- 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 rapid decline in symptoms over time with less than 2% at four months and 1% at six months. People who study resilience point out that there are a number of factors that can predict how well someone will handle severe trauma. These come from studies of hospitalized survivors of motor vehicle accidents, combat veterans, people who lived through the Los Angeles riots, the Oklahoma City bombings and many other tragedies. While degree of exposure is…
…ie’s characters. Time permitting, I would also have included the remarkable 1970s Israeli movie, I Love You Rosa, rich in allusions to the Book of Ruth and the Song of Songs. Here, in reading Abraham Joshua Heschel’s luminous book, The Sabbath, in preparation for the course, I gleaned that: To Israel the unique events of historic time were spiritually more significant than the repetitive processes in the cycle of nature…. The God of Israel [is] th…
…inyamin Zev, pp. 247 and 248. 10. Saul Lieberman, Tosefta, Baba Qama ch. 9, 1975. 11. Sefer Niziqin, hilkhot hovel umeziq, 4:16. 12. See for example SMa”G, mitzvot ase, 147:3, citing the Geonim, and Rabbenu Yeroham ben Meshulam (14th century, Provence) in his Sefer Meisharim, 40 13-5 58:2. 13. SMa”G, 147:2-3. 14. Even HaEzer, hilkhot ketubot 83. The citation given in Kesef Mishne in Frankel’s edition is 85 but 83 seems more to the point. 15. Even…
…lieve that the book of Isaiah was written during the Babylonian exile by a number of people in addition to Isaiah. Isaiah himself was a prophet of the nation of Judah and was one of the first to leave a written record of his prophecies, or proclamations. The book of Isaiah is one of the longest in the Bible, containing sixty chapters. The sayings of Isaiah are contained in the first 39 chapters. Most of the rest, written around 550 BCE, were poems…
…d of Torah about a word of Torah. The Aliya and the Word If we turn to page 166 in Etz Hayim, our new Humash, let’s look at the first aliya, which starts at [Genesis] chapter 28, verse 10. In last week’s parasha, upon the instigation of Rivqa, Yitshaq instructs Ya`aqov to head to Paddan-aram to take a wife from among the daughters of Lavan. Now, in compliance, Ya`aqov leaves home. Night falls along the way. Finding himself in barren terrain, Ya`aq…
…odox, but rather 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 bl…
Kadima (grades 6-8) and United Synagogue Youth (BEKI–BJ USY) (grades 9-12) enable youth to plan and hold educational, public service, worship and social events with adult guidance and supervision locally, regionally and nationally. BEKI youth share a chapter with neighboring Congregation B’nai Jacob in Woodbridge. The Kadima and USY chapters have won numerous awards in recent years. Youth preparing pies to be sold as a benefit for local and inter…
…irds) of these displaced persons simply resettled elsewhere in Palestine by 1950. Israel had offered to settle an additional 100,000 Arab refugees at that time in the portion of Mandatory Palestine under its control, but the offer was declined by the Arab states. The majority of these displaced persons were tenants who suffered the tremendous trauma of dislocation, regardless of how the blame is apportioned. After Yasir Arafat and his associated o…
…ing to say the berakha (blessing) on their own, or even with coaching. If a 12- or 13-year old can find the courage to stand in front of their elders, and before the Throne of Glory, and lead prayers, then the aunts and uncles or grandparents must find the courage to stand up and recite three Hebrew sentences. To say that someone who would not even read the blessings in transliteration had an “aliya” detracts from the honor of all other olim (hono…
…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…
