Parshat Haazinu

One of the most tragic moments in Western civilization came when Christians began distinguishing between what they called the Old Testament G-d of vengeance as opposed to the New Testament G-d of love. This is not a small error. One trembles to think how many Jews lost their lives because of it. It survives today, even among good and sensitive people. There is hardly a week when I do not see some reference to it in the national press. It is one of those taken-for-granted assumptions that lie buried so deep within a culture that rarely if ever are they examined in the clear light of day.

September 29, 2012 13 Tishrei, 5773

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and Christianity are so different that they cannot be seen as worship of the same G-d. Therefore Christianity would have to stand on the New Testament alone. The Old Testament could not, for Christians, be sacred scripture. The Marcionite option was rejected and branded a heresy. vengeance (Lev. 19: 18). He commands forgiveness, as Joseph forgave his brothers who sought to kill him and as we, on Judaisms holiest day, ask Him to forgive us. To quote Maimonides: As long as one nurses a grievance and keeps it in mind, one may come to take revenge. The Torah therefore emphatically warns us not to bear a grudge, so that the impression of the wrong shall be wholly obliterated and no longer remembered. This is the right principle. It alone makes society and human interaction (yishuv ha-aretz u-masaan umatanan shel bnei adam zeh im zeh) possible(Hilkhot Deot 7: 8). Note that Maimonides talks about human interaction, not Jewish interaction. He means this as a general rule for all humanity. However, this weeks sedra contains lines (and there are many others elsewhere, in both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament) that are difficult to reconcile with an ethic of nonrevenge: I lift My hand to heaven and declare: As surely as I live forever, when I sharpen My flashing sword and My hand grasps it in judgment, I will take

It follows therefore that if vengeance is wrong, it could not have been commanded by G-d not to Christians, and Times not to Jews. If it was commanded, we must be able Candle Lighting 6:23 pm to make some moral sense of it, whether we are Jews or Friday Mincha 6:25 pm Christians. The idea that G-d can change His mind on Hashkama 8:00 am something as fundamental as this must undermine all faith. Parsha Shiur 8:30 am For if we believe we are commanded anything at all by Main Minyan 9:00 am G-d, we must believe that G-d, a decade, a century from now Beit Midrash 9:15 am will not change His mind and Let us state a proposition permit what He had previously Teen Minyan 9:30 am so obvious that it should forbidden or forbid what He go without saying. had previously permitted. And Shiur 5:15 pm According to Christianity, if we believe we are beloved of the G-d of the Old G-d we must believe that this Mincha 6:15 pm Testament and the G-d love, too, will last that G-d of the New is the same will not cast us off in favor of Shabbat Ends 7:30 pm G-d. If He were not, the someone else, at some time whole structure of else. For G-d is faithful Sunday Sept. 30 7:30/8:30 am Christianity would meaning, He does not go back (Sukkot Eve) crumble and fall. There on His word. A god who is See schedule on page 3 was one thinker faithless would not be a god Marcion in the second worthy of worship. Latest Times for century who reached Shema/ Shmoneh Esrei the alternative In fact, as I pointed out in conclusion, namely that earlier studies, G-d forbids 9:48/10:47 am the values of Judaism September 29

October 6

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Next Shabbat Vezos Haberachah Candle Lighting Mincha 6:12 pm 6:15 pm

Kiddush is sponsored by Mahnaz & Shahram Golpanian in honor of the birthday of their son David Golpanian

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Shabbat Announcements Parshat Haazinu 5773

vengeance on My adversaries and repay those who hate Me . . . Rejoice, O nations, with His people, for He will avenge the blood of His servants; He will take vengeance on His enemies and make atonement for His land and people.

by the experience of living and teaching in the former Yugoslavia throughout the ethnic wars of the 1990s. Real confrontation with violence makes one think differently about biblical texts. What Volf goes on to say next are remarkable for their brutal candor: My thesis that the practice of nonviolence requires a belief in divine vengeance will be Three thinkers, Jan Assmann, the Jewish scholar Henri unpopular with many Christians, especially theologians in the Atlan, and the Christian theologian Miroslav Volf, have West. To the person who is inclined to dismiss it, I suggest something deeply insightful to say about Divine imagining that you are delivering a lecture in a war zone . . . vengeance. Assmann points out a fundamental Among your listeners are people whose cities and villages difference between the Hebrew Bible and other ancient have been first plundered, then burned and leveled to the civilizations. In the others, the human king takes on the ground, whose daughters and sisters have been raped, whose attributes of a god. The anger of the king is the anger of fathers and brothers have had their throats slit. The topic of the god: the latter legitimates the former. In avenging the lecture: a Christian attitude to violence. The thesis: we himself against his enemies, the king is doing gods should not retaliate since God is perfect non coercive love. work. Violence receives a religious sanction. In the Soon you would discover that it takes the quiet of a suburban Hebrew Bible, by contrast, there is a profound and home for the birth of the thesis that human nonviolence unbridgeable distance between the human king and G-d. corresponds to Gods refusal to judge. In a scorched land, Anger is theologized and thus transferred . . . from soaked in blood of the innocent, it will invariably die. And as earth to heaven. one watches it die, one will do well to reflect about many other pleasant captivities of the liberal mind. Atlan argues likewise, suggesting that the best way to rid the world of the violent sacred is to reject it onto a These are words that, to me, have the ring of truth as well as transcendence. The transcendence of violence results honesty. I think of the Jews of the Middle Ages, who saw in its being expelled from the normal horizon of things. their fellow Jews accused of killing Christian children to drink In other words vengeance is removed from human their blood, of poisoning wells, desecrating the host and calculation. It is G-d, not man, who is entitled to spreading the plague (the classic work is Joshua exercise it. To be sure, there are times when G-d Trachtenberg, The Devil and the Jews), and then murdered commands human beings to act on His behalf the en masse in the name of the G-d of love. We can still hear battles against the Midianites and the Amalekites are their responses: they are recorded for us in many of the two obvious examples. But once prophecy ceases, as it lamentations, kinot, we say on the 9th Av. has done since late Second Temple times, so too does violence in the name of G-d. Yes, they appeal to G-ds vengeance, which is to say, to G-ds Volf agrees with this analysis, and adds that in a world of violence we are faced with an inescapable alternative: either G-ds violence or human violence. He adds: Most people who insist on G-ds nonviolence cannot resist using violence themselves (or tacitly sanctioning its use by others). They deem the talk of G-ds judgment irreverent, but think nothing of entrusting judgment into human hands . . . And so violence thrives, secretly nourished by belief in a G-d who refuses to wield the sword. Volf, who won the 2002 Grawemeyer Award for his book Exclusion and Embrace, from which these words are taken, is a native Croatian whose theology was shaped justice. But Jews did not seek to take vengeance. That is something you leave to G-d. There is a justice we will not see this side of the end of days. In the meantime, it is sufficient to live, and affirm life, and seek no more than the right to be true to your faith without fear no more than the right to live and defend that selfsame right for your children. The search for perfect justice is not for us, here, now. It is as Moses taught the Israelites in the great song he sang at the end of his life something that faith demands we leave to G-d, who alone knows the human heart, who alone knows what is just in a world of conflicting claims, and who will establish perfect justice at a time, and in a way, of His choosing, not ours. In a world of ethnic conflict, fuelled by sometimes deadly religious fervor, it is a truth in need of re-instatement. There are things we must leave to G-d. Otherwise we will find ourselves in the condition of humanity before the Flood, when the world was filled with violence and G-d was grieved that He had made man on the earth, and His heart was filled with pain. Vengeance belongs to G-d. It must not be practiced by human beings in the name of G-d.

Great Neck Synagogue Shabbat Activities Program

Dale Polakoff, Rabbi Ian Lichter, Assistant Rabbi Dr. Ephraim Wolf ,zl, Rabbi Emeritus Zeev Kron, Cantor Eleazer Schulman, zl, Cantor Emeritus Rabbi Sholom Jensen, Youth Director Mark Twersky, Executive Director Rabbi Avraham Bronstein, Program Director Dr. Scott Danoff, President Harold Domnitch, Chairman of the Board

Rabbi Dale & Ellen Polakoff want to thank everyone for their good wishes on the birth of Nadav Avraham Hoffman, son of Eitan & Jessica Hoffman. We also want to welcome our children Lior & Aliza Tor who are visiting from Israel. We hope you have the chance to meet them.

SUKKOT SCHEDULE

Sunday, September 30 Candle Lighting Mincha Kiddush after Monday, October 1 Sukkot l Hashkama Main Shul Beit Midrash Mincha Candle lighting after 8:00 am 9:00 am 9:15 am 6:20 pm 7:17 pm 6:19 pm 6:20 pm 7:18 pm

Tuesday, October2, Sukkot ll Hashkama Main Shul Beit Midrash Mincha Yom Tov ends after 8:00 am 9:00 am 9:15 am 6:20 pm 7:24 pm

Wed., Thurs., Fri., October 3,4,5 1st Minyan 2nd Minyan Mincha Behold! This is the fast that I would choose Share your food with the hungry Dont turn away from a fellow human being. GREAT NECK SYNAGOGUE announces KOL NIDRE NIGHT FOOD DRIVE Each family member is asked to bring one food item to the Synagogue on Kol Nidre night, Tuesday evening, Sept. 25, 2012 CHEERIOS PASTA (O-U) CANNED FRUIT (O-U) DIAPERS Drop-off containers will be available at all Synagogue entrances The food will be donated to ONEG SHABBOS To help Jews in need. 6:30 am 7:45 am 6:20 pm

Isaiah

ANNOUNCEMENTS
GNS UPCOMING EVENTS
SUNDAY BREAKFAST The Sunday Breakfast is sponsored by Cindy & Morris Hodkin in memory of his father Louis Hodkin, zl. GNS TALMUD TORAH The GNS Talmud Torah is a full Jewish after school program dedicated to excellence in an engaging and respectful learning environment in which Jewish children can become proud, caring, responsible, and dedicated members of the Jewish people and American society. The Talmud Torah meets weekly on Mondays and Wednesdays from 4:30 to 6:30 pm. As part of the expanded Talmud Torah program, we offer a special MATAN program for Bat-Mitzvah aged girls. The class is taught by Morah Netta Jansenson, an outstanding faculty member of NSHA, who is known for her creativity and warmth. The program will meet on Wednesday evenings from 5:30 to 7:00 pm and will begin after the Sukkot holiday in mid Oct. for 12 classes to be completed by the end of January. Please contact the Synagogue office to register your child.

WITHIN OUR FAMILY Mazal Tov to Rabbi Dale & Ellen Polakoff on the birth of a grandson, Nadav Avraham born to Ellens children Eitan & Jessica Hoffman. Mazal Tov to Farla Frumkin on becoming the President of the Sisterhood of Great Neck Synagogue. Mazal Tov to Alice & Brian Boczko on the birth of a granddaughter Eliana Itta born to their children Ariel & Jeremy Boczko. Mazal Tov also to big brother Moshe Yosef and big sister Rachel.
GNS ANNUAL FALL BLOOD DRIVE GNS is sponsoring its Annual Fall Blood Drive on Sunday, Oct. 28th from 8:15am-2:15 pm in the gym. Everyone who is 16 or older and weighs 110 pounds or more and who feels well and healthy can donate blood and help save the life of a friend or neighbor. If you are unable to donate, you can still help by volunteering the day of the drive or by making phone calls in advance. Donating blood or volunteering to help with calls in advance or on the day is also a great opportunity for your young folks to earn community service credit. Our goal with this years drive is 75 pints donated. Please help save three people with your donation its a wonderful Mitzvah! Please contact Al Leiderman 482-0628. COMMUNITY UPCOMING EVENTS MIKVAH FOR MEN The North Shore Mikvah will be open for men only on Erev Yom Kippur, Sept. 25th from 5AM-3PM. Men must bring their own towels. The cost is $30.00. Please contact Lisa Stein at 646 251 6409 or Malka Ismach at 917 373 4883. SUKKAH DECORATING Volunteers needed to decorate the Sukkah on Friday, Sept. 28. Please call the office. COMMUNITY CALENDAR When planning a simcha, please check the community calendar as well as the Synagogue Calendar to avoid conflicts.

GNS MENS CLUB UPCOMING EVENTS WED. OCT 24: Co-sponsored with the GNS Sisterhood, a talk by Rabbi Elimelech Goldberg of Detroit, on "Stress Management for Adults". Rabbi Goldberg tours the country lecturing on the subject. He is also a co-founder of the "Kids Kicking Cancer" program. SUN. OCT 28: The Mens Club semi-annual Blood Drive. Thanks to Al Liederman for organizing the Blood Drives. SUN. Nov 4: Together with Dos Yiddish Vort, a bus trip to NYC to the Yiddish Theatre to see "The Golden Land", a professional musical in both English and Yiddish. A light dinner will be provided after the performance. Cost is $65 per person (includes bus, theater and dinner). Checks to GNS Mens Club. SISTERHOOD EVENTS Our first event, on Wed. night, Oct. 24th, 8 PM, held together with the Men's club, is a talk by Rabbi Elimelech Goldberg, from Wayne State University School of Medicine. He is the founder of Kids Kicking Cancer. A black belt in the martial arts, he has created an international program of martial arts therapy for very sick children and stress management seminars for adults. We look forward to this informative seminar! Thank you to Pam Bilfeld for organizing this event. SISTERHOOD ANNUAL DINNER Sisterhood dinner this year will be on Wednesday night, Nov. 7th, 2012. We are so excited to present our speaker, Rachelle Weisberger, author of "Biblical Beauty" to discuss the integration of biblical and historical perspectives with practical advice. We are looking for volunteers to collect beauty-themed raffle prizes - salon gift certificates, makeup samples, spa-related items, etc. Sponsorships are available - Gold - $72, Silver - $36, bronze - $18. If you are able to help, please email Judy Lillien, syny98@gmail.com Thank you to Judy Lillien for chairing this event! SAVE THE DATE - our next Sisterhood meeting will be held on Wed. night, Oct. 31st, 7 pm at GNS. Drop off your kids at Pizza and Parsha, and come on over! The sisterhood is selling Helen Nash's new cookbook New Kosher Cuisine. This is her third cookbook and sure to be as big a hit as her prior efforts. Our discounted price is $35, and a portion of the proceeds will be donated to the Sisterhood. Please send in your checks to either Farla Frumkin or Vivian Kron ASAP! SHATNEZ The Scholars Kollel of Great Neck, together with The Great Neck Synagogue, are happy to announce that the following arrangement has been made with Efraims tailoring, 115 Middle Neck Road. The first 100 members of the synagogue who bring in a suit for tailoring will receive free shatnez testing. We hope that many of you will take advantage of this offer. Every mitzvah helps.

Y A H R Z E I T

Saturday, 13 Tishrei Jeffrey Freedman for George Freedman Gladys Moslin for Morris Kimmel Mitchell J. Siegel for David Siegel Sunday, 14 Tishrei Jack Lipsky for Bill Lipsky Monday, 15 Tishrei Henry Katz for Maurice Fischer Henry Katz for Rebecca Fischer Tuesday, 16 Tishrei Robin Bours for Bernard Siegel Drora Brody for Nissim Yeffet Sharon Goldwyn for Morris Goldwyn Jerry Siegelman for Morris Siegelman Meyer Singer for Celia Singer Florence Spira for Sydney Samson Wednesday, 17 Tishrei Drora Brody for Zecharia Yeffet Howard Lorber for Benjamin Lorber Michael Maller for Rose Maller Thursday, 18 Tishrei Roslyn Korman for Samuel Korman Barbara Shaw for Hyman Schwartz Fay Smith for Mildred Seligmann Friday, 19 Tishrei Karen Ben-Sorek for Clarisse Perez bat Aharon