Shabbat Shalom ~ Nasso 2025

Shalom WJC Family,

As you may have seen in Larry Thaler’s update email, construction has started on our home in the WJC parsonage house – very exciting! Of course, when your home becomes a construction site there are inevitable disruptions. So far, the most noticeable of these changes are the massive holes in our backyard and the enormous pile of dirt that was once the ground of our backyard. As we surveyed the holes, it had us thinking about a very similar situation in the Torah:

When you build a new house, you shall make a parapet for your roof, so that no one dies in your house – to prevent anyone falling from it.  -Deuteronomy 22:8

Okay, a fence on the roof, but what does this have to do with a pit in my yard?  The rabbis extended the idea, saying:

Based on this idea in the Torah, you are also required to build the fence around a pit on your property.   -Shulchan Aruch, Hoshen Mishpat 427:7

In other words, from the principle of the parapet, the Torah teaches us the lesson that we are responsible for the safety of people in our house and on our property, whether that’s the roof, the yard, or anything in between.

I’ve been thinking a lot about this idea of safety over the last few weeks. I am sure we all have. After the murder of Sara Milgrim and Yaron Lischinsky in Washington DC two weeks ago, and now these terrible fire attacks in Boulder, how could we not be? These are indeed troubling times and I and WJC’s other clergy are always here for a conversation regarding technical questions about security or anxiety for fear that you may be feeling. Just reach out and let us know and we’ll set up a time to speak.

I am reassured by the fact that WJC is always committed to safety and security everywhere we can be, and follows all the protocols recommended at this time (even our contractor did, in fact, set up a fence around the pits in our backyard.)

The idea that we are responsible for our neighbors is part of the legacy and heritage of the Torah. It is also part of the fabric of the society we live in. That is no coincidence. Many of the best principles upon which this country was founded first appeared in the Torah – responsibility for the stranger, pursuit of peace, a universal standard of justice, just to name a few. 

As we continue our reading of the Book of Bemidbar with Parshat Nasso, it is worth remembering that many of the values we hold dear, not only as Jews, but Americans and good people, come from the text we have the privilege of reading every week in shul. It is not only a source in who we are, but also a source of pride in where we live. It continues to give me hope that better times lay ahead.

Speaking of reading the Torah in synagogue, I will miss you in shul this Shabbat. I will be in New Jersey celebrating a family bar mitzvah. These celebrations are so sweet these days, and I’m excited for this young man to take his place in the legacy of the Jewish people as an inheritor of these precious values. Meanwhile, at WJC Rabbi Dalton and Cantor Goldberg will be leading beautiful services. I hope you’ll join them and enjoy your place with us as well.

Shabbat Shalom,

RJA