‘Israeli News’ Category

Israeli News

July 30, 2019
By Beth Mordecai
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Shabbat Message from Rabbi Metz about the BDS Movement

As a rabbi and Jewish person, I support and love Israel. Israel is our second home and the Jewish homeland. I want Israel to live up to its own highest ideals and to continue to be a light among the nations. This week an important bipartisan resolution, was passed by the US House of Representatives on an overwhelming vote of 398-17. This puts the House on record opposing the Boycott, Divest and Sanctions movement and its efforts to target U.S. companies that do business with Israel. I hope for a future when these kinds of resolutions will be unnecessary. Join Beth Mordecai for the High Holidays when I will be speaking about the Jewish people's complicated and loving relationship with Israel. Please read the[...]

Category : American Jewish News Israeli News Rabbi Rabbi's Journal Shabbat

Israeli News

April 21, 2018
By Beth Mordecai
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Israel at 70

This week we celebrated Israel's 70th birthday.  May Israel and her people live up to our highest ideals.  May Israel prosper in peace and joy. One of our dedicated members, Vardi Roy, shared this message with me.  It was written by the Chief Rabbi of South Africa, Warren Goldstein.  He wonderfully weaves together themes of celebrating Israels with the portion we read this week from the Torah and the important theme of gratitude.  I wanted to share his incredible message with you this week.  Please let me know your thoughts at Rabbi.SaraMetz@gmail.com May God continue to bless Israel and her people, together with Jews all around the world, with prosperity, safety, unity, and success.  Israel at 70 - by[...]

Category : Israeli News Rabbi Rabbi's Journal

Israeli News

May 12, 2016
By bethmordecai
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DAY 1412: On Israel and Shepherding

"I was a shepherd in Africa...now I shepherd Jewish people to Israel" - paraphrase of Dr. Avraham Neguise, Likud Member of Knesset and Chairman of Committee on Immigration, Absorption, and Diaspora Affairs Dear Hevreh, Israel has always held a special place in my heart. Between college and rabbinical school I took five trips to Israel and after each one my appreciation and love for the miracle of the Jewish State only increased. I even contemplated making aliyah at one point until I felt commanded to serve the Jewish people and religious life in America. This story is not new - many non-Israeli Jews feel a call to join the Jewish project in Israel, yet for one reason or another find[...]

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Israeli News

October 16, 2015
By bethmordecai
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DAY 1203: Let Us Never Forget Thee O Jerusalem

"אם אשכחך ירושלים תשכח ימיני" -- טעם ימיני בעבור כנורותינו כי בימין נגון היתרים  - אברהם אבן עזרא על תהילים קלז:ה "If I forget thee O Jerusalem, let my right hand wither" -- The meaning of "right hand" has to do with [playing] our violins (or musical instruments) because you use your right hand to play the strings - Rabbi Abraham Ibn Ezra (12th Century, Spain) on Psalms 137:5   Dear Hevreh, If you've ever been to Jerusalem, you'll notice that there's music always in the air. It's not the kind you hear on the radio or in a beautiful sanctuary, but the kind you hear within your soul. It's music that's been playing since the moment God saved Isaac on the top of Mt. Moriah,[...]

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Israeli News

July 16, 2015
By bethmordecai
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DAY 1111: A Very Bright Future

Dear Hevreh, Over the past few years, the threats and tumult of tunnels, rockets, bombs, and mayhem has not only terrorized the physical well being of the State of Israel, but the consciousness of the Jewish people worldwide. Our minds are tuned into the latest threat with a kind of tunnel vision that is fueled by black and white images of ghettos and gas chambers. How can we focus on anything else when our existence seems to be in constant peril. The radicalness of Shabbat is that no matter the gravity of our physical danger, every seventh day a moment of rest beckons us to change our focus from the anxieties of our outer life to the needs of our inner life. Yes,[...]

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Israeli News

November 20, 2014
By bethmordecai
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DAY 873: In Trying to Process the Attack in a Jerusalem Synagogue

(11/20/14), Most, if not all of us, are aware of the terrible crime committed the other day in a synagogue in Jerusalem. Terrorists murdered a group of Jewish worshippers while the worshippers were standing in the opposite direction -- to the east -- to davven the Amidah, a prayer recited by all Jews everywhere around the world. The symbolism of this horrible moment in an increasingly devastating conflict couldn't be more acute. The davveners were facing towards the center of Jewish worship -- the Temple Mount -- while their murderers attacked in response to purported fears that Jews wanted to take over the Temple Mount for Jewish worship. Despite occasional flare-ups, the fact that Jews pray towards the Temple Mount and Muslims pray[...]

Category : Adult Education Israeli News Jewish Current Events Rabbi Rabbi's Journal Services Shabbat
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Israeli News

November 9, 2014
By bethmordecai
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Israeli News

October 5, 2014
By bethmordecai
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Kol Nidre 5775 Sermon — Forgetting Justice for the Sake of Forgiveness

Forgetting Justice for the Sake of Forgiveness Kol Nidre 5775 – October 3, 2014* Rabbi Ari Saks Congregation Beth Mordecai There is a famous midrash (Masekhet Rosh Hashanah, 17b) in which Moses is standing atop Mt. Sinai about to greet God for the very first time. When God arrives, Moses does not see God’s face but rather a figure wrapped in a beautiful Tallit. God then brings Moses into God’s Tallit and declares: “Moses. I will show you how to lead the people of Israel in prayer.” And as God teaches Moses how to lead the Israelites in prayer, God also teaches him a secret. “Moses, whenever Israel sins, let them recite the following words before Me, and I will forgive them.” And then[...]

Category : Israeli News Jewish Current Events Rabbi Sermons Yom Kippur
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Israeli News

September 9, 2014
By bethmordecai
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DAY 801: Sunday’s Event — What A Success!

Dear Hevreh, On Sunday afternoon, our beautiful sanctuary was filled with words that were provocative, engaging, timely, and deeply powerful on the challenges of Israeli-Palestinian peace. They are words that many of us are still digesting, and will continue to digest especially through the High Holidays. They are words that teach us that there can be multiple truths to a single reality, and it is possible (albeit painful) to hold those two truths as equally valid. And as these powerful words were shared by our guests Rabbi Hanan Schlesinger and Ali Abu Awwad, we were there to listen to them. 115 people from far and wide in the Jewish community of Middlesex community were present in our beautiful sanctuary to hear these[...]

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Israeli News

September 5, 2014
By bethmordecai
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DAY 797: A Litmus Test for…the Jewish People

This is the third of a three part journal series previewing this Sunday's Israeli-Palestinian speaker event "One Land, Two Worlds, One Painful Hope" Dear Hevreh, The Jewish people have been through a lot in over 4000 years of our history. Expulstions, crusades, the Holocaust, you name it and it seems the Jewish people have survived it. So to say that a dialogue between a Palestinian and an Israeli is a "litmus test" for the Jewish people is rather facetious. If all of Jewish life is like an incredible Impressionist painting, then Sunday's event would be a single dot from the artist's brush. That being said, anyone turning on the news today knows that the conversation in our sanctuary on Sunday is relevant to[...]

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