- 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
…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, and upgrading security. BEKI has won awards from…
…f the poorest countries by the end of the year. As reported in the 24 April 24 2000 edition of The Nation by Rev. Robert Edgar, general secretary of the National Council of Churches, Grounded in biblical mandates of jubilee calling for the forgiveness of debt, the freeing of slaves and the return of lands so as not to perpetuate generations of impoverishment, this movement seeks to promote meaningful debt cancellation for the world’s poorest natio…
…d level appear two more Sefirot, the first two accompanied by earthly correlates: Gedula or Hesed on the right, Gevura or Din on the left. As pointed out by Daniel Matt in his introduction to my Zohar translation, these represent two opposing sides of Divine personality: free-flowing love and strict judgment, grace and limitation. Associated with Gedula in the illustration is Abraham. Associated with Gevura is Yitshaq. So here we have the other tw…
…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…
…at down to dinner he asked her, “why does your father serve his wine in a plain clay jar? Why not a silver pitcher?” She had her father pour the wine into a silver pitcher. The wine reacted with the metal and became bitter. The scholar noted, “Al tistakel b’kankan, ellah b’mah sheyesh bo.” Don’t look at the vessel, but at what’s in it. But of course, we do look at externals, and that can influence how we treat people. Which brings me to the parash…
…s a certain economy of scale involved in the production of power, thus the large power plants. But we could use solar panels. It will take some time, but I really think the transition into solar energy is inevitable. With power production spread across America, blackouts, brownouts, and inefficient energy handling will be all but gone. Additional benefits of solar panels include taking advantage of a practically unlimited energy source, that is, t…
…r daughters are borne on the side. Violence shall no more be heard in your land, desolation nor destruction within your borders; But you will call your walls Salvation and your gates Paradise. Your sun shall no more go down, neither shall your moon withdraw itself; For the Lord shall be your everlasting light, and your days of mourning shall be ended. I the Lord will hasten it in its time. Marc D. Schwartz, MD, President HealthCalls America Inc. w…
…Elon, “Sihat HaYom im doktur Yosefa Shteiner,” Ha’aretz, 27 March 1988, p. 2. 2. Louis Finkelstein writes, for example, that “This crime [wife-beating] was one that rarely, if ever, gave trouble to Jews of the Middle Ages.” Jewish Self-Government in the Middle Ages, (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1924) p. 70. Israel Abrahams, in his Jewish Life in the Middle Ages, (New York: Jewish Publication Society, 1896) p. 89, quotes Rabbenu Tam in…
…ldiers. The headline story in mid-August (2009) of the Swedish daily Aftonbladen, claiming that the Israeli Army has been capturing and killing Arabs in the West Bank and harvesting their organs, is widely repeated in the Arab press, without noting that the story is a hoax. At the end of 2007, HAMAS bombed the petrol facility in Israel that served Gaza and shot the people operating the border crossing, and then complained to the international pres…
…ibrant cities of Greece, and even twentieth century America? Surveying the large number of works 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…
