Beha'alotcha (2026)

Shabbat Beha’alotcha

Dvar Torah – An Instrument for all Seasons

In this week's portion, we encounter a curious Mitzvah to create two silver trumpets. Once the Israelites reached the Promised Land, these were to serve as a national alarm. In times of war or severe distress, the sounding of these trumpets was meant to awaken the people, uniting them to cry out in prayer and seek salvation.

When crisis strikes, we may hesitate to engage in our Judaism. If our "trumpets" have gathered dust—if we’ve lost touch with our spiritual selves and community —we might feel we have lost the right to suddenly call out. Yet, this Mitzvah teaches us the opposite. In moments of vulnerability, it remains both our absolute privilege and our duty to sound the alarm. We need not be ashamed of how long we have been silent.

Following this experience, in the very next verse, the Torah commands us to bring out these exact same trumpets in times of profound joy, during our festivals and days of celebration.

The lesson here is one of spiritual continuity. It is human nature to desperately cry out for help when we are drowning, only to forget that connection once we reach the shore. The silver trumpets challenge this instinct. They remind us that the very same instrument used to plead for salvation must be the one we use to express gratitude. Once the storm passes and we are saved, we do not put the trumpets away. We hold onto them tightly, and we sound them again—this time, with joy.

Shabbat in/out times
Yerushalayim 18:58/20:20
Tel-Aviv 19:18/20:23
Auckland 16:56/17:55
Dubai 18:46/19:42
Zurich 20:54/22:12
NYC 20:01/21:09
Cleveland 20:34/21:43
Santiago 17:26/18:23

Shabbat Shalom!

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