TBE Bar/Bat Mitzvah Commentary: Jeremy Young on Nitzavim Vayelech

Shabbat Shalom!

When I first sat down with the Rabbi to write this speech, I wondered if I could really actually relate Torah to real life. As it turns out, it’s pretty relatable!

So here goes…

It happened in the fall, about 5 years ago.

I had always loved playing sports, but was basically mediocre at basketball, baseball… and don’t even get me started about soccer!

But on that day 5 years ago, which happened to be “Bring a Friend Day,” my good friend Miles brought me to my first ever hip hop class – and immediately I was hooked. 

Why did I come to love dance so much? 

For one thing, it gives me the chance to express something deep inside, and even when I’m on the stage, I truly dance with a feeling that no one is watching.

Also, it gives me the chance to do something a little different; not only to march to the beat of a different drummer – but to dance to it as well!

But one of the best parts about being a dancer is dancing at home and watching my Dad, Andrew and Marissa try to copy my moves. I love them, but let’s just say, they have other strengths! 

Sad to say, I wasn’t so good at hip hop at first, but I didn’t realize it until I tried out for a selective performance group.  I was devastated when I didn’t make it.

Fortunately, Jimmy, Liana and Monica, the teachers who conducted the tryout four years ago and who are still my teachers today, gave me lots of encouragement, telling me that I should never give up and always believe in myself.   They said I would come back the next year even better.

I took this to heart and I practiced a lot, and the next year, I made it into the performance group.  And, this year, I’ve been added to an advanced competition team. 

In Nitzavim, one of my Torah portions today, Moses talks to the people about God’s teaching, saying in chapter 30 of Deuteronomy,

  כִּי הַמִּצְוָה הַזֹּאת, אֲשֶׁר אָנֹכִי מְצַוְּךָ הַיּוֹם--לֹא-נִפְלֵאת הִוא מִמְּךָ, וְלֹא רְחֹקָה הִוא.

“For this instruction, which I command you this day, it is not too hard for you, neither is it far off.”

The Torah then continues, saying “Lo B’Shamayim Hee,” “It’s not in the heavens.” Meaning, it’s not beyond our reach.  In other words, what the Torah instructs us is not beyond our abilities to accomplish, although lots of effort is needed – but the spiritual rewards of accepting the laws of the Torah, of living a Jewish life, are so worth the effort.

Just as dancing for me has been at times fun, challenging, hard, overwhelming, and worthwhile, I know that following the teachings of the Torah and being a Jew is not just simple and easy.  But, just as dancing ended up being something that I can learn and grow with, and keep striving to become better and better, the lessons of the Torah are also not things that you just learn once and then move on.   Over the years while growing up, I’ve experienced lots of great Shabbat dinners at my house.   They usually aren’t hard.  But fasting on Yom Kippur isn’t easy, and it seems like every year I learn a new rule or requirement for Passover.  And I know there are lots of holidays and other Jewish laws that I don’t know much about at all, although I know I have lots of people in my life who can teach me about them.

Of course, when it comes to prayers and traditions, because of my Hebrew school education and growing up in this temple, I am prepared to continue to learn.  And, it doesn’t hurt that I was once rabbi for a day at Temple Beth El.  My parents won that experience for me at the Temple auction and I got to learn what it’s like to be a rabbi. Hey, did you know there’s a bathroom back behind the bima? Pretty cool, right? Just so you know, you can’t hear the flush from out here!  I tested it with the Rabbi.

My mitzvah project is an example of how things that seem so difficult and out of our reach can be made possible, even if they never become simple.  This summer, I volunteered with several children with special needs at the Hand in Hand camp in Stamford.  I worked with three young children who were mostly non-verbal.  I helped them make their camp experience as normal as possible.  I helped with swimming, dance, art and several other activities.  By the end of the session, the kids had really improved.  One was becoming a little more verbal, one was learning to repeat words, and one was learning sign language.

These kids are a real inspiration to me, just as my dance teachers and friends are at dance class – and just as my family and community here at Temple Beth El have inspired me to do things I never thought I could do.

It’s funny that in Hebrew and English, two sayings that seem to be opposites are actually saying the same thing: “Lo B’Shamayim hee” means “it’s not in the heavens,” but what it really means is, “The sky’s the limit!”

And it always will be!

TBE Bar/Bat Mitzvah Commentary: Jenna Plotzky on Nitzavim-Vayelech

Shabbat Shalom!

At the beginning of my portion of Netzavim-Vayelech, Moses tells the people, “You who stand here today, all the people of Israel, even the stranger within your camp, from wood chopper to water drawer - all of you are here to enter the covenant of the Lord, which God is concluding with you this day.”

You may be wondering why it was that Moses mentioned, of all professions, wood choppers and water drawers. Commentators state that these two professions were used to represent all types of menial labor. The Torah was meant for them too – not just the people who have more glamorous jobs like my Mom. On this Labor Day Weekend, that’s an important thing to consider.

But maybe it was something else. Maybe Moses specifically wanted to appeal to wood choppers and water drawers because, oh, perhaps a tree had just fallen on his house during an enormous rainstorm?

I can relate to Moses, because that’s exactly what happened at my house last March.

People around here will not soon forget that storm, which on a Saturday night brought wind gusts of over 75 miles an hour and knocked down thousands of trees. I know of ten just on my block. Only one fell on my property, but, unfortunately, it fell right onto the house. It was a HUGE 120 plus year-old tree.

We were eating dinner at about 7 – it’s hard to say since the power had already gone out a few hours before. We were all in the family room when suddenly we heard a boom and then a couple of seconds later, another cracking sound. We held our breath and then realized we were in fact okay…..My mom and I ran upstairs with a flashlight and when entered my parents’ bedroom, the ceiling was split and the tree was inside. Suddenly it was raining in the room. My mom screamed, “There’s a tree in my house. Get it out of my house!” It was one of the scariest moments of my life.

Our fabulous neighbors, Anna and Larry, put up a giant tarp to catch the water as it came in and then funneled the water out the window. We then saw that while part of the tree was stuck in the roof, most of it had fallen onto the deck, crushing it.

So like Moses, what we needed that night was a woodchopper and water drawer.

In verse 19 of chapter 29, Moses is warning the people that future generations will look at the devastation of the land and wonder why so many bad things had happened to the Israelites and to their environment. The commentary in our Chumash suggests that they will ask, “How did those who lived before us permit themselves to despoil the earth, air and water, not leaving us a livable environment?”

It is very natural following a disaster to look around and wonder why it happened. On the night of the storm, we drove to the Hyatt and saw all the devastation in Stamford. The next morning we came back and it was pretty bad. All I could think about was how lucky we were to be alive and how much work we were going to have to do to get the place back into shape…along with the clean up and fixing, there was the decorating, figuring out the insurance, and all of this at a time when we supposed to be planning MY bat mitzvah, just a few months away.

I never saw this as a punishment or anything, the way Moses spoke of the disasters that would happen to the Israelites who did not follow the covenant. But with all the weird weather we’ve been having, it does make you wonder whether we need to be doing more to take care of the environment. There have been a few tornados around here this summer. And we never have tornados here!

We may not be able to control the weather, or where a tree is going to fall, but there is much we can do to protect the environment.

The good news is that just a few weeks ago, my house was finished, just in time for my bat mitzvah. We have a brand new deck, family room, bathroom, closet and bedroom. And, most importantly, we appreciate, more than ever before, being together as a family, and being in a place that we can call home.

There are many people far less fortunate than I am, some of whom will be helped by the money I am raising through my mitzvah project, “Candles for a Cause.” I have been selling candles and holders for the last 9 months and have almost reached my goal of raising $1,500 for Kids in Crisis. When I am done, this money will go towards feeding 20 kids meals for an entire week. I’m raising money to help them get back on their feet, with food and school supplies that are in these baskets on the bema.

TBE Bar/Bat Mitzvah Commentary: Matthew Katz on Nitzavim Vayelech

A few week’s ago, I had the chance to see a game at the new Yankee Stadium. It was amazing and reminded me of how it felt the first time I saw the old stadium, back when I was about 6. Everything was perfect. The manicured grass was a perfect shade of green. The infield dirt was raked perfectly, not a pebble in sight, smooth and nice. I was amazed seeing the huge monitors in the outfield. I loved the smell of the peanuts – the entire atmosphere was indescribable.

How green it is, how perfect the field looks, how peaceful. It was like a scene out of “Field of Dreams.” A baseball field can be the next closest thing to heaven.

Amazing though it may seem, that exact same vision is described by the prophet Isaiah in my Haftorah. He could have been talking about how I felt when I went through the turnstiles at Yankee Stadium when he said, “Pass through, pass through the gates! Clear the road for all the people; build up the highway, remove the rocks…”

Of course, Isaiah never saw Yankee Stadium. He was actually a Red Sox fan. (The rabbi told me to say that). Look at the bible, where in Isaiah, Chapter 1, verse 18, he states, “If they are as red as crimson, they shall be wool.” He was either talking about the sins of Israel, or about his pick for the AL Pennant.

But in our verse, Isaiah describes how the land of Israel will not longer be desolate and forsaken – how beautiful it will look. And from all the pictures I’ve seen, it certainly does.


One way to highlight the beauty of a place is to build baseball fields. In “Field of Dreams,” Kevin
Costner says ‘If you build it they will come,” The founder of Zionism, Theodore Herzl, said almost the exact same thing about a century ago, long before the State of Israel was born: “If you will it, it is no dream.”


My dream is to combine both of those dreams and to make the land of Israel even more beautiful by helping to build baseball fields there.

It’s called “project Baseball,” and it’s being organized the Jewish National Fund, which has helped build the land in so many ways. I’ve raised over $2,000 so far to build new diamonds cities and towns all over Israel.


So you might be asking, why and I doing this?

In my portion, Nitzavim, Moses begins his speech, saying, “Atem Nitzavim hayom,” “You who are standing here today.” But the word used for “standing” also means to “take a stand.” Moses is telling us how important it is to stand up for what’s important to you. That’s exactly what I’m doing. Baseball and Israel are both important to me.

So, now you may be asking. what can baseball bring to Israel, and what about baseball do I love so much that I want to help build fields over there?

Here are four explanations.

o First, baseball teaches the importance of INTER-DEPENDENCE, something I’ve learned all about at camp, in school and on the field. You can be the greatest pitcher ever, (I’m not, but I’m pretty good), but if the shortstop can’t field, it won’t matter. Israelis also know how important it is to work together as a team. I learned that especially from my soldier Eran, who stayed with us about five years ago. Just about every Israeli goes into the army, and that’s where they really learn about the importance of teamwork.


o Secondly, baseball teaches sportsmanship. Many of us will remember that story about the girls softball team, when Western Oregon’s Sara Tucholsky suffered a knee injury when she hit a home run and the players on the opposing team carried her around the bases.

o Third, baseball teaches how important it is to have a level playing field, both in and outside the stadium. In Israel, the new baseball league is a place where all people can come together and get along:, rich and poor, Jews and Arabs, secular and religious, all playing a game that they all have to learn at the same time. If people can learn a sport together, it will help them to live together in peace.

o Finally, a baseball game is a great place to relax and appreciate nature. Much less intense than other sports, like soccer, basketball -- or politics (unless the Yankees and Red Sox happen to be playing).

So now you can see why I’ve chosen to honor baseball as I become a Bar Mitzvah today.

G-dcast for Netzavim - Vayelech

Hey G-dcasters,
Hats off to Mayim Bialik (aka TV's Blossom) for her profound yet totally practical look at Parshat Vayelech! Step right up and learn about how you can live a good life. Walk the walk, talk the talk, and actually write your own Torah! Instructions are in the episode...now go sharpen those quills!

Whether you grew up watching Mayim Bialik on Blossom, or this is your first encounter with the exceedingly erudite and fun Angeleno, you're in for a treat! And keep your eyes peeled for some Blossom tributes in the artwork.



Parshat Nitzavim from G-dcast.com

More Torah cartoons at www.g-dcast.com

Parshat Vayelech from G-dcast.com

More Torah cartoons at www.g-dcast.com