- 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 very complex distribution network. The way it operates is by a certain number of power plants producing energy, usually by burning fossil fuels, and then feeding it into the massive grid of electrical power lines. I think this is quite similar to the societal structure of the monkeys and the medieval Jewish court system, in that the majority of interactions, or in this case, power transmissions, are local, but the network is able to transmit p…
…ayer rather than in its explicit content. Ma-nora! How awesome! The Hidden Personal Connection In a sense, I have spoken my word of Torah, but something is missing. I have not yet told you how I picked this Parasha and this aliya to lein, to study, and to teach. Here is the answer. Last year, I missed being in shul for Parashat Va-Yetsei. Why? Because I was in the hospital instead. The night before, with no warning but the symptoms earlier that af…
…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…
…cities of Greece, and even twentieth century America? Surveying the large number of works in the BEKI collection entitled “Rabbi_,” the BEKI Art Committee began discussing how best to present this work in an exhibition. Among ourselves, we called this the “Rabbi Show,” although there is nothing in the artworks themselves to signify that these are rabbis, rather than ordinary men who have been given the honor of holding the Torah. As Jewish artist…
…he entire rest of western civilization, I took on the observance of my own personal Jubilee year – not as a commandment (since it is not), but as an opportunity for personal growth disciplined and illuminated by tradition. What follows, then, I offer as my personal Jubilee Report. The first thing I had to face was that I could not afford to let my fields lie fallow for an entire year – not with two children in college and one at the Ezra Academy;…
…rson contributes a fixed percentage of their income. If the rate is 10%, a person earning 100 sheqels would contribute 10 sheqels; a person making 1000 sheqels would contribute 100 sheqels. This is not the same as progressive taxation, under which the person making 1000 sheqels would contribute say, 150 sheqels, representing a higher proportion of their income. While the letter of our law mostly required only a flat-rate (fixed percentage) contrib…
…te the grievance and guilt. It can be very kind to ease the guilt from the person’s shoulders this way. Even if the person injured doesn’t fully believe this explanation, it can contribute to reconciliation. But the drawback to this approach becomes apparent. Joseph’s removing the evil his brothers did to him from the realm of human judgment allows him to sidestep a difficult confrontation that could ultimately have been healing. It precludes his…
…nt Esther, once said to me that the biblical Jacob must be based on a real person, because no one would ever make up an ancestor like him. Yet, if VaYetsei is the story of his personal journey of doubt and confusion, it concludes with his return to his homeland, his Teshuva. Soon he will reconcile with Esau and fulfill his destiny as our patriarch. And so God through his prophet Hosea offers this poetic vision of our return. I will be to Israel li…
…‘no, you are spies!’” Yosef didn’t want to be mean, because he was a nice person. Yosef had a plan: God probably told him, “first be mean to them, and then tell them, ‘It’s me, Yosef.’” And the Rabbis also said that Yosef was testing his brothers to see if they had changed. And they really had changed. Judah, who planned to kill Yosef and sold him into Egypt, offered himself to protect Benjamin, another favored son, and Yaqov from being hurt yet…
…traordinary moment of the Akeidah is now being offered not by G-d but by a person, and not in the extraordinary moment of the Akieidah but in an ordinary moment of leave-taking, of a sister leaving home to get married. That complex interweaving of multiplication and death is now a blessing uttered by human mouths. This is the moment when the notion of the human power to offer a blessing of dominion first entered the Jewish people. We still don’t k…
