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This Week’s Torah Reading

Kedoshim

Kedoshim means “holy” and it’s what God wants us to be. This parashah consists of Leviticus 19 and 20, and is part of the Holiness Code. It covers many diverse rules. Here is an incomplete, but representative listing, of what you will find in Kedoshim:

We should be holy for God is holy, and we should try to follow God’s example.
We should revere our father and our mother.
We should observe God’s Shabbatot.
We should not make molten elilim (gods).
We should not harvest the pe’ot (corners) of a field; leave them for the poor and stranger.
We should leave the leket (forgotten harvest) of the field for the poor and stranger.
We should not take an oath using God’s name and then lie.
We should not insult the deaf and set a mikhshol (stumbling block) before the blind.
We should not take vengeance, bear a grudge, or secretly hate our family.
We should not eat blood.
We should not practice divination, soothsaying, or follow ghosts.
We should not gash our flesh as a sign of mourning.
We should rise before the elderly.
We should love the stranger for we were once strangers in the land of Egypt.
We should have honest balances and weights, and, of course, not steal.
We should not commit adultery or incest.
We should remember that God is bringing us to a land of milk and honey, and that God has set us apart from other people.

A SHABBAT THOUGHT

It takes a woman 20 years to make a man of her son, and another woman 20 minutes to make a fool of him. 

~~ Helen Rowland   ~~

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 A paradigm for peace, taking us back to 1977,
When Anwar Sadat, met the “Old Lady,” Golda Meir

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ARE TWO BLESSINGS TOO MANY?

Dear CyberRav,

My son lives out in New Mexico (is this a place for a nice Jewish boy?) and is getting married the first week in November. I want to know if there is any customary rulings or ancient traditions about when to celebrate the Aufruf. Getting the entire family together on Long Island is almost impossible, with one boy in New Hampshire, my daughter in Florida, cousins in California, and my future daughter’s-in-law family in Wisconsin. For some strange reason, many of us will be together for the Fourth of July in New Mexico (don’t ask!), and there is a shul there (again, don’t ask!), but the thought occurred to my wife that we should do the Aufruf at that time in New Mexico. I’m telling her—four months in advance of the wedding? That’s crazy. She says there’s crazier things in Judaism than that. I don’t know if this is proper. So am I crazy, is Judaism crazy, is my wife crazy…? Throw a little wisdom our way, CyberRav. My son and my future daughter-in-law (I love her to bits) deserve a proper blessing.

CYBER RAV ANSWERS

Dear Awful Aufruf Predicatment,

First of all, Mazal Tov on your son's upcoming marriage. Secondly, neither you nor your wife are crazy. Your son found a nice girl to share life with so even without an Aufruf, already he and she are blessed! As for customary rulings or ancient traditions about when to celebrate the Aufruf, I’ll tell you something interesting—the Ashkenazim bless the couple before the wedding and the Sefardim bless the couple after the wedding. Already, we see, there are options here. The fact is that there are no hard and fast rules as to when you can have an Aufruf. Aufruf is a minhag, a custom, and is not a matter of halakhah (Jewish law), though I have to tell you that your choice of the Fourth of July weekend is far more in advance of the wedding than is typical. And yet, I understand your wife—the family is together so what would be so terrible about blessing this engaged couple?

Here's my recommendation: do it twice. Do it in New Mexico when so many of the family is together, and then do it again a week or two before the wedding on Long Island which would be more in line with the traditional Ashkenazik custom.

Can you have an aufruf twice? Why not? It's a blessing and you can never be blessed too many times!

A lot of how your father-in-law will be mourned is in your hands. Whatever decision you make will be the right one.

Rabbi Rafi Rank
CyberRav

Shabbat Shalom Everyone!!

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