Lech Licha Excerpts

לך לך

Shabbat Shalom

…The gabbai (collector and assistant to all congregants) announcing as though he is going to give a speech. We are doing Rishon on page. We know. We can figure it out ourselves. It is the beginning of the Torah reading. Most of us have been doing this for years. Same reading every year…Are you running for president of the congregation?...

Prayer for Trump winning. Whoever wins, this shule will still have no funds. None of you will tithe anything….

(12:5) Avraham ‘took all the inheritance they inherited and all the souls they made in Charan.’ You make the souls. You make the community. If any of us were to leave Topeka, there would be no souls taken. I don’t think one person here has a heart they would take either. You would definitely take your inheritance and the dues you haven’t paid.

We are going to ask the Marks family to take the quilt that they made in their home, along with the rest of their Chaburah’s (study group’s) arts and crafts projects.

I have nothing I inherited here, I am quitting. I am moving to Israel and taking nobody. Even my children have been affected by you….

The disbanding of Chaburahs. The little groups have done no good. The homemade Challahs are tasteless. We should all be giving Zingers our business. They are an excellent bakery. It is more meaningful to purchase from them, then to get the crusty….

It is about Leaving your home and purchasing pastries….Too much time. That is why these study groups start up.

You don’t even study. You make stuff. It is like your little Chaburah laboratories. It isn’t safe for community

And now I have to answer questions about Navi. Who knows the Prophets? No rabbi should have to answer these questions…

Later in the Torah portion, (14:22-23) Abraham doesn't take anything from the kind of Sodom, who insists he takes stuff. Why? so that he can't say, 'I made Avraham rich.' Where you get your money from is of importance. What really is your inheritance?

You have given me nothing. I have received nothing from this congregation. The salary is from H.' And yet, you still won’t give me a raise. Instead, you spend money on Challahs, who are making nobody rich…

(14:24) Avraham continues to explain that ‘…Only what the young have eaten and the share of the men who accompanied me.'

I can't control what the children need. They definitely don’t need a page announcer thinking they are the president elect….The raise is not for me Bernie. I get nothing for this congregation. It is for the children…I have to pay the shop owners who we purchase from, Bernie. Yes. They are a company. They accompany me.

(15:1) H' tells Avraham to not fear, for 'I will guard over you and your reward is much.'

And I fear this congregation will go to pot. With the chaburas taking over the leadership. And it will.

(15:2-3) Avraham complains that there is nothing that H' can give to him, as he has no children.

This doesn't mean that you should be giving the shule's food that has been set aside for seudah shelishit (the third Shabbat meal) for your child, because you forgot the Ziploc Cheerios bag at home…It is about having meaning in life. And I cannot find that in anything this new Chaburah movement has started. Now everybody in the shule thinks they are important…It is the worst thing that ever happened in this congregation…

H’ can give me nothing, if the gabbai becomes the president of the shule…This congregation gave me nothing.