- 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
…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…
…ene. Each member of the household has their own Hanukia, and each lights a number of lights corresponding to the number of the day of the holiday. We are fortunate that we are able to do this mitzva in such a complete and beautiful way. But what of the poor person who can not afford all of this “hidur mitzva” but must struggle to light even one lamp? The Mishna Berura, written at the beginning of the twentieth century by the Hafetz Hayim, comments…
…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…
…eir interests and commitments in a warm and wholesome setting. LaMaazel is open without charge. Babysitting is available. Call 203-389-2108 for the next meeting time and place. BEKI classes, programs and services are open to all without respect to age, gender, personal status or synagogue affiliation. BEKI encourages all adult Jews to become part of the synagogue-based community of their choice. During 1996-1997, LaMaazel was supported by the Gate…
…are held in readily accessible spaces. Classes, programs and services are open to all without respect to age, gender, personal status or synagogue affiliation. Classes & Programs Discussion of the Week’s Parashah with Rabbi Eric Woodward is each Thursday 9-9:45a in the library, following 8:15a Shacharit. Talmud class with Rabbi Eric Woodward meets on select Sundays at 10a, following 9a Shacharit. Prayer and Liturgy with Rabbi Carl Astor meets on…
…who generously bequeath funds for use after their days in this world have ended, are sure to feel satisfaction in the knowledge that they are giving a gift for others and for the future. It is a gift of faith, trust and love. The Morris & Sara Oppenheim Fund for Sacred Music at Congregation Beth El–Keser Israel Congregation Beth El–Keser Israel is the proud beneficiary of the Morris & Sara Oppenheim Fund for Sacred Music at Beth El–Keser Israel. …
…ut that insight is not perfect. * * * The third possibility is that G-d intended to kill them if they ate from the tree. G-d’s very first words to the humans: His first commandment, His first promise; how could He not fulfill it? What sort of a start to a relationship would that be, if G-d didn’t follow through, if G-d didn’t keep his first promise? But then G-d sees his people. People whom He’s crafted, built with clay and breath and ribs, the on…
…, 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…
…al cost in lost time at work. One may surmise that, with ordinary work suspended, the ancient yovel yielded a rich crop of opportunities for Jewish study. Certainly I felt drawn to use the freedom of my yovel this way. Here I catalogue several such commitments of my yovel, and for each, share with you one thing I learned. I began by signing up for a course in Biblical Hebrew, taught by Professor Tony Perry through the New Haven Jewish Federation’s…
…evision programs around the world some months ago depicting an Israeli Telephone Company employee stuffing faxes into the Western Wall. It is in fact a custom among many of our brothers and sisters to insert small handwritten personal notes and petitions to God between the stones of the Kotel, the Western Wall of the Temple in Jerusalem. The service provided by the phone company allows people unable to visit the Wall in person to fax their petitio…
