With A Little Help From My Friends

Congregation Beth El of Manhattan, a Conservative Synagogue of Two-Testament Judaism in Manhattan's Upper East Side since 1993. Please do visit us on the web at "bethelnyc.org." Sermon on “Shabbat Shirah” (The Sabbath Of Song”) on portion “Beshalakh” (In Sending Out), our Rabbi’s sermon is a song title: “With A Little Help From My Friends.” Often in Scripture, people do not save themselves: they are rescued. Our Jewish People in Egypt enduring 430 years of slavery  did not “escape” it - we were rescued from it. And later, we see Israel, dependent on Moses’s prayers, rescued by Aaron and Hur rescuing Moses from his human limitations. A lot of rescuing going on this week! We “get by with a little help from our friends,” as Lennon & McCartney put it in their 1969 song of that title. Let's explore this week's literally "uplifting" dynamic (as Aaron & Hur lifted Moses's arms.)