- 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
…de-malkhuta dina, “the law of the government is the law” (see Talmud Gittin 10b, Nedarim 28a, Baba Qama 113a, et al.). Since apparently email and fax are valid vehicles for such transactions under civil law, they could be used for the selling of Hametz. Dear Rabbi, I have a perplexing question concerning the Kashrut of yogurt — which I had always assumed would be dairy by nature. A certain brand, Yoplait, uses Kosher gelatin. Is Kosher gelatin t…
…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…
…essage. Over the course of the school year, the kids would memorize a fair number of these. The sayings she chose reflected her particular take on Judaism, which tended to the ethical rather than the spiritual. In cleaning out her apartment last year, my sister Naomi and I came across some of these sayings, which I’ve brought with me to show you. Some of the pitgamim were easy to memorize and therefore were very popular with the kids: “Tov shem m’…
…ky (“A Natural History of Peace,” Foreign Affairs, January/February 2006 p. 104), they live as a collection of small groups, each one an individual node. In this networked society, most of the interactions between individual nodes are local ones. The further away any two given groups are. the less frequently they interact, but they do retain the ability to communicate. This network, when properly balanced, produces highly cooperative clusters of i…
…g disconsolately at the broad Euphrates River, far from their physical and spiritual home. They had been stunned by the destruction of the Temple and of Jerusalem by the Babylonians and were suffering from what many believed to be the abandonment by God. They struggled with strong pressures to assimilate with the culture and religion of the Babylonians in whose city they lived. They wondered, was their fate a punishment for their sins? Were the cu…
…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…
…eaching. To my mind, it’s no coincidence that there are a disproportionate number of gay clergy. Half of my ordination class was gay or lesbian. The process of coming out of the closet, the work we’ve done to become whole and unashamedly ourselves is deeply spiritual. Perhaps this is the Torah that gay men and lesbians have heard and give the world – the lesson that we all, gay or not, must be honest about our lives. And it’s a lesson that is usef…
March 1 – May 18, 2024 Suggested Donation amounts for Art Collectors The current exhibition in the lower level Gallery at BEKI is a collection of works depicting “Jews at prayer,” “Jews studying,” “Jews celebrating,” and “pious Jews.” The exhibition is drawn from artworks donated to BEKI throughout the years, some as permanent gifts, most as donations for fundraisers. Frequently entitled “Rabbi _,” the majority of these works are representation…
