Blog

Lessons from the Olive Tree

A Time to Heal

Shifrah and Puah: Courage And Righteousness Defined

The Jewish Tradition is Clear: Get a Vaccine

Confronting the Past to Shape the Future

Hanukkah – Concert, Candles, and Light Show

Here is our 2020 Livestreamed Hanukkah concert featuring Hazzan Tisser, Hazzan Barnett and Jeff Baden.

Enjoy a Hanukkah slide show of members celebrating in their homes and lighting their menorahs

Incase you weren’t able to drive-through to see our light show on the fourth night of Hanukkah, here’s what Beth El looked like lit up!

Revisiting a Classic Talmudic Debate

Parashat Vayeshev: Joseph and Judah Grow Up

Sacred Darkness

Giving Thanks in the time of Pandemic

I have a confession to make. It might surprise many of you, but I take a calculated risk in sharing: I love the winter holiday season. Everything about it. The decorations, the music, the magic that seems to be in the air for the six weeks or so which begin just prior to Thanksgiving and end just after New Years Day. I’ve always loved it. As a child in Los Angeles, my dad would drive us down Wilshire Boulevard to see downtown Beverly Hills all decked out, the sleds and snowflakes ironically hanging above the street, suspended on either side from the lamp posts, all while it might still be 80 degrees outside…window displays revealed along Rodeo Drive…beautiful holiday music playing from the shops and from speakers set up along the roads. At night after leaving my grandmother’s home from a weekend visit, we would often take the long way home, winding through the canyon roads of the Santa Monica Mountains, enjoying the elaborate light displays of the homes we passed.