- 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
…mbership lets us know that you value Jewish community, so the community can be there for you. To find out more about BEKI, join us for services and lunch on Saturday, or one of our other services, classes, or events. We invite you to explore our calendar. If you have further questions, please e-mail beki-membership@beki.org. We look forward to meeting you!…
…uld render it halakhically acceptable. If the halakhic language seems abstruse to you, the value that we are going for is this: even if opening the livestream is not a problem on Shabbat, we still nevertheless tend to use our computers for things like work – things that are the opposite of Shabbat. Do everything you can before Shabbat to minimize your computer’s “work” feeling – closing your email, etc. And try to make the space in which you watch…
…be, the number of people in each tribe, and separately, the number of males, 20 and up, who were fit for service. Would that kind of census send a different message to us, a message saying, “everyone counts”, including all the women? The second census, what I’ll call the redemption census, I find a strange one. It requires counting of all the male Levites who were at least a month old and a counting of all the firstborn males among all the other t…
…rvu and blessing as a marker of ceasing, of stopping: To multiply and to pause, to build and to break: both can be brochos. So what is a brocha? * * * The first blessing uttered by a human Comes in the next parshah, In Noach, after Noah’s drunken escapade, when the bad son Ham doesn’t lower his eyes at his father’s nakedness (or whatever that connotes). Noah begins with curses – “cursed be Canaan, the lowest of slaves shall he be to his brothers,”…
…nkeys make a network to deal with the problem of too much space to be explored, in which they had to find the sparse resources. Likewise, Moshe had too many cases to adjudicate by himself. After following Yitro’s suggestion, the only reason why Moshe would deal with a case was if it required his special expertise or authority. Another, separate group of monkeys have a related social structure. According to Stanford University biologist Robert M. S…
…, “the Jews” don’t control the press; if we did, certain people would be getting much less coverage, or at least much more critical coverage. But each of us can speak, write or act in ways that consistently advocate the elimination of prejudice and hatred, that promote mutual respect and tolerance. While we have a few organizations such as the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and leaders who speak out courageously when others are silent, they can neve…
…reading a passage from the Torah or other Jewish book — these are the redemptive acts that we ourselves must do. Our own synagogue, our United Hebrew School, Ezra Academy, Kadima-USY, Makom, JTS, MERCAZ, Masorti-Israel — and above all our own family — these are the institutions that we must support. No one else is going to Jew it for you….
…been given the honor of holding the Torah. As Jewish artists and auction houses alike use “Rabbi ” in describing these artworks, one wonders if this is a mainstream culture idea of hierarchy transferred to our culture? In the photograph by former BEKI president Alan Gelbert of Louis Freidman reading the Torah we know that this is a portrait of a shamash (ritual director), not a rabbi. As viewers and members of an egalitarian synagogue, are we able…
