- 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
…ification for going to war. Lest we think that this interpretation is historical and not contemporary, we have only to recall Baruch Goldstein, an American-born Israeli doctor who became a fundamentalist. On the 14th day of Adar 1994, he killed 29 innocents Muslims at morning prayer in the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron. He was then beaten to death by survivors and a riot broke out in which 26 Palestinians and 2 Israelis were killed. Baruch Gold…
…y of Shabbat and weekday programs for children and youth expanded, and the number of minors grew from under 70 in 1994 to over 225 a decade later. A typical Shabbat morning includes simultaneous programs or services for children and youth, as well as youth participating in the main service and Shabbat Shalom Torah Study. In 2003, the congregation began a process of building renovations, aimed at improving accessibility, enhancing energy efficiency…
…d by the Good Book: “While the flesh was still between their teeth,” etc. (Numbers 11:33). Partly for that reason we are enjoined to wait a period of time after eating meat before eating dairy. But after some time, the “food” in your mouth (and stuck on or between your teeth) ceases to be “food.” Who would eat it? If your toothbrush is used at that point, it is not really in contact with “meat” or “dairy” and thus, strictly speaking, you would not…
…ans as a result of seasonal heating in a typical year. That makes it a big number. In other words, as a byproduct of human exploitation of the land and other natural resources, we have crammed 51 years of solar heat into 50 years of solar time. I cannot help but feel that the earth will make up for this in due course, that the land will have its rest. The environmental responsibilities of each of us and of our congregation need to be understood in…
…ou all. Please help us again, this time by passing along our thanks to the number of congregants who are away this weekend of Thanksgiving, giving thanks of their own elsewhere. The morning of the surgery I prayed and learned another prayerbook lesson, this time explicit. At my request, Marsha had brought me a copy of our Siddur, Sim Shalom. Uncharacteristically, I admit, I started from the beginning of the Shaharit, or morning, service. There I d…
…ah reading for Shavuot Second Day in Diaspora: Deuteronomy 14:22 – 16:17 & Numbers 28:26-31]. It begins with the commandment to tithe on a yearly basis, so as to provide for the needy among us, to take care of the Levites, to understand that our year’s bounty is not just a result of our great skill but also of God’s goodness, and to realize that our possessions are merely possessions- whose enjoyment comes from sharing them with others. The text g…
…, 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…
…The book is called Thirteen and a Day, and it’s a look at contemporary American Judaism through the institution of the bar- and bat-mitzva. Mark visited a lot of synagogues to see how they handle their benei mitzva preparations and celebrations, and he happened to come to BEKI on the Shabbat of Annie Bass’s bat mitzva. Later, he interviewed the Basses, the rabbi and me. I think he got his description of BEKI and the community right, calling us “u…
…d land of which Isaiah speaks is in one sense Israel but in another metaphorical sense, it is the wonderful feelings that individuals can experience when they achieve a truly spiritual, transcendental state of mind even when faced with hardship. With this in mind, I would like to read a portion of Isaiah to you and ask you, if you would like, to close your eyes as I read. Do not imagine I am reading about the state of the Jewish people three thous…
…nsgresses a prohibition, as Scripture states, “Do not add [to the required number of lashes]” — if the Torah warns not to add blows to a guilty person, how much more does this apply to an innocent person. Even to raise one’s hand against another, even if one doesn’t actually hit him or her, is called wicked, as Scripture states, “And he said to the wicked one, Why do you hit your neighbor?”7 Rabbenu Perez, in his decree, cites a responsum of Rabbi…
