What's Happening

• All email updates are posted at www.OZNY.org/Happening
• Visit www.OZNY.org/Online for New Virtual Classes and Programs
• Join the OZ WhatsApp at www.OZNY.org/WhatsApp
• Download the OZ App at www.OZNY.org/GetApp
• To check OZ Local Zmanim, click HERE

Click HERE for Post-Passover Shopping Guide

Submit your "Views from the Pews" to Office@OZNY.org

Mazel Tov

• Rafi Murphy & Shira Klein on their engagement

Condolences

• OZ mourns the loss of our dear friend Ken Bossewitch z'l, and shares condolences with the extended Bossewitch family

Volunteers Needed

• Please contact RAS@ozny.org to help shop for the homebound

Rosh Chodesh Iyar 5780

• Remember to include Ya'aleh v'Yavoh, Hallel, and Mussaf for Rosh Chodesh

Upcoming Events - www.OZNY.org/Online

• Rabbi Schwartz's April Lunch & Learns
• Weekday Night Mishna & Maariv (now at 8pm)
• Friday, April 24 @ 6:30pm - Community Kabbalat Shabbat with Erez Cohen
• Saturday, April 25 @ 9:00pm - Havdala & Kumsitz [Zoomsitz?] with Erez Cohen
• Thursday, April 30 @ 5:00pm - Live at Five with Jane Blumenstein, LMSW
• Stay tuned for Trivia Night, Yom Ha'Atzmaut, and a brand new series with Micah Halpern!

Guest Dvar Torah by Rabbi Tsvi Blanchard, Hashkama Minyan

The first Rashi in Tazria explains the placing of the laws of birth-impurity after the impurity laws that apply to animals by citing the order of the Torah's account  of creation in Bereshit---animals before humans. Elsewhere, he notes that the Rabbis saw the structure of the mishkan, the desert sanctuary, also mirror that order of creation. Other aggadot say that humans were created last so that we would not become prideful--after all, even a mosquito was created before us. 

The Gur Aryej and Mizrachi have an extended commentary on the Rashi in Tazria. These sources occasioned the following reflection. In a shiur i would flesh all this out. If you can, have a look at these sources. In any case, I  hope that these thoughts below will stimulate your thought.  

Most of us do not want a world of chaos, disorder or seeming randomness. Instead, we want  an ordered world. To do this, we often understand and organize the world in narratives--scientific, historical, psychological, religious, mystical.  Most often we  weave these narratives. together in a roughly systematic way. Most of us , however, do not have a complete, all encompassing story of our world and what it is like. In our "big" story their are "smaller" stories about apparently different narratives that share the same structure and hence some common meaning. The story of our marriage may sound a lot like the story of our parents' marriage, or the story of the marriages of our friends, or even the story of a marriage from a novel or movie that meant a lot to us. What's important is the kernel of common meaning and values that we attribute to these stories, for example, marriage as true or failed love, or as romantic attraction, or as  one misunderstanding or missed opportunity after another.   

What is your version or versions of the following stories? Do you or could you have a common vision or set of values or shared meaning that is expressed in all three of these stories?   

The story of how the world and its structure came to be and what values , if any, this implies.

The story of what creates an anomaly, mistake, fault or failure in that structure and how to repair them.

The story of how human societies access , even commune with, what transcends  the world as we understand it. 

Shabbat Tazria Metzorah 5780 / Rosh Chodesh Iyar

FRIDAY

• 6:20pm - Plag HaMincha
• 6:30pm - ZOOM OZ Community Kabbalat Shabbat with Erez Cohen
• 7:28pm - Candle Lighting
• 7:46pm - Shkiah (Sunset)
• 8:36pm - Tzeit HaKochavim (Night Fall)

SHABBAT

• 16th Day of the Omer
• Pirkei Avot Chapter 2
• 6:01am - Netz HaChama
• 9:27am - Latest Shema
• 12:54pm - Chatzot
• 7:47pm - Shkiah
• 8:37pm - Havdalah / Tzeit HaKochavim
• 9:00pm - ZOOM Community Havdalah & Kumsitz with Erez Cohen