בס''ד
With Tefillos for the release of all of our hostages, the safe return of
all of our chayalim, a refuah shleimah for all the injured, a nechama
for all the families, and a yeshua for all of Klal Yisrael.
Dear TDSA Family,
As we look forward to this Shabbos, we are at day 31 of the Omer leading up to Shavuos and the receipt of our Torah. We note that we are 62% of the way, which is consequently, exactly where we are in our progress on the Carry the Torch campaign honoring Morah Dena Friedman and Mrs. Leslee Morris and raising vital funds to sustain their legacy. (More on that in a minute.)
There are no coincidences as we know. Three thousand plus years ago, a process was required to be worthy of receiving the Torah. Our ancestors had to work at it. This week’s parsha—Behar—gets its name from the first passuk: And G-d spoke to Moshe at Mount Sinai. This is unusual as normally, when the Torah refers to the many conversations Hashem initiated with Moshe, the location is not sited. Why is the location mentioned here in a parsha that deals mainly with the laws of Shemita--the Sabbatical year? The short answer is that just like working the land and then allowing it to lay fallow takes a combination of hard work and faith, so too, does the process of acquiring Torah as we did at Sinai. In Hebrew the word for it is ameilus—toil—whether you are working the land or learning a tough Tosfos. Moshe may have ascended the mountain to get the Torah, but we, Am Yisroel had to make the spiritual climb.
Our friends, this week so many of you joined us in toiling for the sake of our great TDSA community. We believe that nothing could be more befitting of the sefira than working together as a team to help continue delivering Torah to our children. And while we are not all of the way there yet, we have so much to be grateful to YOU for: 110 teams (50 more than last year) have raised $622,848 (almost triple our previous record) from 1,098 donors (65% more than last year). And we are still going strong! (we had to update these numbers multiple times while writing this letter.) In the coming week, with your help we hope to finish climbing the mountain so that we can continue teaching Torah and connecting a new generation to the word of Hashem.
Have a great Shabbos,
Rabbi Meir Cohen, Miriam Cann, & Marcy Kalnitz
