The Carnegie Shul News

Tomorrow and Saturday we celebrate Shavuos, the second of the pilgrimage festivals. It is an agricultural festival that greets the first grain harvests. Unlike Passover and Succot, we only observe 2 days for Shavuos, not a whole week. But all three festivals have a Yizkor memorial service as part of the ritual. Yizkor is conducted on the 2nd day of Shavuos and this year that falls on Shabbos. Your presence will help make a minyan and you’ll have an opportunity to say kaddish for family members who have passed.

All three pilgrimage festivals are agricultural in nature, and as such we are commanded to observe them “in their season”. However, the Torah associates historical events with Passover and Succot, none for Shavuos. For example, the Torah states specifically that we observe Passover to remember the exodus from Egypt. But, Shavuos is simply the festival of the first grain harvest. Is that the reason we tend to neglect it?

The rabbis tried to remedy that by associating Shavuos with the giving of the 10 commandments at Sinai. The Torah readings for Shavuos include the reading of the aseret hadibrot (the 10 utterances or 10 statements), and by extension the holiday celebrates Hashem giving us the entire Torah. Consequently, it is appropriate to celebrate the holiday by studying Torah. All day and night! If you are planning to “pull an all-nighter”, Dr. Block recommends this list of things to read.

I have 3 things for this posting: Torah study, yahrzeit plaques, and Rabbi Weiss. Intrigued?

Torah Study

I read recently that more Jews are studying Torah than ever in the history of our people. Why and how is that happening? Until recent times, Torah study was limited by access to sacred texts. Despite being the “people of the Book”, most Jews knew little about Torah. If you wanted to know what the Rambam or Rashi or Chizkuni thought about a particular verse in Torah, you needed to be enrolled in a yeshiva. It’s true of course that most printed copies of the Torah have commentary, and if you purchased various editions by different compilers you could have some diversity of perspective. But these days you can go to Sefaria online and find commentaries by dozens of famous rabbis, find many books on Jewish law, many different prayer books, etc. It’s really quite stunning how much is available. When you add the capability of meeting online to discuss these topics you compound the opportunities for learning and more Jews than ever are taking advantage.

For the past year and a half we have been meeting every Tuesday evening at 7:30 on Zoom. You should join us. The discussion is led by Dr. Block and lasts about an hour. We discuss the weekly parashah and occasionally digress to discussions of current holidays or customs. It’s a small time investment with a big reward, bringing you closer to Jewish knowledge, custom, and spiritually. If you are interested I will send you the Zoom link. You can send an email to the shul email address or just leave a comment to this posting.

Yahrzeit plaques

We unveil yahrzeit plaques during Yizkor service on Yom Kippur. If you are interested in buying a plaque for a family member or friend, we need to know now. We submit the orders to our vendor by Memorial Day to ensure that we get them back in time for High Holidays. You can see all the plaques we currently display by clicking on this LINK.

Rabbi Weiss

In 2011 (yes, 15 years ago) I posted a story about Carnegie rabbis. I believe it received more comments than any other posting, before or since. Most people were interested in knowing more about Rabbi Weiss, who served in Carnegie in the ’50s/’60s. You can read the post and comments at this LINK. However, I want to particularly point out that Jeffrey Weiss, the rabbi’s son, posted a comment just this past February which answers a lot of questions.

Today is Lag b’Omer, the 33rd day of counting the Omer between Passover and Shavuos. Traditionally on this day we take a break from the solemnity. It’s kind of a day off. And since it is also Cinco de Mayo, I would suggest a margarita during happy hour this afternoon. Be well everyone.

Hello everyone,

In the summer of 2024 the shul launched a new website that would help us promote the shul to folks around the Pittsburgh area who don’t know us. The website is great and if you haven’t seen it, you need to check it out (thecarnegieshul.org). However, in the process we lost our blog. Our WordPress blog wasn’t directly compatible with our new site. We struggled with this for many months; our blog was the primary method we used to communicate with our members and friends from week to week. Our new site offered a way to post news, but readers couldn’t comment. Website builders don’t really like blogs because while they present great opportunities for communication, they also open a back door for spammers and hackers.

For the past few weeks we have been working on a new solution. For those are familiar with the technical jargon, we installed our old blog as a subdomain on our new site. If you are reading this, it worked! It looks like our old site, but all the tabs take you to our new site. On our blog site you can search through old posts, search for a name or topic. Most postings focus on news or our members, history, notices of events and holidays, and what’s happening in the neighborhood. There may be some glitches. Let me know when you find them. Some of the old posts from 15 years ago may be lost forever. You can reply to this posting, or see the Contact Us tab. Also, if you know anyone who would like to get the Shul News, there is a place to subscribe on the bottom of each of our website pages.

Our website was constructed by and is maintained by Higher Images in Carnegie. They have been very helpful in getting our blog up and running once again. Be patient with us while we work out the bugs!

Be well, and do good.
Rick