We are pleased to have received more than 175 responses to the congregational survey taken in November and December 2020, which confirmed the connection many of us have to TBE. The survey results presented below confirm much of what was expected: many of us feel connected to TBE even in these COVID-19 remote times; many Continue Reading »
Temple Beth-El recently hosted a film about and presentation by Rabbi Kevin Hale, a sofer, or Torah scribe. The film is called “Commandment 613,” because the six hundred thirteenth commandment is understood to obligate each Jewish person to write a sefer Torah, or Torah scroll. Rabbi Hale’s presentation was given for the religious school and Continue Reading »
A Message for Refugee Shabbat At the beginning of this week’s Torah portion, Ki Tisa, God commands Moses to take a census by having each person give a half-shekel coin. Instead of counting the people, which was taboo, they would determine the number of people by counting the coins. The money collected would be used Continue Reading »
As kids we loved Purim. Dressing up, playing carnival games, booing Haman, and watching adults being silly. It was all great fun. As adults, the frivolity of Purim is tempting. It awakens the innocence of childhood within us, and that can be a welcome thing, as long as one doesn’t actually read the Megillah. For Continue Reading »
I like to ask my students if they think their parents would ever lie to them. Of course not, they assure me. Well then, I ask, is it true that your parents were slaves in Egypt and that God liberated them with signs and wonders? Yet, every year at the Pesach seder your parents tell Continue Reading »
“And Pharaoh’s heart was hardened…” (Ex 7:22) This week’s parashah continues the story of the Exodus and the dramatic confrontation between God and Pharaoh. It is a story of pain and suffering that multiplies as the oppressor becomes the victim of his own designs. And the root of it all? The hardening of the heart. Continue Reading »
Two days have passed since the violent attack on the Capitol and many, if not most, of us are still in shock. If we hadn’t seen it with our own eyes, we likely would not have believed it could happen -— not here, not in America. To this I say: thank God this is America. Continue Reading »
This Shabbat, as we turn a page in the secular calendar, we also turn a page in Torah. With Parashat Va-yechi and the death of Jacob, we come to the end of the Book of Genesis and the days of our patriarchs and matriarchs. It is the end of an era, the end of our Continue Reading »
One Chanukah, while imprisoned in a concentration camp in Germany, the late Rabbi Hugo Gryn learned a lesson about hope. “It was the cold winter of 1944,” he wrote, “and although we had nothing like calendars, my father, who was my fellow prisoner there, took me and some of our friends to a corner of Continue Reading »
The True Miracle that Banishes the Darkness The Torah contains many examples of what I like to call “billboard moments” — places in the text where a kernel of life’s most profound wisdom is distilled into a pithy statement you would want to put on a billboard to announce to the world. These include sayings like Continue Reading »
