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I am very excited for the opportunity to share words of Torah with you. Each week, in this spot, I look to share an idea I've found that speaks to me and that I think will resonate with you as well. This week, I share with you an article by Rabbi Shraga Simmons entitled "Greatest Test of All" giving us another interpretation as to what was the final test for Avraham Avinu and why.
 
At the beginning of Parshat Chayei Sarah, we find Abraham in an extremely difficult situation. He has just gone through the enormous stress of binding his son Isaac on the altar, followed by the emotional release of God's instruction not to go through with it in the end! To compound his stress, Abraham returns home to find that his beloved wife Sarah has passed away. And on top of it all, Abraham now has to buy a gravesite from a man named Efron, who takes advantage of Abraham and charges an exorbitant price.

This is the epitome of a "bad day." And Abraham has every excuse in the world to be aggravated, to lose patience, and to lash out at Efron. But Abraham - the expert in kindness - treats Efron with all the honor and dignity. Abraham understood that just because you're in pain, it doesn't give you the right to make the other person suffer.

The Talmud says that God gave Abraham 10 tests of character. It is generally understood that these tests were all designed to go against Abraham's natural inclination toward kindness - in order to strengthen his "weaker side" of strictness. Thus the ultimate test was the antithesis of kindness, the binding of Isaac. But one commentator, Rabbeinu Yona, says that buying the gravesite from Efron - where Abraham reached super-human heights of patience and kindness - was actually Abraham's greatest test of all.

The idea is that to become a truly great person, besides working on our weak areas, we mustn't forget to build our unique strengths, too.

Hoping and praying for a Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Davies
Rabbi@SOICherryHill.org

We are excited to be partnering with Mizrachi World Movement to provide their publication of HaMizrachi Parasha Weekly.

Website Update:
We are pleased to share that thanks to a grant from the Jewish Community Foundation of Southern New Jersey, SOI will be redesigning our website. As a ShulCloud-based site, updates take place in real time. This means that users will see updates to the design, navigation, and pages as they take place in all phases of the project, rather than only once the project is completed. It may take a few months for the website to display in its final form. We look forward to our site being easier to navigate for our members and better communicate what we offer to those seeking information about SOI. We appreciate your patience throughout this process! 

Congregation Sons of Israel wishes a hearty Mazal Tov to
Yaakov & Avital Zeffren,
big sister Penny, and big brothers Aaron and Johnny
on the birth of
Sara Shoshana (Lily) Zeffren

Thank you to all the volunteers who helped with last week's Kiddush. 

Thank you to Eric Klein, Jonathan Delman, Matti Rosenberg, Aharon Yeres, and Yaakov Zeffren for helping with last weeks Seudah Shlishit. 

Thank you to Duke McCarthy for sponsoring Wednesday evening's Semichas Chaver Class, dedicated for Rabbi Davies, Dave Shatz, Sid Goldberg, Jeff Schwartz, Alan Friedman, Aaron Moses, all IDF and US Marine soldiers ever, all Jews throughout the world ever, and all participants at the class. Bless Abraham, father of Isaac, and Jacob, son of Isaac, and their families for all good things!

Thank you to Team 8 (Gila Davis, Nancy Bleiberg), Debbie Fineberg, Bob Belfer, Jeff Liss, JFed Security Officer Bill DiCola and Sam Tilonsky for providing security on Shabbos.

Security Training
Twenty (20) people attended the security training presented by JFed Security on Monday evening.  The training included many different topics including greeter placement, situational awareness and The Power of Hello.  Thank you to Sean Redmond for presenting and to Donna Moskowitz for arranging this training.  Look for more security training in the future.

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720 Cooper Landing Road
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