- 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
…ous financial situation, I will not appeal for money tonight. Tonight is a time to celebrate what we have accomplished together by passing the Torah from hand to hand. It’s time to kvell about what we’ve doneÿugnot what I’ve done, because I haven’t done any of this on my own. On other occasions, I’ve spoken about the physical improvements we’ve made to the building and grounds. Although I’m endlessly pleased with the new parking lot, the disappear…
…replaced by “Adonai” (“my Lord”) when reading or praying aloud, and is sometimes replaced with “HaShem” (“The Name”). It is sometimes symbolized as a hei apostrophe or as a double yud in Hebrew. Another sacred name is the Hebrew equivalent of “Allah” and its variations. This name begins with the letters alef lamed and ends with a consonantal hei, or, in the most common variations, ends with the im or enu suffix. This name is most often translated…
…e kabbalat Shabbat happens every week, the Sh’ma is sung every night at bedtime, and the kitchen is kosher. But their mother is not Jewish. Are the girls Jewish? They certainly think so. But the Conservative movement and the Solomon Schechter Day School of Greater Boston don’t agree with them, so Ariel goes to the Rashi School, which is affiliated with the Reform movement, and Zohar will, too, when she’s old enough. Insisting on matrilineal descen…
…unch line of many Jewish mother jokes) “sit in the dark.” That is, if they didn’t light Shabbat lamps, it would be dark, because most people did not otherwise have artificial lighting to illuminate the night. In most times and places, when the sun went down, it got dark, and that was the end of the matter. Lighting Shabbat lamps meant that this one day of the week was special in that people could see, and so could stay up later talking, singing, e…
…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…
…a distinct movement in its own right. It was not until the 1990’s that the United Synagogue took the name United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism. My great-grandparents followed in the footsteps of their parents in living as observant traditional Jews. They were not Orthodox. They were not Hippies. They were by definition Conservative Jews. I am proud to be a Conservative Jew like my great-grandparents. May God grant that I be blessed with great-…
…A woman could be allowed to go to the bima for a “joint aliya” because she didn’t count. The theory that permitted joint aliya for a woman with a man was that since she didn’t count, there was no concern that the practice violated any of the rules described above. She was viewed, at least for the purpose of the law, as if she were not there at all. I have found no evidence from any written teshuvot from that era for permission for two men to share…
…covered they needed such recognition) was an important root of “hostile sentiments and antagonisms that were later to erupt between Arabs and Jews during the Mandate.”32 These “hostile sentiments and antagonisms” developed not merely as a result of the “numerous and prolonged lawsuits” fought over land ownership33 but even more directly as a result of the eviction of hundreds of tenant families from lands they considered their own when large land…
…uctionist concept of God as the power that makes for good in the world; in times of stress and sorrow, to the comforting Shekhina, to — I’m not sure what — some combination of these and other things, too, including, in times of doubt, how can we ever know if there is a God? But I still say the Shema. When I say the Shema, I assert that I believe in something beyond myself that gives meaning to my life as a person and as a Jew. When we say the Shem…
…au was ruddy and hairy, with rough skin. Is that what God looks like? What did Jacob mean? Perhaps he was merely flattering Esau. Perhaps it was all a big suck-up. Or, to say it nicely, it was all diplomacy. This reading is consistent with the context suggested by the preceding verses. The Torah lesson here, as suggested by many rabbinic commentaries, is how to proffer servile blandishment to the powerful in order to avoid their wrath. This lesson…
