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HEBREW TABERNACLE CONGREGATION June 5, 2010 D’var Torah
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Samuel Kelleher became a BarMitzvah on Saturday, June 5, 2010. Sam is currently in the 7th grade at City College Academy of the Arts. He has been through the Hebrew Tabernacle Hebrew School since Kitah Aleph. Sam plays football and plans on attending football camp this summer. He also enjoys working with (and eating) food, and has been known to watch WWF Wrestling. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Shabbat Shalom. This week’s Torah portion is called Parshat
Shelach Lecha. The parsha focuses on
the twelve spies, sent by Moses to spy out the Promised Land. Ten of the spies report that it is
impossible to make it to the Promised Land because the people that live there
were too strong and powerful. The
spies said that they felt like grasshoppers next to them. But the other two
spies, Joshua and Caleb, said that they were going into a land flowing with
milk and honey. Although settling in
the Promised Land won’t be easy, it is still possible to succeed if the
Israelites show courage and determination. God was mad. Since God brought the children of Israel
out of Egypt, the Israelites should trust God’s ability to help them in the
Promised Land. Because they lost their
trust, God wanted to kill them. Moses stood
up to God and convinced God not to kill the Jewish people. I am impressed that
someone would stand up to God because God is almighty and powerful. Moses had a lot of guts. But even the first Jew stood up to God. His name was Abraham. Abraham stood up to God because God wanted
to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. Abraham
bargained with God. If God could find
fifty good people in Sodom and Gomorrah, then God would not destroy Sodom and
Gomorrah. Little by little, Abraham
lowered the number of decent people that had to live in these two cities so
that God’s mind would be changed.
Finally, God agrees to save the cities if Abraham finds as few as ten
people. In modern society,
there are people who follow the examples of Abraham and Moses. They stand up to a bigger, more powerful
person or they stand up to authority figures.
It is really hard to stand up to anyone for justice. But I have.
A couple of years ago, my friends were making fun of a new kid in my class. Instead of joining them, I stood up to my
friends and told them to leave him alone.
He hadn’t done anything wrong to hurt us, and didn’t deserve their
teasing. It was very hard to sum up
the courage to stand up to my friends.
But I knew what they were doing was wrong. Like Moses who spoke up against God and
preventing the killing of many Israelites, I stood up to my friends to prove
a point. I would like to
conclude by thanking my Mom. She has
been so supportive of me and has been there every step of the way during this
long journey. Next, I would like to
thank all of my aunts and uncles from both sides of my family. They are the best and have also been a big
help along this bumpy road. I would
especially like to thank Grandma Bea for making my beautiful tallit bag,
tallit, and yarmulke. I would also
like to thank Cantor Pincus for helping me with some of the chanting and
Rabbi Gale for providing ideas for writing my speech. I would like to thank Katherine Muller for
taking Rabbi Gale’s suggestions and helping me to put my thoughts on paper. Finally, I would like to thank Sandy Horowitz
for teaching me my Torah and Haphtarah portions. |
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