Parshat T’tzaveh/Shabbat Zakhor

This week’s parashah, T’tzaveh, describes the garments that the kohen gadol, the high priest, wore “for honor and for glory (l’khavod u-l’tifaret).” It reminds us of a time when holiness resided in a person, the kohen, and a physical location, the Temple.

Every Shabbat, in the final blessing after the haftarah, we quote that same phrase — “l’khavod u-l’tifaret (for honor and for glory).” We apply those words not to the kohen, but to Shabbat, not to a holy person but to a holy time.

After the destruction of the Temple, Judaism took the holiness that had resided in the Temple and the priests and transferred it to sacred time. Now, instead of holy people in a holy place, we have a holy day. As Abraham Joshua taught, Shabbat is our “sanctuary in time,” which is accessible to all of us whoever and wherever we are. Together, may we always work to make Shabbat a source of “honor and glory.”

• Shabbat services at The New Shul are on Friday evenings from 6 to 7 pm and on Saturday mornings from 9 am to 12 noon. The kiddush this Shabbat is sponsored by The New Shul community.
• Childcare is available from 10 am to noon on Shabbat mornings. Beyond Bim Bom I, our learning service for grades K to 1, is from 10:15 to 11:00 am this Shabbat. Parashah study for teens is from 10:15 to 11:15 am.
• Purim begins this Saturday night, February 23. Join us at 7:30 pm for our Megillah reading and shpiel (“The Blues Brothers Purim”). The Megillah will be read again on Sunday morning during minyan.
• Minyanim during the week are on Sunday mornings at 9:30 am and on Wednesday mornings at 7 am.