Month: October 2022

Parshath Noa’h (נח – Noah from the root נוח (to rest): “he is resting” or “he rested”), Genesis 6:9-11:32.

Genesis 7-6
. וְהַמַּבּוּל הָיָה, מַיִם עַל-הָאָרֶץ …
…and the Flood came, waters covered the earth

In 1879, in Szeged, Hungary, a flood of unprecedented magnitude broke out. Nearly 350 m³ of water per second breaks over the city. Almost the entire city is destroyed. The old synagogue built in 1843 by Henrik and Jozsef Lipovszkyego is one of the few buildings to have remained standing. Located on Hajnóczy Street, it is one of the most remarkable neoclassical buildings in Hungary.

Deemed too small for the community, a new synagogue designed by Leopold Baumhorn^₁ opened in 1903 nearby.

This new synagogue is one of the largest in Hungary^₂. Based on new construction techniques from the beginning of the 20^th century, its frame is entirely metallic. Designed in a mixture of styles: Byzantine (the dome), Romanesque (the columns), Gothic (the starry vault above the organs) and Baroque (the exterior dome), it is considered to be of the secessionist-historicist style (one of the branches of Art Nouveau in vogue in the Austro-Hungarian Empire).

^₁ Lipót (Leopold) Baumhorn (1860-1932) was a Hungarian architect. He is buried in the Jewish cemetery on Kozma Street in Budapest. Over the years, he created his own style of architecture and built more than twenty synagogues (Brașov, Esztergom, Szolnok, Szeged, Budapest, Angyalföld, Gyöngyös, Újpest, Zrenjanin, Murska Sobota, Novi Sad, .. .).
^₂ 48 m long, 35 m wide and 48.6 m high, it has 1,340 seats (740 for men and 600 for women in the galleries.

Parshas Bereshit (בראשית – in a beginning), Genesis 1:1-6:8.
Gd creates the world and sanctify the seventh day. A little before this first Shabbat, he creates Adam and Eve and places them in the middle of the Garden of Eden. Gd commands them not to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. The snake convinces Eve to eat it and she urges Adam to eat it too. As a result of this fault, Adam and Eve are expelled from the Garden of Eden.
Gd decrees that henceforth man will live by struggle, hardship and woman will give birth in pain and humans will experience death. Eve gives birth to Cain and Abel. Cain kills Abel. Gd punishes him for his crime. A third son is born of Adam, Cheth, ancestor of Noah.

Genesis 3:6 – בראשית ג ו
 וַתִּקַּח מִפִּרְיוֹ, וַתֹּאכַל
and she gathered of its fruit and ate it

The first Jewish community was established in 1563. In 1761, a Baroque-style synagogue was built on the site of the wooden one destroyed by the fire of 1733. The 8 bays of the main hall are exceptionally large for a Polish synagogue; Professor Krinsky¹ thinks this reflects the sense of security felt by the Jews who lived under the protection of the castellans of Lancut. In the 19^th century an external staircase was built allowing women to access the gallery.
In 1939, the Jews were expelled from the city. In 1940, Jews from Krakow took refuge in Łańcut. But, in 1942, they were locked up in the Szeniawa² ghetto or killed in the cemetery. The Nazis set fire to the synagogue, but thanks to the action of Count Alfred Potocki (1886-1958) the fire was brought under control. After the war, the synagogue was used as a grain storage. Between 1983 and 1990, a major restoration project was undertaken. Today, the synagogue houses a museum of Judaism.

¹ Carol Herselle Krinsky, born in 1937 in Brooklyn, she is a professor of history at 20th Century Architecture at New York University and Fellow of the Society of Architectural Historians.
² Southwest of Poznań, Central Poland

Parashat Vezot Haberakha (וזאת הברכה – And here is the blessing), Deuteronomy 33:1-34:12.
The text is essentially the blessing of each tribe by Moshe.
Of the twelve tribes? The tribe of Shimon is not mentioned. The tribe of Shimon would have had only one hidden blessing because of Chitim¹ and Shechem². However, in the blessing to Yehudah (33:7) the word Shema would refer to Shimon (שמעון): Shema (שמע) Hashem Kol³ Yehuda (שמע יי קול יהודה) – Hear, HaShem, the voice of Judah. When dividing Eretz Yisrael, Shim’on receives his portion in the midst of Yehuda.

Joshua – Chapter 19 – יְהוֹשֻׁעַ
^_א וַיֵּצֵא הַגּוֹרָל הַשְֵׁנִי, לנִ׹ –לְמַטֵּה בְנֵי-שִׁמְעוֹן, לְמִשְׁפְּחוֹתָם; וַיְהִי, נַחֲלָתָם, בְּתוֹךְ, נַחֲלַת בְּנֵי-יְהוּדָה
^₁ from that of the children of Yehouda.

In Jerusalem’s major hospital, Hadassah-Hebrew University Medical Center, is the Abbell Synagogue. This place of worship serves patients and hospital staff. It is here that the famous stained glass windows by Marc Chagall representing the tribes of Israel are installed. In 1959, Doctor Miriam Freund, the president of the hospital and Joseph Neufeld, the architect of the hospital commissioned Marc Chagall to design the stained glass windows of the synagogue representing the tribes of Israel. Chagall and his assistant, Charles Marq, worked on the project for two years. Chagall was inspired by the blessing of Jacob (Genesis, 49) for each of his sons and that of Moshe (deuteronomy 33) on the twelve tribes. Each window is dominated by a specific color and contains blessings. Before their final destination, on February 6, 1962, the stained glass windows were exhibited in Paris and New York.

“all the time I was working, I felt my mom and dad looking over my shoulder; and behind them were Jews, millions of other Jews who had disappeared – from yesterday and a thousand years ago.

¹ Ibn Ezra in his commentary on Bamidbar (The Numbers) 25:1-9.
Numbers 25:1: Israel settles in Shittim. There the people indulged in debauchery with the daughters of Moab. וַיָּחֶל הָעָם, לִזְנוֹת אֶל -בְּנוֹת מוֹאָב: במדבר ככה
² sichem (chkhem – שכם ) city where Chimon and Levi massacred the population. Jacob when he blesses his sons (Genesis 49) rebukes the anger and violence of Shimon and Levi. Although Levi and Shimon were associated in the massacre of Shechem, the Levites proved their attachment to Hashem because they did not participate in the making of the golden calf.
³ Sound similarity between קול (Kol – voice) and כל (kol – all): All of Judah, including the tribe in the middle.

Parshas Haazinu (האזינו – Listen!), Deuteronomy 32:1-52.
Moses exhorts the people to remember the blessings they have enjoyed. He encourages her to remain faithful to Gd and to give thanks to Him. In this parsha there are many allusions to the end times.
The haftarah is read in Samuel II 22:1-51

Samuel II – 22 – שְׁמוּאֵל ב
^_ד מהלל , אקרא יי {ס} ומאיבי, אושע {ר}
^₄ Glory I cried to the Lord, who delivers me of my enemies!

מְהֻלָּל (root הלל): let all glorify and praise Him, famous for good (שהכול מהללים ומשבחים אותו, מפורסם לטם). The Hallel (הלל – Praise [to God]) is a prayer consisting of Psalms 113 to 118. It is recited on most holidays, especially during the pilgrimage festival of Sukkot. There are two prescriptions specific to Sukkot: the obligation to take the four species¹ and that of abiding in the sukkah (סכה or סוכה). According to the Halakha, the sukkah is a structure consisting of 4, 3, or 2 ½ walls² and a roof of cut plants³. For a week, we swap our usual home to live in a sukkah that leaves us at the mercy of the elements, demonstrating our trust in divine protection.

Sukkah of 200m² designed in 2016, by KPF⁴, at Canary Wharf⁵, a district of business, of about forty hectares, developed on the banks of the Thames.

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¹ Etrog (citron), lulav (date palm), hadass (myrtle branch), and the arava (willow branch).
² Haim Yossef David ben Isaac Zeharia Azoulay (חיים יוסף דוד אזולאי) abbreviated as H”ida ( חיד”א), rabbi, kabbalist, Talmudist and Sephardic ruler of the 18th century (Jerusalem, 1724 – Livorno, 1807). writes in the Devach Lefi Midbar Quedamot (דבש לפי מדבר קדמות – The honey of the ancient words) that the shape of each letter of the word Sukkah (סכה) alludes to the number of walls (four walls = ס , three walls = כ or two walls and ½ = ה ) for that a sukkah is kosher.
³ The Skhach (סכך) must be thick enough to provide more shade than light in the sukkah.
⁴ architecture office aiming to design buildings towards carbon neutrality.
⁵ District developed from the 1980s, which has become the most important business center in L waves after the City.