- 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
…are the direct descendants of Aaron. The Kohanim, or priests, are held to higher standards than the rest of Israel, just as Israel is held to higher standards than its neighboring nations. Emor discusses the standards of purity for the Kohanim, their instructions for performing sacrifices, and details about holidays and festivals. Emor also dictates use of the olive oil for the Temple menora and the showbread to display each Shabbat as an offerin…
…The other days of Creation are denoted, as you would expect, using ordinal numbers – second, third, and the like; but not the first day, Yom Ehad – Day One. Rashi teaches that “Day One” is to be understood as the Day of the One, the Day of God, and that God created everything in all its potential on that Day. From that day on, it follows that, as my daughter Sarah has recently begun quoting Martin Buber in the tag line to her email messages — To p…
…quite relevant. Don’t make an impoverished laborer wait overnight for his pay. Protect the rights of those who have no one to stand up for them: the non-citizen, the widow, the fatherless. Use honest weights and measures in trade. I want to look at a few verses from the parasha that seem at first unconnected to life in New Haven, and relate them to a project were starting at BEKI, a project that I hope you will participate in. If it thrives it wi…
There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.
…th a pitgam, a Hebrew aphorism. She would post a new one every week on the classroom wall, often with a story to illustrate the message. Over the course of the school year, the kids would memorize a fair number of these. The sayings she chose reflected her particular take on Judaism, which tended to the ethical rather than the spiritual. In cleaning out her apartment last year, my sister Naomi and I came across some of these sayings, which I’ve br…
…ovember 2005 Solar 2015 In the spring of 2015, a project was undertaken to purchase and install a 40,000 Watt grid-tied array on the roof of the classroom wing and the roof of the social hall. The installation went on-line 8 October 2015. The array comprises 141 LG PV panels (model LG270S1C-B3) and matching Enphase micro inverters (model M215), using a Unirac RM ballasted mounting system. Special care was taken to protect the new roof on which the…
…erent. Everybody does something behind closed doors, whether it be write a cheap romance novel or go to some forbidden site on the Web. The thing I do behind closed doors is write poetry. Long and involved, they usually represent some flaw in humanity or in myself or just some tragic love poem. Words spurt out of my mouth and I have to write them down or else I lose them, the ideas slipping through my fingers like grains of sand in an hourglass. I…
…prefer to give rather than receive. But look at that other guy! He doesn’t pay his dues, doesn’t respect others’ marriage commitments, takes whatever he can get away with, and then lives it up and has a great time. As supporters of Israel we sometimes feel this way, too. So many governments are engaged in brutality, arms exports and the drug trade — including Western governments — and few pay much attention, but whenever Israel does something wron…
…who injures his wife, whether he injures her himself or others injure her, pays the expense and buys real estate with it, and he [the husband] enjoys the usufruct. R’ Yehuda ben Petera [sic.] says: For the private disgrace, she gets two- thirds and he gets one-third; for the public disgrace, he gets two-thirds and she gets one-third; for his share, they give it to him, and for hers, he buys real estate and he enjoys the usufruct.10 In his Mishne T…
…that Arab expulsion of Palestinian Arabs from Kuwait is more than half the number of Palestinian Arabs who fled or were expelled from Israel in 1947-49. The “Jenin Massacre” (2002) turned out to be a hoax; while it was reported that hundreds or thousands had been massacred, the reality was that about 55 Arabs (including 5 or 10 civilians) died, along with 22 Israeli soldiers. The headline story in mid-August (2009) of the Swedish daily Aftonbladen…
