The Beth El Ritual Advisory Committee meets regularly to consider a variety of both broad and specific issues related to our services and synagogue protocols.

The Committee offers guidance to the shul’s ritual leadership—the klei kodesh—who seek to educate the congregation and gauge its temperature on certain matters before instituting changes.

The Committee also serves as a resource for congregants who have specific questions and ideas they would like raised and debated in an open forum.

All members of the Beth El Congregation are welcome to participate in the discussions and, in that way, stay abreast of developments that impact on how services are conducted.

Following is a sampling of items currently on the Ritual Advisory Committee Agenda:

Triennial Torah Reading Cycle

The Committee is continuing its consideration of whether Congregation Beth El should adopt the Triennial Torah Reading Cycle. While there are a wide number of variations, generally, in this system, the traditional parashiot are each divided into three shorter segments, and the whole Torah is completed once every three years. The Triennial pattern is similar to the one used in ancient Israel during the rabbinic period.

The Triennial Cycle shortens the length of the weekly Torah reading without sacrificing the complete reading of the Torah on a regular basis. This advantage has made it the choice of a growing number of synagogues in the Conservative Movement. By the number of shuls embracing it, the Triennial Cycle, so far, has been more popular in the South and Western part of the country, than here in the East.

Beth El congregants are invited to research the topic on their own, formulate their own opinions and share them freely with members of the Ritual Committee and with the Rabbis and Hazzan.

At the present, consensus seems to be to stay with the full Torah reading each Shabbat.

Synagogue Decorum

The Beth El Ritual Advisory Committee is also concerned with maintaining proper decorum in our services, and is taking action to encourage appropriate dress and to enforce the prohibition against using cell phones and cameras, and smoking in and around the synagogue on Shabbat and holidays.