Ahavat Olam Synagogue welcomes everyone to join us online via Zoom for thoughtful, moving Shabbat evening prayers on May 27, 2022 at 7:30pm, mostly sung, much in Hebrew, some in English, some in the language of the heart and in the speech of the angels.

Please join us if you can: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86731808237?pwd=T094RTFrRTdOSW5iME12Q2dMUkRoZz09

The weekly parshah (Torah portion) is Bechukotai (Leviticus 26:3-27:34). The Eternal promises blessings on the Children of Israel if we keep the Divine commandments, devastation if we don’t. These lists of apparent rewards and punishments have long been a source of grave difficulty for those of us (including many of our Sages of old) who find the idea of a disciplinarian Divinity troubling, to say the least. In these days of looming climate catastrophe, though, one can see the litany of disasters in another light: as the natural accumulated consequences of accumulated human actions. “I will make your skies like iron and your earth like copper” seems less like a vindictive threat, more like a straightforward description of life under the “heat dome” we’re busy manufacturing. It’s no more Divine “revenge” than falling to the ground is Divine retribution for jumping out a window…

If you have questions, please write to info@ahavat-olam.ca.

https://www.facebook.com/events/1169602770471936

[Photo by Laura Vinck on Unsplash: skies like iron.]