- 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
…rinne Blackmer November 3, 2021 “Fair Trade” and Why It Is A Jewish Issue Susan Sklar October 13, 2021 CONECT- an interfaith social action group Matt McDermott & Alana Rosenberg October 6, 2021 Elul Beit Midrash: “Vidui – Essential for Teshuva, Not Just for Yom Kippur: The When, Why & How of Confession” Jay Sokolow September 1, 2021 Elul Beit Midrash: “Teshuva as Conversion: Psychological Reflections on Religious Change” Arielle Rubenstein August…
…repeated in the presence of a minyan (quorum) during shaharit (morning), musaf (additional) and minha (afternoon) services, but not during maariv (evening) service. There are two ways this can be done, at the discretion of the officiant or shaliah tsibur (reader or leader). First, when the congregation reaches the Amida, each person (including the shaliah tsibur) recites it individually in a whisper, omitting the Qedusha section. Then, the shalia…
…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…
…the Torah and perform their aliya properly. If there were no limit on the number of people who may go up for an aliya at once, then what if a Bar- or Bat-Mitzva family were to want to send up a group of five or ten at once? And what if two groups of ten are called up in succession? The result might violate even our minimal demands of decorum. If we were to limit joint aliya to two people per aliya, then on the one hand we would run into some fami…
…ene. Each member of the household has their own Hanukia, and each lights a number of lights corresponding to the number of the day of the holiday. We are fortunate that we are able to do this mitzva in such a complete and beautiful way. But what of the poor person who can not afford all of this “hidur mitzva” but must struggle to light even one lamp? The Mishna Berura, written at the beginning of the twentieth century by the Hafetz Hayim, comments…
…of all the people. Imagine if the parshah has told us, tribe by tribe, 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…
For today’s services, a number of congregants have added touches of beauty to the synagogue and the services. In my Devar Torah, I would like examine the place of beauty and art in the Sanctuary. The sanctuary is a place where we pray together, where we venerate the wisdom of the Torah, where we tell stories that celebrate our shared past. It is also a place where our spirits and our community can be invigorated, nourished, and rested. It is a sa…
…hei HaBesht (Tel Aviv: Devir) 5707/1947, 5735/1975, p. 35. A table of tale numbers and the corresponding page numbers in other editions is given at the back of the book by Ben-Amos and Mintz. 2. Violence is neither advocated nor condoned in these tales to any significant extent, whereas many tales strongly advocate the efficacy and advantages of nonviolence. The main exception to this generalization are a few of the first fifteen tales (pp. 39-51…
…Abby Fraade, the volunteer who manages sponsorships. Please note that cellphones and photography are permitted on weekdays, but not on Shabbat or Yom Tov. If you choose to have a ceremony at BEKI on some other day, please work out the general plan in advance with Office Manager Peggy Hackett. She will arrange kitchen supervision and custodial services. Please note that we do NOT allow self-catering or a plan that’s “friends will take care of setu…
…th lists start with a broad thing to give up and then narrow it down: list number one — go from your land, your birthplace, your father’s house. List number two — take your son, your only son, the one you love, Isaac. This similarity led me to still others. One of the first, and most obvious, comparisons between the two instances of lekh lekha was that in both, God is sending Abraham on a journey. In the first lekh lekha, God is starting Abraham o…
