- 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
…ath the Surface $500 Introspection $500 Genesis 1-12 $1,200 Valley of the Leaves $700 The View from Above $1,000 The Book of Life $600 Huppa $2,000 Kaleidoscope $400 Round Matzah Cover $150 Click here to download a printable list of prices…
In this haftorah [prophetic Scripture reading, Judges 4:4 – 5:31], Deborah helps Barak defeat his enemies, more or less. His enemies, or enemy, is Sisera, a general fighting for King Jabin of Canaan. In the end, Sisera gets killed by a tent spike through the head. But as they say, what goes around, comes around. In every resource that I have read, it says Deborah was a prophet. To add on to that, I’ve also read that she was the Prophet of War. Is…
…again, or that another group adopted the radical conception of a former disciple of Rabbi Gamaliel that the death on the cross of a popular itinerant teacher constituted a single cosmic sacrifice that would atone for all the sins of his believers for all time. When the Temple was destroyed, the central book of our Torah was stripped of its earthly referent and its specific, tangible meaning. And not VaYiqra alone, of course, but most of Bamidbar…
…of Jewish education growing up, because I attended a Solomon Schechter Day School through second grade and then my parents transferred me into public school because of my developmental disabilities. But I had a loving support system through them, my older sister, and the shul community. I grew up Modern Orthodox, so over time I have learned to “code switch” between being both frum and secular. I live in New Haven now and hope to become a member of…
…oceans and landmasses. These birds, however, are now traversing a new landscape – that of an increasingly degraded one. Wall Sculptures The rest of the smaller wall pieces are abstractions focusing on merging a verity of materials such as wood, rice paper, paper, fur, metal and shells. Combining contrasting materials, the fragile and the strong, mass and no mass, allows for a complex relationship within each piece. Unifying the material is an ess…
…played. This person collected the coins and used the money to have a Torah scroll inscribed. This turned out to be the case. The Besht said that there was no way to correct it and it would be defective forever even if it were corrected over and over again.22 This story similarly illustrates the Talmudic concept of “a mitzva done by way of a transgression is not a mitzva (mitzva ha-ba’a be`avera eina mitzva),” that is, a commandment may not be fulf…
…r trade chocolate policy, must be followed. The caterer’s delivery must be scheduled with the kitchen supervisor, and the inventory must bear the signature or seal of the caterer’s kashrut supervisor. No food can be brought into BEKI on Shabbat. You’ll be able to make arrangements with the kitchen supervisor for removing leftover food after the event. BEKI’s custodian will set up tables with plastic table toppers, or you may rent table linens. You…
…lled for an aliya is supposed to follow along with the Torah Reader in the scroll. That is why the Torah Reader shows the honoree the spot where he or she is reading, and that is why the Torah Reader always uses a pointer in the scroll. If there were a pair or a group of people standing around the table, it could become impossible for all of them to see the Torah and perform their aliya properly. If there were no limit on the number of people who…
…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…
…you. In the second lekh lekha, God promises Abraham good things for his descendants: …I will bestow my blessings upon you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the heavens and the sands on the seashore. And your descendants shall seize the gates of their foes. All the nations of the earth shall bless themselves by your descendants…. But in both sets of blessings, similar things are promised, just for different people. I think that…
