Page 2 - Announcements Aug. 17

26 Old Mill Road, Great Neck, NY 11023 (516) 487-6100 Shabbat Announcements Va’etchanan 5779
affection on you and choose you because you were more sustained the love between God and a people. You hear the
numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all cadences of that love throughout the generations. It is
peoples. But it was because the Lord loved you…(Deut. 7:7- there in the book of Psalms: “You, God, are my God,
8) earnestly I seek you; I thirst for you, my whole being longs
for you, in a dry and parched land where there is no
To the Lord your God belong the heavens, even the highest water” (Ps. 63:1). It is there in Isaiah: “Though the
heavens, the earth and everything in it. Yet the Lord set His mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet My
affection on your ancestors and loved them, and He chose unfailing love for you will not be shaken nor My covenant of
you, their descendants, above all the nations—as it is peace be removed” (Is. 54:10). It is there in the siddur, in
today. (Deut. 10:14-15) The Lord your God would not listen the blessing before the Shema: “You have loved us with
to Balaam but turned the curse into a blessing for you, great love / with everlasting love.” It is there, passionately,
because the Lord your God loves you. (Deut 23:5)
in the song, Yedid Nefesh, composed in the sixteenth
The real question is how this vision is connected to the century by Safed kabbalist Elazar Azikri. It remains there in
legal, halakhic content of much of Devarim. On the one the songs composed year after year in present-day Israel.
hand we have this passionate declaration of love by God for Whether they speak of God’s love for us or ours for Him,
a people; on the other we have a detailed code of law the love remains strong after 33 centuries. That is a long
covering most aspects of life for individuals and the nation time for love to last, and we believe it will do so forever.
as a whole once it enters the land. Law and love are not Could it have done so without the rituals, the 613
two things that go obviously together. What has the one to commands, that fill our days with reminders of God’s
do with the other? That is what David Brooks’ remark presence? I think not. Whenever Jews abandoned the life
suggests: commitment is falling in love with something and of the commands, within a few generations they lost their
then building a structure of behavior around it to sustain identity. Without the rituals, eventually love dies. With
that love over time. Law, the mitzvoth, halakhah, is that them, the glowing embers remain, and still have the power
structure of behavior. Love is a passion, an emotion, a to burst into flame. Not every day in a long and happy
heightened state, a peak experience. But an emotional marriage feels like a wedding, but even love grown old will
state cannot be guaranteed forever. We wed in poetry but still be strong, if the choreography of fond devotion, the
we stay married in prose. Which is why we need laws, ritual courtesies and kindnesses, are sustained. In the vast
rituals, habits of deed. Rituals are the framework that keeps literature of halakhah we find the ‘how’ and ‘what’ of
love alive. I once knew a wonderfully happy married couple. Jewish life, but not always the ‘why.’ The special place of
The husband, with great devotion, brought his wife Sefer Devarim in Judaism as a whole is that here, more
breakfast in bed every morning. I am not entirely sure she clearly than almost anywhere else, we find the ‘why.’
needed or even wanted breakfast in bed every morning, but Jewish law is the structure of behavior built around the
she graciously accepted it because she knew it was the love between God and His people, so that the love remains
homage he wished to pay her, and it did indeed keep their long after the first feelings of passion have grown old.
love alive. After decades of marriage, they still seemed to Hence the life-change idea: if you seek to make love
be on their honeymoon.
undying, build around it a structure of rituals – small acts
Without intending any precise comparison, that is what the of kindness, little gestures of self-sacrifice for the sake of
vast multiplicity of rituals in Judaism, many of them spelled the beloved – and you will be rewarded with a quiet joy, an
out in the book of Deuteronomy, actually achieved. They inner light, that will last a lifetime.

Great Neck Yoetzet Halacha Lisa Septimus
Welcomes your questions about mikvah,
observance of taharat mishpacha (halacha relating
to married life) and women’s health, as it connects
to Jewish law. Reach out to her at:
Phone: 516.415.1111
Email: greatneckyoetzet@gmail.com.
Great Neck Synagogue
26 Old Mill Road, Great Neck , NY 11023
516-487-6100

Rabbi Dale Polakoff, Rabbi
Rabbi Ian Lichter, Assistant Rabbi
Dr. Ephraim Wolf, z”l, Rabbi Emeritus
Yitzy Spinner, Cantor
Eleazer Schulman, z”l, Cantor Emeritus
Rabbi Sholom Jensen, Youth Director
Zehava & Dr. Michael Atlas, Youth Directors
Mark Twersky, Executive Director
Dr. James Frisch, Assistant Director
Erran Kagan, President
Harold Domnitch, Chairman of the Board
Lisa Septimus, Yoetzet Halacha 516-415-1111