- 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
…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…
…familiar symbolic images embedded as decorative elements. “All That Remains” will next be presented at the Virginia Holocaust Museum, Richmond, VA, in October 2020. The works in this show include images from each of these series. In this retrospective of her work, a number of works in private collections are represented by photographic reproductions, thus providing context for the entirety of exhibition. for more information and for purchasing wor…
…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…
…this way. A midrash says that when Esau was getting old, he called in his grandson Amaleq and said, “I tried to kill Jacob but was unable. Now I am entrusting you and your descendants with the important mission of annihilating Jacob’s descendants. Be relentless and do not show mercy.” Amaleq becomes for the Jewish tradition a symbol of evil forces that want to destroy us as a people, and we are obligated to destroy them first. King Saul failed to…
…abbinate to require documents proving the Jewishness of a person’s mother, grandmother, great-grandmother and great-great grandmother when applying to get married in Israel. The RA comments that “Needless to say, this is a near impossibility for most people,” and goes on to argue, “Where one is part of a Jewish community and has been living as a Jew, there is no need to instigate an investigation into that person’s Jewishness. We affirm that trust…
…, 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…
…d activities that have been flourishing for years. And we’ve initiated any number of new programs that you have suggested. There is energy in the air that encourages people to think, “We can do it.” Our attitude is, “Just say yes.” Last June we had a tribute dinner, honoring the rabbi and Miriam and raising a lot of money for the shul. A zillion people worked to make that happen. Prior to that, the last tribute dinner anyone could recall took plac…
…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…
…lendor, the people of Judah wandered about the city, virtually powerless, gazing at its grandeur, and sometime staring 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 religio…
…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…
