- 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’s statement, echoed by many of his successors, seems in context to be proscriptive rather than descriptive. 3. Shut Rashba, Vienna, 1802, sec. 693; Sefer Shut HaRashba, part 4, Petrokov, 1883, sec. 113, and part 5, Vilna, 1883, sec. 264. 4. Quoted in its entirety by Finkelstein, p. 216-217. Although Finkelstein writes that “We never hear of the Takkanah elsewhere” (p. 71), it is in fact quoted in full in Binyamin Zev, no. 88 p.249 (see note 5 be…
…sh? 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 descent is deeply unwise, given demographic trends. How many Jews intermarry and raise their children without a Jewish education, without a Jewish home? How many tu…
…, 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…
…ok fair? A juried art exhibit. A children’s choir. A gardening club to landscape the new entrance. A scavenger hunt for adults. A congregational trip to Israel. There’s really no end to what we can do. I know that in the months and years ahead, under the leadership of our next president Donna Levine and those who follow her, BEKI will thrive and grow, because we will continue to take upon ourselves sacred obligations and pass them to one another….
…whose enjoyment comes from sharing them with others. The text gets very prescriptive regarding exactly how much of our harvest and livestock to set aside for tithing — and alternatives if we live too far away from the Temple — and how to calculate proportionate increases every three years if we are fortunate to see our bounty increase. It then goes on to describe the end of the seventh year, at which time we are commanded to make a release. We are…
…to the promised land. Literally read, the chapter from Isaiah contains a description of how outstanding, how highly regarded Israel will be, how the fruits of the earth and sea and of all nations will come to it, how those that offended it will bow down to it. The people will be surrounded by peace and righteousness. The Lord will be an everlasting light to them. The promised land of which Isaiah speaks is in one sense Israel but in another metaph…
…tourists with expired visas and assorted individual political cases.) The scale of that Arab expulsion of Palestinian Arabs from Kuwait is more than half the number of Palestinian Arabs who fled or were expelled from Israel in 1947-49. The “Jenin Massacre” (2002) turned out to be a hoax; while it was reported that hundreds or thousands had been massacred, the reality was that about 55 Arabs (including 5 or 10 civilians) died, along with 22 Israel…
…them. You might say, “But hey, who are we to interpret the text? We’re not scholars like the Sages.” Well with due respect to those in this congregation who are scholars like the sages, or more so – since they’ve mastered many years’ more worth of texts, it is not chutzpadik to interpret the text, to read it and discover new meanings. To seek it’s relevance for ourselves, our community, our children, our world. It’s not chutzpadik; it’s our respon…
…s 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 artists and auction houses alike use “Rabbi ” in describing these artworks, one wonders if this…
