What's Happening

Help us close the Fiscal Year!

• Check Your Account Balance & Support our Shul by Clicking HERE.

• All email updates are posted at www.OZNY.org/Happening

• 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

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

Minyan Update

• Click HERE to access the RSVP form.
• Minyanim have resumed under the guidelines of the CDC, DOH, and OU/RCA. Limited minyanim are operating and filling at capacity.
• Visitors to the building must wear a mask on premises. Violators will be asked to leave or temporarily forfeit the ability to participate.
• You must be pre-registered for a minyan. Currently Members observing Kaddish or Yarzheit will have priority. If you are NOT pre-registered, you will NOT be allowed to enter.
• Rabbi Schwartz is emphatic that absolutely no one should feel any pressure to participate at this point.

Make a BIG Difference...

• ...with a SMALL monthly contribution at the OZ Online Pushke

• www.OZNY.org/Monthly

Rabbi Schwartz's New Zoom Summer Series:

Calamity & Consolation - The Haftorahs of Jeremiah & Isaiah

• Monday at 8:00pm
• https://www.ozny.org/event/Haftorah2020

Psychological Insights into Parshat HaShavua

• with Rabbi Tsvi Blanchard (Hashkama Minyan)
• Sunday at 6:15pm
• Zoom info at www.OZNY.org/Event/Blanchard

Youth Events

• www.OZNY.org/Youth

ISRAEL NEEDS YOUR SUPPORT

• Development Corporation for Israel/Israel Bonds ranks among Israel’s most valued economic and strategic resources, with a record of proven success spanning nearly 70 years. Praised for its dependability, the Bonds organization has helped build every sector of Israel’s economy. Partnering in Israel’s success story through investment in Israel bonds is global in scope.  
• Proceeds from the sale of Israel bonds have played a decisive role in Israel’s rapid evolution into a groundbreaking, global leader in high-tech, green-tech and biotech.
• Member FINRA
• Contact our synagogue representative, Robert Lunzer at 646-523-1939 or robert.lunzer@israelbonds.com or visit Israelbonds.com for current offerings.

Volunteers Needed

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

OZ Online Opportunities - www.OZNY.org/Online, www.OZNY.org/Events

• Daf Yomi Daily Conference Call

• Zoom TNLP on Tuesdays starts at 7:30pm

• Zoom Discover Judaism (Wednesdays) starts of 6:45pm

• Stay Tuned for More... Events!

Parshat Matos Masei 5780

Shabbat Chazak - Shabbat Mevorchim

Friday Night

• 6:40pm - Plag Minyan (RSVP Required)

• 6:52pm - Plag HaMincha

• 8:06pm - Candle Lighting

• 8:15pm - Zman Minyan (RSVP Required)

• 8:24pm - Shkiah (Sunset)

• 9:14pm - Tzeit HaKochavim (Night Fall)

Shabbat Day

• 5:40am - Netz HaChama

• 7:30am - Hashkama Minyan (RSVP Required)

• 9:15am - Minyan (RSVP Required)

• 9:21am - Latest Shema

• 1:02pm - Chatzot

• 8:15pm - Minyan (RSVP Required)

• 8:24pm - Shkiah

• 9:14pm - Havdalah / Tzeit HaKochavim

Rosh Chodesh Av

• Tuesday Night & Wednesday
• Ya'aleh v'Yavoh recited

Weekday Minyanim 

• Sunday: 8:00am & 8:15pm
• Monday - Friday: 6:00am, 7:00am & 8:00am, 6:40pm & 8:15pm

Rabbi's Blanchard's Parsha Reflection

Let's think about the power of human speech.  We can start with Numbers 30:2ff which presents laws of vows.  In traditional sources, making a "vow"  means that we take something that was permitted for our use and deliberately use language to make it forbidden for our use--- "this cake, until now I could eat it, from now on,  it is forbidden to me."  From our point of view, we alter the nature or meaning of the object. It was "neutral", we could do with it what we wanted, Now, it has become something we can not use. 

Why would we make a material object forbidden to us?  Maybe we are on a diet and want to strengthen our resolve to do without it. We speak  a vow that makes fattening foods out of bounds. Or, we want to sanctify something, give it a special holiness. We speak a vow that turns it into something that can be used solely for sacred purposes.  Perhaps, we want these particular rings to serve as a symbol of our marriage and so we "vow" that they are our wedding ring. Or, if we are less noble or more angry, we want to create a distance between ourselves and others, so we "vow" that their property is off limits to us--- so that we can never visit with them or eat a meal with them again. It was these negative kinds of vows, as well as the possibility that we might fail to keep our word, that brought Jewish tradition to discourage the making of vows. 

Speech can also be a mistake. Can we correct a " speech" mistake?  Can we, for example, correct having made a vow for the wrong reasons or a vow that has unforeseen  negative consequences? If we regret that we made the commitment, we often turn to people whose wisdom we trust. We talk it through with them, and sometimes even give them the power to "annul" our vow--  for example, we give them the power to make us feel that, since we would never have made the vow if we had known the  the damage that keeping it would bring about, we no longer required to keep that vow. 

Notice: Human speech is a social reality; we do not vow in our own private language.  This is the power of human speech: it creates personal and social realities and in doing so it can support the best in us or amplify the worst. Clearly, we need to be careful about what we "vow". Even more, we need to be careful about how we use speech to construct our world, its limits and its possibilities.