Burbank Temple Emanu El - A Conservative Synagogue and Pre-School

23 Tevet 5770 – 8-9 January  2010
Torah: Exodus 1:1 - 6:1
Haftarah: (Ashkenazim) Isaiah 27:6 - 28:13; 29:22-23 ; (Sephardim) Jeremiah 1:1 - 2:3

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One Who Saves a Life ...

"But the midwives feared God, and did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, for they kept the male children alive."  Exodus 1:17

Rashi - They would supply them with food and water.

Rabbi Nissan Puchinski - The implication is that had they not supplied them with food and water, they would be considered as murderers, because preventing someone from being saved is considered similar to murder.

Mishanah Sanhedrin 4:5 - "One who takes a single human life; it is as if he destroyed an entire world.  One who saves a single human life; it is as if he saved an entire world."

In its classic form, the Kabbalistic concept of "tzimtzum" relates to God withdrawing or contracting in order to make room for the physical universe.  However, according to Rabbi Irving "Yitz" Greenberg, after the Shoah, tzimtzum was necessary in order for human beings, no longer willing or able to operate only as God's servants under an imposed mandatory covenant system, to become God's partners in a voluntary covenant.  God has "self-limited", he says, "contracting divine power in order to empower humanity."  Under this theory, every Jew is a "Jew by choice".  The purpose of the partnership agreement is "tikkun olam" - the repair of a shattered world. 

God may have withdrawn from visibly active participation in the physical world, but God is still present in healing shattered hearts and comforting the suffering.  God acts through us, as we are told in Isaiah 43:12, "You will be my witnesses."  Witnessing means undertaking action to fulfill the terms of the partnership and improving the world to its ideal state.  It is our empowerment with independent action which makes every human being truly "in the image of God".

Please, donate your time and/or money as generously as you can to organizations that feed the hungry, house the homeless, provide medical care to the needy – you get the idea. Join the partnership! Use your power to save life.