- 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
…10 Mar Abraham’s Tent March 10, 2015 5:30 pm – 11:30 pm BEKI Abraham’s Tent is a community-based program with Columbus House which, through the generosity of local religious congregations and organizations, provides shelter and case management for […] More Info…
…y to love, but to love with all that we are; with our heart, our body, and spirit. And yet how can we achieve such love if fear is the foundational emotion? In my experience fear doesn’t yield love, it, as Yoda warns, leads to anger and eventually to hatred. On Yom Kippur we read that Hashem is good and does good to all, sinner and saint alike. Depicted is a G‐d with eternal patience for all G‐d’s children, always calling those who have gone astra…
…d G-d makes animals only after realizing the human needs a companion [2-18, 19]. They can’t both be true. In a literal sense. Either the plants came first, then animals, then humans. Or the humans came first, then plants, then animals. Only one chronology is possible. Things happened in one order or the other. But the Torah says: here they both are. Why wasn’t one of them cut? Whether the editor of the Torah was human or divine the question is the…
…t צידת חיה על ידי כלבים וכל מעשיהם לשם שחוק ושמחה” (Talmud Bavli Avoda Zara 18b). Rabbi Meir of Rothenberg, the most influential German rabbi of the 13th century, declared that “whoever hunts animals with dogs, as do the gentiles, will not [partake of the pleasures of the World to Come]” (Sefer Shaarei Teshuva, Bloch ed. (Berlin), #27). The Shemesh Tsedaqa, writing in the early 18th century [1681-1740], forbade hunting as a profession and for spor…
…who care and support one another, are active in Tikkun Olam, have a great spirit of voluntarism, and serve as lay leaders. We also have an amazing new rabbi. He is vibrant, smart, thought-provoking, and the most menschlich person I have ever had the pleasure of working with. But our main sanctuary, which is in dire need of repairs, has an outdated hierarchical design from the 1950s and ’60s. It doesn’t reflect our values of inclusiveness and envi…
…the Jews chose God.” Listen to what Mark Twain wrote at the very end of the 19th century, in 1899, in his essay “Concerning the Jews”: If the statistics are right, the Jews constitute but one percent of the human race. It suggests a nebulous dim puff of star dust lost in the blaze of the Milky Way. Properly, the Jew ought hardly to be heard of, but he is heard of, has always been heard of. He is as prominent on the planet as any other people, and…
…09 Mar Abraham’s Tent March 9, 2015 5:30 pm – 11:30 pm BEKI Abraham’s Tent is a community-based program with Columbus House which, through the generosity of local religious congregations and organizations, provides shelter and case management for […] More Info…
…opping mall, not the laundry, not the movies–was to drive, and since their spiritual health and identity as Jews may have depended on their coming to shul, we should not object if they drive directly to and from shul, on condition that they make no stops on the way. In places where Jews (of all affiliations) were already driving to shul it seemed hypocritical to rope off the parking lot and have them park a block away. The choice facing the Rabbis…
…12 Mar Abraham’s Tent March 12, 2015 5:30 pm – 11:30 pm BEKI Abraham’s Tent is a community-based program with Columbus House which, through the generosity of local religious congregations and organizations, provides shelter and case management for […] More Info…
…14 Mar Abraham’s Tent March 14, 2015 5:30 pm – 11:30 pm BEKI Abraham’s Tent is a community-based program with Columbus House which, through the generosity of local religious congregations and organizations, provides shelter and case management for […] More Info…
