Big Ideas of our Parasha „Sh‘lach Lecha“
God needs us to discover things on our own. This is why the portion begins with the words shelah lecha-literally, send them to spy on the land “for your own sake.” It would not have been enough for God to…
Rabbi Adrian Michael Schell
Proudly Jewish - Proudly Progressive
Rabbi Adrian Michael Schell
Proudly Jewish - Proudly Progressive
RabbiAdrian
Parashat Beha’alotecha: Mind your words
Wherever we go in today’s society, we are bombarded by ads about what we should and should not be putting in our mouths. The ads tells us to eat this so that we can lose weight; to not eat that…
Parashat Naso: May God bless you and keep you
Our Torah portion for this week is the source of the so-called “Birkat Kohanim” – the priestly blessing: “May God bless you and keep you, may God’s face shine upon you and be gracious to you, may God lift up…
Shavuot: Reaffirm the covenant
It is a mitzvah to reaffirm the covenant on Shavuot. Through the reading of the Ten Commandments at services, which recalls the establishment of the covenant and the contemplation of the importance of Torah and its lifelong study, (talmud-Torah), we renew…
Parashat Bechukotai – I will look with favour upon you
Chaverim, friends It has taken the orthodox community in Johannesburg almost 3 ½ years to realise that Bet David has an openly gay rabbi. To be honest, I am not so sure if this news went around earlier, but to…
Walking with God
Since Abraham, Israelites and Jews have been on physical, spiritual and moral journeys. This week’s Sidra, Bechukotai, contains in its first ten verses three applications of the Hebrew root HaLaCH (to go) which contain a beautiful insight into how Jews…
Yashar kochechem
In the past few weeks we have achieved several milestones in our congregation and celebrated wonderful happy moments in the lives of many of you. Often, we use the Hebrew expression “Yasher Koach“ to congratulate one another when a person…
Parashat Emor: How can we make God Holy?
The point of being Jewish is to have a relationship with God. Yet, a relationship implies a certain give and take. In biblical times it seems that the different kinds of sacrifices were our (human) contribution in this reciprocal partnership.…
Community News
REMINDER The 46th Annual General Meeting of Bet David and the 44th AGM of Bet David Kehillah will take place at Bet David on Wednesday 25 April 2018 at 18:00. We look forward to seeing you at the AGM and…
50 days that can help so many
At Bet David, we have found an additional way to give meaning to the traditional way of counting of the Omer. When we count the omer, we give 50 days of hope. I believe that education is one of the…