- 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
…a She`arim? “Gimme loot, Ḥasidim!”] This fall, we are launching a Hesed Committee, chaired by Board member Muriel Banquer. This committee will not have a lot of meetings to discuss the theory of hesed. It will coordinate acts of kindness, so that no one in the BEKI family falls through the cracks. Some people in the congregation have a support network of friends and family nearby who help each other out, and this wonderful, informal network is the…
…ole confessional of Yom Kippur. Indeed, the Prayer of Moses for his sister Miriam is pointed to as an ideal prayer: “Please God, please heal her.” In Hebrew it is five single-syllable words. The traditional prayers are valuable in that by reciting them we are habituated to prayer, we learn the vocabulary of prayer, and we fulfill our obligation to recite the Shema and Amida which are statutory prayers. But beyond the “fixed prayers” one should say…
…akes the text much more literally. It is seen as a sanguinary call to exterminate anti-semites wherever they are. Indeed it takes less interpretive gymnastics to see it this way. A midrash says that when Esau was getting old, he called in his grandson Amaleq and said, “I tried to kill Jacob but was unable. Now I am entrusting you and your descendants with the important mission of annihilating Jacob’s descendants. Be relentless and do not show merc…
…t from South Florida. She has worked in pastels, oil pastels, graphite and mixed media, creating her images from a Jewish and feminist perspective. She has had many one-person shows both in the U.S. and in Israel, including “The Eden Trilogy”, an installation in oil pastel first exhibited at the Artist’s House in Jerusalem. Klein is also well known for her work in fabric” painting, dying and constructing clothing and Judaic pieces. She constructs…
…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…
…n of leaven), which provides a legal cover for the possibility of any contamination. Similarly, a small amount of hametz contained in a non-hametz item before Passover is considered nullified due to its insignificant proportion. These covers are not available for items produced or acquired during the festival, so the items must be produced and acquired before mid-morning Erev Pesah when the hametz is nullified. Dear Rabbi, How clean is clean for…
…He has set the Church on an epochal change of course. As a result, the new Millennium holds promise of far better relationships between Catholics and Jews than the one just past. We should accept the Church’s invitation and seek out constructive dialogue with our Catholic brethren starting now. Less familiar but also quite significant is an international movement that has arisen under the banner of Jubilee 2000 to cancel the debt of the poorest co…
…o associations in the Sefirot does not mean they found their way into the Amida via the Sefirot. Since the Amida prayer came first (correct me if I am wrong), that would not be possible. It would be far more likely, though not necessarily so, that the associations found their way into the Sefirot via the Amida. Or perhaps the associations found their way into both from the Torah! In any case, the support for our original suggestion stands – the pa…
…ccessful — we feel that we were also given those tools — blessed with good minds, very supportive families, and the context of a congregation that respects, encourages and indeed welcomes in its egalitarian yet traditional way, all of us to do reach and grow and do as much or as little as each of us ready for to fully participate. For some of us it has been precisely that aspect of the BEKI culture that drew us in here and made us want to learn mo…
…pursue. My mother was a compassionate person, and quite a few of the pitgamim emphasized empathy: Al tadin et chavercha ad shetageea l’mikomo: don’t judge another person until you’re in his situation. Al ta’amod al dam reyecha: don’t stand idly by when your friend is suffering. And Hillel’s version of the golden rule: Ma shesanu alecha, al ta’aseh lachavercha: don’t do to others that which is hateful to you. She taught the importance of being par…
