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Photo Gallery

before--Let's get started!

before--Let's get started!

Bare Bones Front

Bare Bones Front

Bare Bones beginning

Bare Bones beginning

Front Door

Entry Way

front of Temple Israel

front of Temple Israel

Front of Temple Israel

Front of Temple Israel

Oneg and Shabbat Services Schedule

Shabbat Services Schedule

Programs Schedule

Weekly ZOOM Live Schedule with Rabbi & Penny – We invite you to attend

Friday 7:30 p.m. Friday Evening Service

Saturday 10:00 a.m. Saturday Morning Service

Tuesday 4:00 p.m. Community-wide Open Forum discussion/Torah Talk

torah

This Weeks Torah Parasha

Torah Portion of the Week
Torah Portion: >-מטות-מסעי-עקב

It was our Torah that first introduced the revolutionary concepts of “Love thy neighbor as thyself,” care for the orphan, the widow, the infirm, the stranger. Our Torah mentions “love of the stranger” 36 times, more than any other mitzvah mentioned in the Torah! It was our Torah that first introduced to the world the concept of not causing undue pain to animals, and, yes, even the concept of conservation. It’s our Torah that says that a person must “work” the land and “guard” the land, that the land must lay fallow one year in seven to regenerate itself. It’s our Torah that says that even in times of war, one may not cut down a fruit-bearing tree, even when Jewish soldiers’ lives are at stake. It is also forbidden to divert the waterworks of the city under siege. It’s our Torah that says that even in times of battle, soldiers must carry a spade with them in order to properly dispose of their bodily wastes.

Despite the enormous challenges, we Jews have successfully transmitted these beautiful and revolutionary ideas to the nations of the world, not by force or jihads, but through the power of intellectual persuasion and personal modeling. In fact, it was our Torah that proclaimed for the first time “Thou shalt not murder.” And, although Hammurabi recorded the exact same words 300 years earlier in his Babylonian code, its meaning for the ancient Babylonians was entirely different. According to Hammurabi’s code, if I killed my neighbor’s son, my neighbor had the right to kill my son. If I raped my neighbor’s daughter, my neighbor could rape my daughter, or take my daughter as a concubine. If I killed my neighbor’s slave, I could give my neighbor fifteen camels and we’d be even. Shabbat Shalom

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511 Baytree Road, Valdosta, GA 31602
(229) 244-1813