Temple Beth Israel of Redding

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An outpost of Judaism in Shasta county: a place where you and your family can build a strong Jewish identity.Temple Beth Israel is a friendly, diverse, welcoming community: we come from many streams of Judaism and many different backgrounds.
At TBI you'll never get lost in the crowd!

JOIN US AT BARNES AND NOBLE HELP RAISE FUNDS FOR BET SEFER! Join us at Barnes and Noble on Sunday December 5th to help raise funds for our Bet Sefer. 10% of every purchase made that day, whether it be books or something yummy from the Cafe, will be credited to our fundraiser. Just be sure to give them one of our nifty coupons or our bookfair ID number: 10261824. You can even order online between Dec 5th and 11th, just enter 10261824 at checkout. Coupons can be found on our Member page (click link) or picked up at our in-store table on Dec 5th.
SEE YOU THERE!

12/04 - Community Hannukah celebration 5pm (5:00 PM)
Join us for latkes, applesause, stories, songs and fun. Bring a friend or two and your menorahs (candles too).
12/05 - Bet Sefer 9:30 (9:30 AM to 12:00 PM)
Share the tradition!
12/05 - Temple Teens fundraiser @ Barnes & Noble (11:00 AM to 6:00 PM)
Help our teens raise money for their annual San Francisco field trip. A percentage of book sales at B&N today will be donated to their cause! It's not too late for chanukah gifts! Give them our fundraiser id # when you check-out: 10261824. (You can use this for online orders the week of 12/5-12/11 also!)

Join us for worship services. Please see Worship schedule (updated August 2010).

Bet Sefer, our Sunday school is for students K-8th, and meets from September through May. Please see 2010-2011 schedule.

The book club meets bi-monthly in the homes of participants. Discussions are lively and thought provoking. All of our readings have Jewish themes, but the choices vary greatly.

TBI is one 21 houses of worship represented on SCIF, the Shasta County Interfaith Forum, an organization that meets on the second Wed of each month.

Every week the Record Searchlight poses questions to members of Redding's faith communities. George and Art answer from the Jewish perspective as representatives of our leadership.

Dear Tanta Golda,
Ive heard that the letters of the Hebrew alphabet also stand for numbers. How does this work? I mean if I want two fish do I ask for bet dag? How would I write the number 21?
A budding Hebrew scholar

Scholar, Oye, a mothers dream, a Hebrew scholarwell okay, a Hebrew scholar whos a doctor, for this Id kvell!
You ask such a wonderful question! Yes, each letter has a numeric value. However, you must bear in mind that any family letters share the same value. This means that both bet and vet are symbolic of the number 2, pey and fey are both worth 80, and shin and sin 300. Final letters have the same value as their non-final counterparts (mem and final mem are both worth 40) The numeric values go from 1 (aleph ) to ten (yud ), then increase by tens (kaf is 20, lamed 30) until 100 (kof ) with the rest going up in increments of 100. For a chart you can go to: www.jewfaq.org/alephbet.htm This is at Judaism 101, a wonderful site for many of your Judaic questions.
When written this way they have a cumulative value. That is to write the number 21 you would write from right to left kaf aleph - 20+1. You would not just write bet aleph. Usually the number with the highest value is written first, followed by the number of the next highest value, and so on. So, 248 - the number of positive mitzvot that God gave us - is written resh mem chet 200+40+8. (There are two exceptions to the rule of using the letters of the highest value when writing numbers: 15&16 are written with as 9+6 and 9+7 respectively, since using the highest possible value letters - 10+5 & 10+6 would each be a name of God.)
In modern Hebrew even in erezt Yisrael (the land of Israel) the decimal system of Hindu-Arabic numerals (1,2,3) are used. Hebrew numbers are used mainly for writing the days and years of the Hebrew calendar (not the secular one we all use), for references to Jewish texts, for numbering lists - much in the same way we use Roman numerals, and in numerology. You may notice in many Tanachs that the line references use the aleph-bet number system.
Now my scholar, you asked about how you would ask for two fish. For speaking counting numbers are used. For example: Ehad - one (you may remember hearing this in the Shema) shenayim - two, shelosha - three. If you ever sang ehad a mi o deya in Hebrew during Passover, you sang these numbers!
Now, there is a system of Jewish mysticism called the Gematria which delves into the hidden meaning of words based on their numerical value. Tanta Golda isnt going to go into this other than to point out that the letters in the word chai - life, are chet yud which added together are 18. This is why many gifts are given in denominations of 18!
And, while you didnt ask, the number 13 has no negative connotation in Jewish tradition. Thirteen is the age of Bnei mitzvah, we have Rambams 13 principles, and the 13 attributes of Mercy are mentioned in Exodus!
Keep up your scholarly pursuits! Love - TG