Trojans Shabbat, Hope for the Hungry, and Big Bear

Hi,

Hope you're getting back into the rhythm of school. There's tons of great stuff going on here at Chabad, and we hope to see you at something soon. And make sure to keep an eye out for info on High Holidays services and meals, just around the corner.

Check out our website at www.chabadusc.com for info on upcoming events and pictures! Were you at the BBQ or Falafel Fiesta? Your picture might be up there! Just go to www.chabadusc.com and click on "Pictures" on the sidebar. You can also use the website to sign up for upcoming events. (Or you can look for pictures by facebooking Rabbi Dov.)

Also, lots of special occasions happening this weekend. As you'll read about below, we're hosting the women of Alpha Gamma Gamma, celebrating Tali Golan's birthday together with her family as they join us as sponsors of this Shabbat, and celebrating Ari Wiener's ('04) "aufruf" (shabbat before the wedding) as he and Stella ('05) prepare for their wedding this coming Thursday. Hey, they met at our Shabbat table. Who knows? Maybe you'll meet someone special here this week! :-)

Also, a great big Mazal Tov to Steve (Israel) Shahramzahd-Nemani ('04) on his engagement this week.

Hope to see you soon!


1) Big Bear Getaway - Labor Day Weekend
2) Work Study
3) Hope for the Hungry - Social Action this Wednesday
4) Pizza and Parsha
5) Trojans Shabbat - with AGG
6) Kabbalah and Kabob
7) Save the Date: Torah Dedication Celebration
8) Sinai Scholars Society
9) Hebrew Reading Course
10) Free Trips to Israel - Birthright
11) Thought for the Week


1) Big Bear Getaway – Labor Day Weekend
Our fourth annual Labor Day weekend Big Bear Getaway is just days away. Reservations due by Thursday, August 31. There are more than a dozen students from other schools who are currently on the waiting list – Trojans have precedence, but any spaces still open on Thursday night will be given away. Boating, biking, alpine sliding, hiking, bbq, ropes course, and much more in a fun-filled and adventure-packed two days.
Sunday, Sept. 3 - Monday, Sept. 4. Just $28-!! Incoming Freshmen, just $22-!! Reserve your spot now by emailing runya@usc.edu or call 310-801-4571 for more information.

2) Work Study
Don’t miss your chance for a dream job – working at the heart of USC Jewish life with a position at Chabad. If you are work-study eligible, capable, and friendly, please inquire about one of our open positions. Whether it’s helping to prepare Shabbat community dinners, working on our social action events, or maintaining/designing our website, you’ll get paid while you have a great time.
Chabad@usc.edu for details or to apply.

3) Hope for the Hungry – Social Action Tomorrow
Make a difference!
Join us for the first in our series of monthly opportunities to do a good deed, right on campus at lunchtime. First up: Hope for the Hungry. Make sandwiches to be distributed to the local indigent and homeless.
Wednesday, August 30. 12:00 – 1:30 pm. In Alumni Park, right behind Trousdale.
See the flyer at www.chabadusc.com/hands.pdf

4) Pizza and Parsha
Always one of our most popular classes. Right on Trousdale behind the Chabad table, join us for insightful discussions and delicious Kosher pizza. Explore the relevance of the weekly Torah portion to modern-day life while enjoying a free lunch.
Every Thursday, anytime between 12:15 – 2:00 pm.

5) Trojans Shabbat – with AGG
Show your USC spirit as we cheer our football team on to victory at yet another amazing Shabbat at Chabad.
As mentioned in the opener, there are a bunch of special events happening this Shabbat:

a) It’s the football opener. History has shown that the USC football team has never lost a game on a Shabbat when we had a minyan for morning services here at Chabad. That’s in over 6 years!!
Keep the winning tradition alive by showing your Trojan spirit this Friday night, with Trojans Shabbat at the Chabad House.

b) USC’s only Jewish sorority, Alpha Gamma Gamma, is joining us for Shabbat. Let’s show them how it’s done at Chabad, and that Greek, Trojan, or just plain Jew – everybody has a great time.

c) Ari (’04) and Stella (’05) met at our Shabbat table a couple of years back. The rest, as they say, is history. They were supposed to get married in Israel earlier this month, but due to the security situation many of their wedding party could not travel. So they had just under a month to plan a completely new event several thousand miles away, and are getting married next Thursday in NY.
Although Runya and I are flying out for the wedding, many of their LA friends won’t be able to make it, so we’re making a special celebration this Shabbat for Ari at the Chabad House. Traditionally, on the last Shabbat before the wedding the groom is called up to the Torah and showered with candies and sweets, along with our blessings for a sweet life together with his new wife. Don’t miss it!

d) Shabbat is being sponsored by the Golan family in honor of Tali’s birthday.

That’s all in addition to the usual wonderful lineup of such favorites as Challah, Matzah ball soup, Runya’s amazing selection of salads, and so much more.

Here’s the schedule:
Friday, September 1
Candle lighting and services: 7:00 pm
Dinner: 8:00 pm.

Saturday, September 2
Mystical Insights into the month of Elul (and cholent!): 9:30 am
Services: 10:15 am sharp
Lunch and cholent tailgate: 12:45 pm

Come and bring a friend…

6) Kabbalah and Kabob
Start of a new tradition. Once a month. On Tuesdays. (Alternating, of course, with the Food for Thought series.) BBQ. Kabobs. And Kabbalah. Free. 6:30 – 7:30 pm. Followed by the weekly Talmud and Tanya class.
First up: Next Tuesday, September 12.
RSVP chabad@usc.edu

7) Save the Date: Torah Dedication Celebration
Sunday, Sept. 17, 2006
Join the USC Jewish community for this historic event as a qualified scribe fills in the last letters of this painstakingly restored Torah scroll on USC’s campus, followed by a processional with music and dancing from the center of campus to the Torah’s new home in the Chabad House.

Completion Ceremony: 12:00pm • Processional from Tommy Trojan: 1:00pm
Dancing and catered lunch follow at the Chabad @ USC Jewish Student Center.
Invite your family, friends, and professors!
More info coming soon at www.chabadusc.com/torah

8) Sinai Scholars Society
Time and space running out:We are very proud to be one of the pilot campuses nationwide hosting the Sinai Scholars Society. This semester-long series of 8 classes tackles the Ten Commandments in depth, providing a fascinating look at the laws that form the basis of almost every legal system and culture, and contain the core building-blocks of Judaism. Qualified applicants who successfully complete program requirements will receive a stipend from the Rohr National Foundation (up to $500-). Very limited spots available. Wednesday nights, 7:30 – 9:30 pm. Full details at www.sinaischolars.com. Inquire by contacting Julie at lindeen@usc.edu or Danya at dburakof@usc.edu

9) Heeb-brew Reading Course
Always wanted to be able to follow along in the synagogue? Want to be able to study Jewish texts in the Hebrew original? Or just curious what it says on that t-shirt you brought back from Israel?
If you want to learn to read Hebrew—easily, quickly, and accompanied by some delicious flavored coffee—this is the class for you. Runya’s years of experience in teaching translate into a most rewarding reading experience.
6 Wednesdays, 8:00 – 9:00 pm. Starting Wednesday, September 20.
Sign up now by emailing runya@usc.edu

10)Free Trips to Israel – Birthright
Registration opens on September 12 and is expected to be overbooked within days. You can have a most amazing completely free 10-day to Israel, as a gift from Birthright Israel and Mayanot. If you are between the ages of 18 and 26 and have never been on an organized peer trip to Israel before, this trip is for you. Pre-register now at www.israelexpress.org or contact Chava at frankiel@usc.edu for more details.

11) Thought for the Week
Just a quick though on this week’s Torah portion – Ki Tetze.
The portion begins with the verse:
“When you go out to war upon your enemies, and the L-rd your G-d will deliver him into your hand.”
The Torah goes on to discuss some of the ethical issues that are raised during a war and how they should be properly dealt with.

Who are these enemies of whom the verse speaks? And why does the Torah start talking about enemies (plural), and then switch mid-verse to talking about him—one single enemy?

Throughout our history, the Jewish people have faced two main categories of enemies. There are those who would destroy us physically. The Hitlers, the Chmielnickis, the Husseins or Nasrallahs, the Hamans. They do not care about the details of the Jewish religion, or how devout a particular Jew is. They hate Jews and wish to kill them.

Then there were others who waged a more subtle battle. The Stalins, the Torquemadas, the Crusaders, or the Greeks of old. Their battle was against the laws and teachings of Judaism. They waged war against the spirit of the Jew, and attempted to crush it.

At first glance, these are very disparate enemies. They come from a very different mindset, are attempting to achieve a very different goal.

But ultimately, when we dig beneath the surface and get to the core, these enemies are one and the same. The body and the spirit of the Jew are not distinguishable. Through thousands of years of Jewish existence—throughout countless eras, locales, and cultures—there has been one uniting factor, one thing that maintained our shared identity and kept us existing throughout.

Mark Twain, an unabashed anti-Semite, wondered about it:

"The Egyptian, the Babylonian, and the Persian rose, filled the planet with sound and splendor, then faded to dream-stuff and passed away; the Greek and the Roman followed, and made a vast noise, and they are gone; other peoples have sprung up and held their torch high for a time, but it burned out, and they sit in twilight now, or have vanished. The Jew saw them all, beat them all, and is now what he always was, exhibiting no decadence, no infirmities of age, no weakening of his parts, no slowing of his energies, no dulling of his alert and aggressive mind. All things are mortal but the Jew; all other forces pass, but he remains. What is the secret of his immortality?"

But as in every scientific inquiry, we need do no more than search for the common denominator to reach that secret. What has united the medieval Jew with the modern, the Eastern Jew with the Western, the affluent Jew with the poor throughout all of the centuries? Ultimately there is but one shared essence: The Torah.

And so the enemy that attacks our spiritual connection is no different than the enemy who beats our physical bodies. And, in fact, the opposite is true as well. The underlying context of the hatred exhibited by our mortal enemies throughout history—even when not couched in spiritual terms at all—ultimately comes back to that one inherent difference, to the bond created so many years ago at Mount Sinai.
So when we go out to wage war against our enemies we might at first presuppose that there are many. But as we continue to look, as we strip away the “Emperor’s clothes”, we get to the core of the issue. We have but one enemy, expressed in many different ways. And that enemy is the evil inclination with ourselves. That very same spiritual balance within each and every one of us, that struggle between good and evil inclination, is expressed on the macro level as the struggle between good and evil in the world at large. And every step we take in the right direction within our own struggle is magnified and amplified, and ultimately manifested, in the fragile spiritual balance of the entire world.

So do a Mitzvah. It might be small. Lighting candles for Shabbat. Donning Tefillin. Putting up a Mezuzah. Making a sandwich for a homeless person. Smiling at your friend. Calling your grandmother.
But those small actions are the start of a huge change. Those small steps are often the first sounds of the ultimate victory.

To quote a wise man :-) “Your next act will change the world. Make it a good one!”

Shabbat Shalom,
Dov and Runya Wagner