- 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
…m Iraq during the current war. In August 2009, the press reported that the United Arab Emirates planned to deport hundreds of ethnic Palestinians, particularly Gazans, in the coming weeks. In contrast, Israel has not forcibly expelled Arabs since Rabin dumped (“deported”) 415 HAMAS terrorists into Lebanon in 1992, but subsequently took them back under Israeli court order. (This does not count the expulsion of tourists with expired visas and assort…
…did not experience antisemitism in India and, in fact, helped to rescue a number of Jews fleeing Europe in World War II. Conversation with Mark Oppenheimer, jewishledger.com, Nov 25, 2019 Mark Oppenheimer describes himself as a writer, talker, father, husband, dog-owner, and challah baker. Though not necessarily in order of importance. Challah baking aside, the talker in Oppenheimer will get to do just that on Sunday, Dec. 15, 10 a.m., at Congreg…
…ide, with respect to the letters, words and spaces, although exact layout (number of words in a line and number of lines in a column) may vary, as will the quality of the materials and calligraphy. We take out the particular scroll or scroll that is set to the portion that we are reading on the given occasion. The weekly reading goes in sequence, so each shabbat we begin reading from the spot we left of the previous week. But on festivals and othe…
…th lists start with a broad thing to give up and then narrow it down: list number one — go from your land, your birthplace, your father’s house. List number two — take your son, your only son, the one you love, Isaac. This similarity led me to still others. One of the first, and most obvious, comparisons between the two instances of lekh lekha was that in both, God is sending Abraham on a journey. In the first lekh lekha, God is starting Abraham o…
…the Torah and perform their aliya properly. If there were no limit on the number of people who may go up for an aliya at once, then what if a Bar- or Bat-Mitzva family were to want to send up a group of five or ten at once? And what if two groups of ten are called up in succession? The result might violate even our minimal demands of decorum. If we were to limit joint aliya to two people per aliya, then on the one hand we would run into some fami…
…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…
…never let finances get in the way of joining. Rabbi Woodward works with a number of wonderful mohalim, experts in Jewish ritual circumcision. Please be in touch with him to help you find the mohel who is right for you. Rabbi Woodward has designed a custom liturgy for the naming of a baby girl that can be used either in a home ritual or in a synagogue ritual. These events can take place in your home or the synagogue; please see below for informati…
…ll do it that way, too. But this procedure often created a dilemma: If the number of qaddishes was limited, there might still be some who did not get to say one; if there was no limit to the number of qaddishes added, the service became burdensomely long. So after careful scrutiny the rabbis allowed all mourners to say qaddish simultaneously. This rabbinic solution was adopted only after careful consideration, and after it was determined that mour…
…the sum of our parts. We are an extended family, a community of friends, a support network, a qehilat qodesh. VaEthanan, the portion of the week, is one of the richest and most interesting in the Torah. Many familiar lines have entered the prayerbook and the hagada: ve-atem hadveqim ba-Adonai; ve-yada`ta ha-yom ve-hashivota el le-vavekha; ve-zot ha-Tora asher sam Moshe. The Ten Commandments, and the Shema and VeAhavta are all in this remarkable pa…
…e (ASE) is 97%. The rate of return on the investment (excluding the CCEF‘s support) is expected to be about 5% to 6%, or a payback period of about 15 to 20 years. However, factors such as electric rates, hurricanes, major earthquakes, and rapid catastrophic climate change could affect the rate of return. Since the array was a gift to the synagogue, it was “free” from the perspective of the Congregation’s operating or capital budget. Maintenance co…
