Shabbat Schedule
Friday, December 9
- 06:50 am – Shacharit
- 03:50 pm – Mincha
- 03:53 pm – Candle lighting
- 08:00 pm – Men’s Class on Derech Hashem at the home of Matthew and Leah Garland, 226 Clifton Street #1 (knock on the first floor window to the left of the front porch).
Saturday, December 10
- 07:45 am – Shacharit at Salem Towers
- 08:45 am – Shacharit
- 09:19 am – Latest time for Kriat Shema
- Cancelled – Jr. Congregation
- 11:15 am – Kiddush
- 03:30 pm – Mincha
- 04:00 pm – Se’udah Shlishit
- 04:50 pm – Ma’ariv
- 05:01 pm – Shabbat Ends
December 11 – 16
Shacharit
- 08:00 am – Sunday
- 06:40 am – Monday and Thursday
- 06:50 am – Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday
Mincha
- 03:55 pm – Sunday – Thursday
- 03:50 pm – Friday
Ma’ariv
- 04:25 pm – Sunday – Thursday
To print this schedule, click here to go directly to the post, and then press ctrl-P (Windows) or cmd-P (Mac) to print it.
Weekly Words of Torah
2 Aspects of Esav
Insights into Parshat Vayishlach of Mr. Gideon Caller of Yeshivat Sha’alvim, by Rav Re’uven Ungar of Sha’alvim.
The scene is set as the two heads of completely opposed nations meet each other for the first time since Yaakov received his bracha from Yitzchak. Preceding this meeting, Yaakov davens to Hashem as he prepares with fear and anxiety for his upcoming confrontation with Esav.
“Please save me from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esav, for I fear that he come and strike me down, mother and children” (Bereshit 32:12)
There seems to be an apparent redundancy in Yaakov’s tefilla – “from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esav”. One could argue that the pasuk seems to indicate that Yaakov is asking to be rescued from two different people – his brother and from Esav. Why did Yaakov feel the need to daven for salvation from both his brother and from Esav when seemingly either one would have sufficed?
Rav Eliezer Simcha Weisz answers that these two concepts of ‘achi’ (brother) and ‘Esav’ represent two tactics employed against us as individual Jews and as klal Yisrael as a whole. In other words, Esav can have two faces. One is the enemy who will actively kill you and have pogroms against you. This is the ‘Esav’ who overtly comes against us by force with one sole aim of annihilating the Jewish nation. There is no doubt that Yaakov was davening to be saved from this Esav who seems to be the obvious enemy.
However, there is a disguise which Esav all too often uses and has the potential to be much more dangerous – this is the ‘achi’, my brother. This isn’t the Esav who kills you, but rather the Esav who ‘loves’ you. This is the enemy that masquerades as a loving brother and causes destruction while simultaneously pretending to be our friend. This Esav achieves his aim not by force, but rather through assimilation and self-destruction. “My brother” who loves me is sometimes as dangerous, if not more dangerous, as the Esav who kills me. If we lost millions of Jews to the Esav who kills us, we are losing hundreds of thousands of Jews to the Esav who ‘loves’ us – the Esav who wants to marry the children of klal Yisrael! It is clear that in our current generation, we are losing many more Jews to the passive ‘achi’, than the active ‘Esav’.
Thus, Yaakov davened to be rescued not only from the physical force of Esav, but also from the evil influence of ‘achi’ in the subsequent years of this confrontation; should Esav opt to portray himself as a loving brother. It is important to internalize that just as we do whatever is required to defend ourselves from physical dangers, it is imperative that we also appreciate the need to arm ourselves internally to fight against the spiritual threats that is ever-present in the society we live in.