- Congregation Beth El–Keser Israel
85 Harrison Street, New Haven, CT 06515-1724 | P: 203.389.2108 | office@beki.org
85 Harrison Street, New Haven, CT 06515-1724 | P: 203.389.2108 | office@beki.org
…eremony at Har Berakha, a new West Bank settlement. The accounts varied greatly in detail, such that if I didn’t know better, I might have thought they were describing different demonstrations. For example, the number of demonstrators was 1,500, or 2,000, or 3,000, or 5,000, depending on which report was being broadcast. The surprising element of the story is that all four reports were consecutive broadcasts of the same radio station, Qol Yisrael,…
…paring for your Bar Mitzva with discipline and motivation. Virtually every night before bedtime for practically a year you would put on your kippah and practice a part of what you have demonstrated today. You have always made me proud of the kind of person you are and today I am especially proud of your presence, command and coming of age as a young Jewish man. …
…it’s too much to say that Joanne could not have accomplished what she did today without the help of Ruthie Greenblatt, whose birthday we are celebrating today. Ruth’s faith in Joanne’s ability long predated Joanne’s faith in herself. Ruth’s patience, her talent, her inspiration, and her astonishing capacity to give of herself are the stuff of miracle. The hardest thing to do is to praise a righteous person, because the language of praise is cheap…
…30s Havura, thanks to the initiative of Miriam Benson and the support of a number of program participants such as Eva Landau. It’s a nice way to bring people together and to help people locate their cohorts in the sea of members. The number of formal members does not tell the whole story. There are many families or individuals who identify BEKI as “their” synagogue, even though they are not formally members. For at least some purposes, we should t…
…y of Shabbat and weekday programs for children and youth expanded, and the number of minors grew from under 70 in 1994 to over 225 a decade later. A typical Shabbat morning includes simultaneous programs or services for children and youth, as well as youth participating in the main service and Shabbat Shalom Torah Study. In 2003, the congregation began a process of building renovations, aimed at improving accessibility, enhancing energy efficiency…
…from flying apart was a Zionist Chief Rabbinate that made conversion easy. Today , unfortunately, the office and its rabbinic courts have fallen into the hands of the ultra-Orthodox, who ruthlessly conspire to do everything in their power to obstruct passage from one status of Jewishness to the other (witness fewer than 350 conversions in 1996). A few years ago, a number of Russian Jewish families approached the Conservative movement in Israel out…
…of all the people. Imagine if the parshah has told us, tribe by tribe, the number of people in each tribe, and separately, the number of males, 20 and up, who were fit for service. Would that kind of census send a different message to us, a message saying, “everyone counts”, including all the women? The second census, what I’ll call the redemption census, I find a strange one. It requires counting of all the male Levites who were at least a month…
…nk, To the deaths of Miriam and Aaron. * * * One thing to notice About the number 14,700 Is that it promises reduction: It moves toward its own diminishment. There is a half-life logic to it, An inherent halving: 14 in the thousands category, Then 7, half-14, in the hundreds. In this promise of reduction, We move toward zero, Though we will never reach it. Just after the number of dead is given, Parshat Korach turns suddenly. G-d tells Moses to ta…
…] at this time. The parallel here speaks for itself. You’ll note also that today’s parasha resounds with the number seven – the seventh year is the sabbatical year- the seven days of Passover, the seven weeks until the Feast of weeks, etc. At some point during this last year I looked around the table and realized- “We are seven women — one teacher and six students.” Coincidence? Book of Ruth Let me move on to The Book of Ruth. I’d like to make som…
…ation, the stress is on God’s one-ness, indivisibility. More commonly used today is, “Hear O Israel, Adonai is our God, Adonai alone.” This version affirms two ideas — that we believe Adonai is God, and that God is unique. Rashi wrote that Adonai Elokenu refers to now, and to the God of the Jewish people; and the second half refers to the end of days, when all the world will be united in worship of one God: “Ba-yom ha-hu, yehiye Adonai ehad u-shem…
