High Holy Days, or forget about joy when Sukkot and Simchat Torah have passed. We aim to be permeated by those sparks throughout the entire year. The holiday is just the day when that particular energy gets a focused recharge.

So it is appropriate now, even after Shavuot, to reflect on that yom tov’s message and to internalize it. Called in the prayers The Time of the Giving of Our Torah, Shavuot speaks to us of the gift that the Torah is.

But who thinks of the law as a gift? True enough, there are a lot of other people who need to be controlled, but we ourselves? Why not stop with the message of Pesach, liberty?

Observing law is just the price we have to pay to benefit from human society. We generally accept law grudgingly: at least the laws that require us to do things we would rather not, or not to do things we really rather would do.

So what’s to celebrate? And what’s to internalize? If we are forced, we are forced.

The beginning of the answer has been noted often by the rabbis from two millennia ago in Israel and through these very pages in 21st-century Dayton.

Perspectives

As the story of the giving of guidance and coherence that that brings us together with our the Torah unfolds, the text in has been put to the test as noth- own past and future, with all Exodus 19:2 says: ing else through the millennia the imperatives that drive our

“They traveled from Refidim of human history. own lives, and with every other and they came to the wilderness For all of our mistakes and person, who like ourselves, of Sinai and they encamped for all of the horrors that the wants a wholeness within and there in the wilder- world has thrown without. ness, and he encamped at us, we are This quality permeates there…” still here, and in everything in it. Each mitzvah

As good teachers so many ways, springs from the same core. point out, in the Hebrew blessed as never Even if one is only connected original, the same word, before. with one mitzvah, but goes to encamped, appears first It is not be- its heart, one is connected with in the plural, as did all cause of a philo- them all. the words in the verse sophical idea Without army or police to to that point, then sud- alone, though the enforce it, the Torah speaks to denly changes to the Torah has plenty us now as always of a law that singular. of those. It is not flows from the source of all

Rashi, the great merely because of being. It unites inner and outer, medieval commentator, Rabbi Shmuel Klatzkin spiritual inspira- shows how getting it right and summarizes the tradi- tion, though that good in our own life is contion’s insight into that switch. is there to be found by all who nected with getting it right and Why does it switch to speak seek it. good with others. of the people as a single iden- What is extraordinary is that It shows us the way of the tity? Because at that point they the Torah also gives us law flow of life that brought us here were: “As one person, with one that is able to guide us in every and it shows us how we can heart.” aspect of life. attain the deepest of all satisfac-

True enough, our holy books Who observes all of it tion in adding to and enhancing are filled with stories of human- perfectly? And knowing the the life of which we are a part. kind’s misbehavior in general answer to that, why do we not “It all turns on affection,” and of Israel’s misbehavior in resent it or ignore it? E.M. Forster wrote a century particular. But unlike at other As long as law is conceived ago in Howard’s End. We can’t times and places, of as forced impositions by do without love. It comes before the great moment of Sinai — the We are still other people, they bind us only and after all things. But Orwell showed us the terrifying darkGiving of the here, and in as much as we ness of a world — our world Torah — began with the people so many ways, feel vulnerable to the enforcers. — where even love would be broken and enslaved to power: together, profoundly as one. That is the blessed as never before. But the Torah, from the start, has not relied on “He loved Big Brother.” In an age that has seen Orwellian horror time and again, foundation and external force, we can see the immense power the underpinning but on it being and hope of Torah. We are all of Torah, and why it has lasted. known to us as springing from greater than that which divides As with any good thing, it can the very same place as our own us, and love will never remain be misappropriated and mis- self, and the self of everyone the slave of tyrants. used. Anything that has a good else as well. Our Torah speaks that use can also be abused. As the It is what flows out of being message again and again and rabbis put it, the Torah itself can together, with ourselves and connects us with the power to be an elixir of life or an elixir of with our people, as one. Its overcome and thrive. And it the opposite. voice penetrates our isolation requires us only to listen to our

But the Torah has offered and speaks to us of a oneness own soul’s deepest voice.

Temple Beth Or Summer Kick-Off Shabbat June 25

Temple Beth Or will hold a Shabbat service in its parking lot at 6:30 p.m., Friday, June 25 to kick off summer.

The musical service will include a “To-Goneg,” boxed snacks for all participants.

Temple Beth Or is located at 5275 Marshall Road, Washington Township.

For more information, go to templebethor.com or call 937435-3400.

June • Sivan/Tammuz

Shabbat Candle Lightings

June 4: 8:43 p.m. June 11: 8:47 p.m. June 18: 8:49 p.m. June 25: 8:51 p.m.

Torah Portions

June 5, Shelach (Num. 13:1-15:41) June 12, Korach (Num. 16:1-18:32) June 19, Chukkat (Num. 19:1-22:1) June 26: Balak (Num. 22:2-25:9)

Fast of the 17th of Tammuz June 27

Commemorating numerous calamities that fell on the Jewish people on this day, this fast is observed from dawn until dusk. Among the calamities were the breach of the walls of Jerusalem by the Babylonians in 586 B.C.E. and by the Romans in 70 C.E. Marks the beginning of the Three Weeks, a period of mourning for the destruction of the First and Second Temples in Jerusalem, culminating on the Ninth of Av. Note: Because of the Covid-19 pandemic, worship schedules have been adjusted and some services are offered virtually instead. For the latest information, check with the organizations below via their websites, Facebook pages, and by calling them directly.

CONGREGATIONS

Beth Abraham Synagogue Conservative Rabbi Joshua Ginsberg Cantor/Dir. of Ed. & Programming Andrea Raizen 305 Sugar Camp Circle, Oakwood. 937-293-9520. BethAbrahamDayton.org Beth Jacob Congregation Traditional Rabbi Leibel Agar Sundays & Wednesdays, 7:09 p.m. Saturdays, 9:30 a.m. 7020 N. Main St., Dayton. 937-274-2149. BethJacobCong.org Temple Anshe Emeth Reform 320 Caldwell St., Piqua. Contact Steve Shuchat, 937-7262116, AnsheEmeth@gmail.com. ansheemeth.org Temple Beth Or Reform Rabbi Judy Chessin Asst. Rabbi/Educator Ben Azriel Fri., June 25, 6:30 p.m. 5275 Marshall Rd., Wash. Twp. 937-435-3400. templebethor.com Temple Beth Sholom Reform Rabbi Haviva Horvitz 610 Gladys Dr., Middletown. 513-422-8313. templebethsholom.net Temple Israel Reform Senior Rabbi Karen Bodney-Halasz Rabbi/Educator Tina Sobo Saturdays, June 5 & 19, 11 a.m. 130 Riverside Dr., Dayton. 937-496-0050. tidayton.org Temple Sholom Reform Rabbi Cary Kozberg 2424 N. Limestone St., Springfield. 937-399-1231. templesholomoh.com

ADDITIONAL SERVICES

Chabad of Greater Dayton Rabbi Nochum Mangel Associate Rabbi Shmuel Klatzkin Youth & Prog. Dir. Rabbi Levi Simon, Teen & Young Adult Prog. Dir. Rabbi Elchonon Chaikin. Beginner educational service Saturdays 9:30 a.m. 2001 Far Hills Ave. 937-643-0770. chabaddayton.com Yellow Springs Havurah Independent Antioch College Rockford Chapel. Contact Len Kramer, 937-572-4840 or len2654@gmail.com.