SOCIAL
 
The Berkshire Women’s Rosh Chodesh group will be meeting again at 8pm on Wednesday 6 July at the home of Hannah.   Hadassah will lead some text based study on ethical decision making and should we always follow a majority?  Topical post Brexit!  Email Rebbetzin Shira for more information or for directions. 
 
Monday 1st to Friday 5th August 2016
Oxford Kaytana 2016 is a summer scheme for children aged 5-14 years, organised by the community and led by youth leaders,   experienced staff and junior assistants. The Oxford Kaytana is specifically designed to cater for young people from Jewish families in the greater Oxford area, for both those connected with the Oxford Jewish Community and friends.   Our goal is to strengthen the Jewish roots and Jewish experience of youngsters from age 5 upwards, both as participants and as young leaders in the summer scheme. Oxford Kaytana offers a week of excitement, Jewish learning, pride and fun in a warm, friendly, caring environment. 
This year there will also be a leadership training course all week for those in school years 9 and 10; 1st - 5th August
Contact connections@ojc-online.org for an application form,

JCoB Shul
 
Friday night services continue to be held each week at 7:30pm.  We will be having an Oneg Shabbat this Friday 1 July and can still squeeze a couple of more people in if you let us know asap.
 
We will hold a formal Shabbat morning services again on Saturdays 9 July and 23 July. 
On all other weeks, you are also welcome to join us for JCoB-I, a chance to daven more informally including reading and discussing the weekly parshah.
Thanks to a generous donation, there is currently no charge for children, students or low income adults attending meals at JCoB Central.  
For working adults, standard donations are: Dinners £15 Fancy lunches £10.  Light lunches £5.
We welcome your sponsorship so that we can continue to offer hospitality.
 
KOSHER FOOD NEWS
 
Just Kosher (justkosher.co.ouk) will be delivering food to Reading on Sundays 3 and 17 July.  Please let Rebbetzin Shira know if you require only a small number of items. 
 
Orlando shooting
As published in the Jewish News
http://jewishnews.timesofisrael.com/torah-for-today-this-week-the-orlando-shooting/ 

​On several occasions now, young men of a Muslim background have entered leisure locations and shot large numbers of people. This is an activity encouraged by terrorist organizations like ISIS and Hamas, and the victims have been Jews, partying young Westerners and in the most recent event mainly partying gay men. 
The irony of a self-hating repressed gay Muslim killing gay Americans at a gay bar he used frequently cannot be lost on us. Can there be something to say from a Torah perspective on this matter?
I believe that the reason that some Muslim extremists can rationalise such murder is that they have little and only recent experience (as a religious grouping) of living in any numbers outside Muslim countries. We Jews have two and a half millennia. 
When Pirkei Avot tell us to pray for the peace of the country, when the Gemara tells us that dina d'medina dina, the law of the land is the law, we understand that we have to respect the law of the country and to maintain it. I am certain that there is Islamic jurisprudence to equal this but it is not as deeply ingrained through practice. That comes with time. 
As for their being gay - a shrill fascist might ask whether I as an Orthodox rabbi shouldn't rejoice in the demise of sinners 
What a thought! We're not so far from Rosh Hashanna, when Jews are reminded that there is no human being who has not sinned. Moreover, these are human beings made in God's image. What gives any random religious zealot the right to kill in the name of His law? We are none of us on the spiritual level of Pinchas. 

It should be remarked that we too have our crazies. How very different is the man who killed those poor people in Orlando from the jewish zealot who killed Shira Banki in August 2015? We note that there are a million times more Muslims in the world and in the USA they have access to rifles. 
Our own community does not make it easy to be openly gay. We are not all welcoming to our lgbtqi friends. Our Orthodox religious rules mean we cannot accommodate aspects of modern life like gay marriage - but that should not stop us from reaching out. 
On this matter, none of us should be smug or complacent. 

Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Zvi
 
Rabbi Zvi’s two minute torah on Beha’alotecha can be found on  http://youtu.be/yF9iYoErObE

SOCIAL
 
The Berkshire Women’s Rosh Chodesh group will be meeting again at 8pm on Wednesday 6 July at the home of Hannah Rudenski.   Hadassah will lead.  Topic:  Independence Day! US style.  
 Thanks to everyone who attended our Lag Ba’Omer Barbeque and to the JC for including such a lovely picture.  http://www.thejc.com/galleries/out-and-about/out-and-about-june-2016?img=10#gallery

Oxford Jewish Community will be holding its Kaytana camp again this summer for children aged 5-13.  For details see http://www.ojc-online.org/index.php/social-cultural/annual-events/kaytana

JCoB Shul
 
Thanks to everyone who helped to make our first anniversary Shavuot so special.  WE promise that the nachos sauce feast will now be an annual event in Reading!
 
Friday night services continue to be held each week at 7:30pm.
 
We will hold a formal Shabbat morning services again on Saturdays 2 July and 23 July.  On all other weeks, you are also welcome to join us for JCoB-I, a chance to daven more informally including reading and discussing the weekly parshah.
Thanks to a generous donation, there is currently no charge for children, students or low income adults attending meals at JCoB Central.  
For working adults, standard donations are: Dinners £15 Fancy lunches £10.  Light lunches £5.
We welcome your sponsorship so that we can continue to offer hospitality.
 
KOSHER FOOD NEWS
 
Just Kosher (justkosher.co.ouk) will be delivering food to Reading on Sundays 3 and 17 July.  Please let Rebbetzin Shira know if you require only a small number of items. 
 
Blessings (on Shabbat Naso 5776)
 
We hear it regularly in Shul, more frequently if we were Sephardi, and daily if we are living in Israel. It is a part not only of Jewish but also of Christian worship. 
 
The priestly blessing, in this week's Torah portion Naso, is a progression of primes, both mathematically and spiritually satisfying. The flow of words, conveyed through millennia of tradition, channelled through the fingers of the cohanim spread under their tallitot, take us back to the very beginning of Jewish worship in the Temple. When the Torah tells us that this is how we are to bless the children of Israel, this roots the tradition of the priesthood blessing some 3500 years ago. In fact, the oldest Jewish text artefact is a silver amulet discovered in a grave in Ketef Himnom in Israel with the priestly blessing engraved upon it. 
 
It is no accident that the words of three, five and seven. The progressive increase in the number of words implies an ever increasing and fuller blessing. Prime numbers have a magical aura, and starting at three (the male number) move through five (the divine number) to seven (the number of creation).  
 
The Priestly Blessing was delivered at the end of the Temple Service. This is why it was picked up by Christianity, whose ritual grew after the development of a separate church.  Christians use it at the end of the service in imitation of its Temple use. 
 
Today we Jews conclude our Amidah prayer and our grace after meals with the blessing. We also use this formula in our Shabbat rituals at home as a blessing for children, as well as at weddings. 
 
If you do one Jewish thing in your life as a parent, blessing your children is the deepest most connected thing you could do. If your Shabbat ritual does not yet include the blessing of your children you are missing out on a rare treat, which links you with the Jewish past and the oldest elements of our ritual and ties you through your children to the future. 
 
Shabbat Shalom,
 
Rabbi Zvi
 
Rabbi Jeremy Rosen’s article on the Devil and the Jews can be found on http://jeremyrosen.blogspot.co.uk/2016/06/the-devil-and-jews.html