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November 2023
In November,
we are entering the traditional American Holiday season with Thanksgiving and
Christmas now on the horizon. And this year Hanukkah, which starts on the
evening of December 7, falls midway between them. At this early date, its proximity
to Christmas is very tenuous indeed. Jewish children will still enjoy the
fact that it is a whole eight days long and can dream of the possibility of
some new toy or game on any day during this period. At some point, one of
these youngsters may reflect long enough and come to ask why this festival
lasts a full eight days. What do we say then? Hmmm, certainly it is not so
that some lucky kids can have eight opportunities to receive gifts. Well,
there is always the legend that this was the time the oil lamps miraculously
burned without refueling after the Maccabean Revolt. Is that the real reason?
Which of these may be the reason for the custom of celebrating this festival
for eight days:
1) The eight-day period was specified by the Sanhedrin as the appropriate length
of time for the purification of the Temple.
2) The length of this festival, like all the other major Jewish holidays, is
dictated by the Torah.
3) The eight-day duration precedent had already been set by Sukkot, which the
festival of Hanukkah in a very real sense recalled
Answer
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August 2023
Rosh
Hashanah is a wonderful time of renewal for us, and it will be arriving next
month on September 15. Like Judaism itself, this Holiday has undergone its
own renewal as its meaning and traditions have changed and evolved over the
centuries. Listed here are several traditions associated with Rosh Hashanah.
Try to sequence them in the order in which each was introduced into common
Jewish practice. A) study and preparation during the month of Elul, B) being
inscribed in the Book of Life, C) blowing of the shofar, D) the custom of Tashlich, emptying one's pockets on the first day, and E)
volunteering the weekend before Rosh Hashanah for a Beautification and Clean
Up Day so Beth Elohim will be in great shape for the High Holidays.
Answer
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May 2023
We
all have a sense of how central the Bible is to Judaism and Western
civilization. Our ideas of morality, ethics, history and even divinity have
been shaped by it. Still it might surprise you just
how many of our everyday phrases and common sense sayings are taken directly
from the Tanakh. Here are some examples that most of us would not assume came
from this source, collected more than two millennia ago. Please match each
phrase with its correct Biblical source.
A. -
"There is nothing new under the sun." 1. - Isaiah 40:3
B. - "Man does not live by bread alone." 2. - Proverbs 16:18
C. - "A voice crying in the wilderness..." 3. - Deuteronomy 8:3
D. - "Pride goes before a fall." 4.
- Ecclesiastes 1:9
Answer
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April 2023
Early this April we celebrate
Pesach and the Passover Seder, the most widely observed all the Jewish
holidays. Countless Jewish households in almost every country on the globe honor
Passover. This ceremony is a celebration of so many things - of liberty, of
freedom from oppression, of the natural God-given rights of all people, of the
making of the Jewish people into a nation. In the twenty-third chapter of
Exodus, Pesach was decreed to be one of the three pilgrimage festivals when
many Jews made the journey to Jerusalem to give offerings and celebrate. But
its origins go back further than that. Do you recall when and where the very first
Passover occurred? And for those who are really on the ball, do you know when
the SECOND Passover happened?
Answer
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February 2023
Despite the
divisiveness of recent history, we should also remember that at a more
fundamental level there is much in common between Judaism and Islam. Like all
the world’s great religions, these faiths profess respect and wonder for all
God’s creations, a concern for social justice, and commitment to help the
needy and oppressed. With common
Middle Eastern origins, they also share a Semitic heritage. Both Arabic, in
which the Qur’an was first recorded, and Hebrew, the language of the Torah,
are Semitic languages. In these
tongues, the basic meaning of most words is derived from a particular
arrangement of a few consonants. For example, the group ShLM
in Hebrew (Shin, Lamed, Mem) carries the meaning of peace as in the Hebrew
“shalom”. Can you think of some common Arabic-derived words where this same
group, ShLM, appear? Going in the other direction, can you think
of any Hebrew words which share a common origin with the Arabic name for God,
Allah?
Answer
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January 2023
On January 16th,
Beth Elohim hosts our 21st annual Martin Luther King Day
celebration. It is a special honor to have Tanisha Sullivan, President of the
Boston branch of the NAACP, as our guest speaker. Dr. King’s leadership and
oratory continue to inspire us to engage the still
unfinished work of the civil rights movement. His words struck a deep chord
with African Americans and also among Jews, many of
whom eagerly joined his cause. Some even died for it, like Andrew Goodman and
Mickey Schwerner, murdered by the Klu Klux Klan
during the hot Mississippi summer of 1964. Black-Jewish relations were never
stronger than when Dr. King was the undisputed leader of the civil rights
movement, before his 1968 assassination in Memphis. Besides inspired leaders
and workers, however, community organizations also need money to make an
impact. In Dr. King’s days, were Jewish people also generous with financial help
as they were with sympathy for the civil rights cause?
Answer
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