Weekly D’var Torah

Shabbat Shalom! I hope this finds you all well.

It’s a Friday. You’ve had a long week by anyone’s measure. You just want to go home, relax and decompress. As you pull into your driveway and get out of your car, you see your elderly neighbor eyeing an enormous box with a refrigerator in it that’s taller than you. Look, you just wanted to go inside and rest, but now there’s a voice that’s telling you to go over and help. So you go.

“Oh hi,” the neighbor says,

“Hi. Do you need any help with that?” you ask.

“No, no, no- I don’t want to bother you,” they reply.

“It’s all good,” you say reassuringly.

“Well, if you insist, sure.” the neighbor says, with a smile of gratitude on their face.

And you lug that heavy, cumbersome refrigerator up an awkward flight of stairs, huffing and puffing, muttering under your breath all the while, and even breaking a decent sweat too. You just wanted to go home, but now there’s this.

After you put the fridge in place, your elderly neighbor doesn’t hand you a check, cash, or a gift card. They simply smile that wonderful smile and say “Thank you, I couldn’t have done this without you.” At that moment you know that if those exact circumstances arose again, you would do it just the same.

And why?

Because there was this voice that told you that it was the right thing to do.

In this week’s parsha of Ki Teitzei*, we are given two simple, yet mighty commandments:

“If you see your fellow Israelite’s ox or sheep gone astray, do not ignore it; you must take it back to your peer.”[1]

“You shall do the same with that person’s donkey; you shall do the same with that person’s garment; and so too shall you do with anything that your fellow Israelite loses and you find: you must not remain indifferent.”[2]

Being moral, virtuous, kind, and upstanding is often inconvenient, time-consuming, difficult, grueling, unforgiving, and – more often than not – goes unnoticed, unrecognized, and unappreciated. Yet we are still obligated to do them because these are the signs and qualities of a tzedek/tzadeket – a truly righteous person.

Bizrat HaShem, with God’s loving guidance and help, may we always be motivated to do the right thing whether we are rewarded for it or not.

Wishing you a Good Shabbos and a great weekend.

Bivrakha,

From the desk of: Rabbi Aaron Stucker-Rozovsky

Beth El Congregation | 520 Fairmont Ave, Winchester, VA 22601

(540) 667-1889 (office)

Shabbat Shalom!

I hope this finds you all well.

In 1945, U.S. Army Master Sergeant Roddie Edmonds, the senior American POW at Stalag IX, and a gentile, was told by the German commandant to turn over all Jewish-American Soldiers in the compound to him. The next day, Edmonds instructed every one of the prisoners to report for formation. When the commandant demanded to know what was going on, Edmonds calmly replied, “We are all Jews.” When the commandant responded by pulling out his pistol and pointing it in Edmonds’ face, Edmonds, without losing his composure, said, “According to the Geneva Convention, we have to give only our name, rank, and serial number. If you shoot me, you will have to shoot all of us, and after the war you will be tried for war crimes.”[1]  The commandant walked off, and nothing happened to the Jewish Soldiers under Edmonds’ responsibility.

On July 12, 2018, in Paktia Province, Afghanistan, Jewish-American U.S. Army Ranger Sergeant First Class Christopher Andrew Celiz selflessly laid down his life when he placed himself between a medical evacuation helicopter that was extracting a wounded soldier from the battlefield and the terrorist forces who were attempting to shoot it down. He posthumously received the Congressional Medal of Honor for his incredible heroism.[2]

On October 7, 2023, Qaid Farhan Alkadi, a Bedouin Israeli was shot in the leg by Hamas and then taken hostage for 326 days after he refused to tell the terrorists “where the Jews were.”[3]

Mr. Alkadi’s, Sergeant First Class Chris Celiz’s, and Master Sergeant Roddie Edmonds’ bravery reminds me of a vital commandment we receive in this week’s portion of Shoftim*:

“Before you join battle, the priest shall come forward and address the troops. He shall say to them, “Hear, O Israel! You are about to join battle with your enemy. Let not your courage falter. Do not be in fear, or in panic, or in dread of them. For it is Adonai your God who marches with you to do battle for you against your enemy, to bring you victory.”[4]

We currently live in one of the most horrific periods of anti-Semitism in recent history, from the barbaric Hamas, Hezbollah, Houthi, and Iranian assaults on Israelis, to the unrelenting bullying, harassment, intimidation, physical attacks, and doxxing of Jewish students and faculty on college and high school campuses across the country, to the firebombings of synagogues in France and Germany.

What can we do in the face of this deluge of hate, this incomprehensible madness?

Two words: Be Brave!

We must be brave like our ancestors who stood with God in the face of their ancestors, and we must be brave like Roddie Edmonds, Chris Celiz, and Qaid Farhan Alkadi who defied the Nazis, Hamas, and all others who have hated us. We must never surrender our opinions, our beliefs, or our basic desire to live, practice, and pray openly and proudly as Jews.

Bizrat HaShem, may we draw upon the examples of such noble heroes and exhibit such courage and bravery ourselves, and may we never forget those Jews and non-Jews alike who have stood up and risked everything to defend us.

Wishing you a Good Shabbos and a weekend of peace and quiet.

Bivrakha,

From the desk of: Rabbi Aaron Stucker-Rozovsky

Beth El Congregation | 520 Fairmont Ave, Winchester, VA 22601

(540) 667-1889 (office)

Shabbat Shalom!

I hope this finds you all well.

If you’re ever in Medellin, Colombia, there’s a neighborhood named “Barrio Pablo Escobar.”[1] Yes, it’s named after that Pablo Escobar. The question begs, why? Why would the people of the area name their community after such a violent narco-trafficker who held the country hostage in his years-long wave of violence? Well, for the impoverished people of Medellin, he built schools, soccer stadiums, and health clinics.[2] To this day he remains a folk hero in Medellin, with giant murals of him painted on buildings and walls, and residents keeping shrines dedicated to his memory in their homes.[3]

So, did Escobar do good for the poor of Medellin? Yes, he did.

Were all those schools, soccer fields, and health clinics built on the blood and mangled bodies of the thousands of brave and noble Colombian politicians, judges, prosecutors, police officers, and innocent civilians and bystanders he butchered, the women and children he left widowed and orphaned, and the countless victims around the globe that he poisoned with his cocaine? Without a single, solitary doubt- yes.

In this week’s parsha of Re’eh*, we are told that if a city turns to idol worship, it should be completely destroyed (never to be rebuilt) and that no benefit should be derived from it.[4] For example, no stones from the city should be used to construct new buildings and no valuables should be brought back as a spoil or prize. In essence, everything is contaminated by idolatry and therefore needs to be consumed by fire.

These mitzvot are clear-cut, and black-and-white.

Some might argue that this is easier said than done. For instance, what if a leading cancer-hospital that saves lives everyday finds out that its leading mega-donor has made their fortune through illegal and immoral means. Are they supposed to give the money back? After all, did those ill-gotten gains not save lives?

So, at what point does the moral price tag become too high for the monetary donation?

Sometimes the answers are not easy; but yet, we still have an obligation to make a decision, believe in that decision, be able justify that decision to ourselves and God, and stand by that decision and its consequences in judgement for all time.

I often find solace in a quote by Jewish CEO and author Ben Horowitz: “Every time you make the hard, correct decision you become a bit more courageous and every time you make the easy, wrong decision you become a bit more cowardly.”[5]

May God Bless us as we wrestle with Torah.

Wishing you all a Good Shabbos and a great weekend.

Bivrakha,

From the desk of: Rabbi Aaron Stucker-Rozovsky

Beth El Congregation | 520 Fairmont Ave, Winchester, VA 22601

(540) 667-1889 (office)