- 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
…28 Jun BEKI Israel Study Group June 28, 2017 7:30 pm – 9:00 pm BEKI Home Page Guest speaker will be Janette Hillis-Jafee, Deputy Regional Director and Special Adviser to New England for J Street. She will discuss the current work of […] More Info…
…inous book, The Sabbath, in preparation for the course, I gleaned that: To Israel the unique events of historic time were spiritually more significant than the repetitive processes in the cycle of nature…. The God of Israel [is] the God of events: the Redeemer from slavery, the Revealer of the Torah, manifesting Himself in events of history rather than in things or places. Though seeking God in a visual medium, we looked not for images but for sto…
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…ago, Johnston held a belated Tu B’Shevat seder for her students — they ate Israeli food, talked about the current situation in Israel, and planted parsley seeds so they’ll have parsley at their Passover seder. “This way, they’ll see the passage of Jewish time,” she explained. For Purim, several volunteers with special needs (from the Learning Barn), will help run a children’s program at BEKI. Johnston and her Kulanu students will “brainstorm” abou…
…never let finances get in the way of joining. Rabbi Woodward works with a number of wonderful mohalim, experts in Jewish ritual circumcision. Please be in touch with him to help you find the mohel who is right for you. Rabbi Woodward has designed a custom liturgy for the naming of a baby girl that can be used either in a home ritual or in a synagogue ritual. These events can take place in your home or the synagogue; please see below for informati…
…radition as well as for the Synagogue leadership. I agree with Rabbi Avram Israel Reisner’s teshuva (responsum) “Joint Aliya” approved by the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards of the Rabbinical Assembly, the highest halakhic body in the land, on 28 October of 1992, that prohibits the practice of joint aliya. Rabbi Reisner simply could not find a legal justification for joint aliya. While there have been teshuvot (responsa) written that justify…
…ll do it that way, too. But this procedure often created a dilemma: If the number of qaddishes was limited, there might still be some who did not get to say one; if there was no limit to the number of qaddishes added, the service became burdensomely long. So after careful scrutiny the rabbis allowed all mourners to say qaddish simultaneously. This rabbinic solution was adopted only after careful consideration, and after it was determined that mour…
…sal human problems. Our own problems may appear more acute to us than they really are in comparison to those in other cultures because as insiders we see and experience our own faults more clearly and feel them more directly. Jewish society, Israel, and the Synagogue community, though not perfect, are worth fixing. It is mitzva to work toward the spiritual betterment of Jewish communal institutions. Therefore our sage Hillel suggests that if one d…
…wakened from the delusion that if we send a few dollars to some Yeshiva in Israel then “they” will make sure Judaism survives. It means that we have to live as Jews, we have to be the Jews, and we have to support our institutions that teach the traditions of Judaism as we know them. Lighting shabbat candles, reciting the Shema, coming to a daily or shabbat service, baking a halla, reading a passage from the Torah or other Jewish book — these are t…
…had to say on my Bat Torah. I explained that what was in my heart did not really fit into what I thought of as a classical Devar Torah, but he convinced me that it did and he encouraged me to share it with you. And so I would like to share with you a story. It’s the story of my journey here today….so it has a very happy ending! Five summers ago. I attended Elat Chayyim, a Jewish Renewal retreat up in the Catskills. This was the first major Jewish…
