Dear Kol Rinah Family,
Shabbat Shalom from my home to yours! I hope you are all keeping yourselves and each other safe, healthy, sane, and cared for during these trying times.
This has been hard for us in all different ways. If you'd like to set up a time to talk with Rabbi Arnow or me, just email or call us, or call the office.
As a reminder, we are still setting up groups of Kol Rinah volunteers to call a set group of congregants weekly. If you'd be willing to make calls, please respond to this email and let me know how many people you'd be willing to call each week.
The Crown Center is offering delivered kosher meals to older adults in need. For more information, call 314.991.2055 or email info@crowncenterstl.org.
Also, Rabbi Arnow sent out a wealth of information about food and financial resources that are available. For more information, click the link below:
https://www.kolrinahstl.org/rabbi-arnows-weekly-message.html?post_id=1036679
Kabbalat Shabbat
Tonight, we’ll gather at 6:00 pm for mincha (the afternoon service), as well as Kabbalat Shabbat and a short time of sharing. One of the things I’ve found is that the words of the siddur (prayer book) are sustaining, but also seeing and hearing everyone’s voices and having a short time to speak with each other has been so important too. So join us tonight at 6pm here:
Candle lighting tonight is at 7:09 pm and Shabbat ends at around 8:13 pm.
Next week, we will NOT be holding Kabbalat Shabbat services, since the second day of Passover leads right into Shabbat. We WILL, however, be holding a short service before Passover begins on Wed., April 8 at 6:00pm (using the regular evening minyan Zoom link on the website). We will also be gathering over Zoom for Havdallah on Saturday night, April 11 when Shabbat ends at about 8:17 pm:
Music
If you're missing some of your favorite Kol Rinah music, you can listen to some of it here: https://www.kolrinahstl.org/music-gallery , which Rabbi Shafrin, Karen Kern and I recorded over the winter. Check back in the weeks ahead for more new music.
Here's a Spotify playlist of some of musician/composer Rabbi Josh Warshawsky's favorite music for before Shabbat: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7J4I67e4FmQhMMWd2xsJo2?si=NktiVv5nTvSWoGWtEarXXg
Passover Prep
A great deal of information on the upcoming Pesach (Passover) holiday can be found right on our own Kol Rinah website ( https://www.kolrinahstl.org/passover-information.html ).
Particularly important to fill out by TUESDAY, APRIL 7 are the ONLINE forms for selling your chametz ( https://www.kolrinahstl.org/form/sale-of-hametz.html ); it is particularly important to get this in ahead of Passover in order to help prepare your home for the holiday AND to ensure that you are able to have food available after the holiday ends. You can also find the form for donating for maot chitim here: https://www.kolrinahstl.org/form/maot-hittim2.html .
One particularly good Pesach resource is this guide to small or solo seders:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/11MwOcv1afua_Me9MQkOX2edvW2ZAJ7dz/view
The United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism has lots of great Passover resources here https://uscj.org/passover-resources.
The Rabbinical Assembly has made their Haggadah available online as a PDF here. https://www.rabbinicalassembly.org/sites/default/files/2020-03/FeastofFreedomPassoverHaggadah.pdf
At the end of Shacharit on Wednesday, April 8, Wendy Love Anderson will be learning a siyyum (a celebration of completing a block of learning) in conjuction with Taanit Bechorot, the Fast of the Firstborn, and is inviting everyone to join with her over the Zoom call and to consume a festive meal together in our separate homes.
We will not be holding services during the Yom Tov days of Pesach. Due to the extraordinary circumstances we find ourselves and our world in, we will be holding Yizkor services directly following mincha on Tuesday, April 14 at 6:00 pm. Use the regular Zoom link for evening services:
This past Tuesday, Rabbi Arnow and I held Q&A sessions centered around Passover, and had wonderful discussions with those in attendance. You can find our notes on those questions, along with answers and a wealth of other Passover resources here:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cu2FjRN--gYQfW9kj5LYPTxUZP9Cc2kWjjZrESx7pFI/edit?ts=5e825e35
In addition, Rabbi Arnow and I have recorded short videos adding a little bit of depth, color, and insight into each section of the Pesach Seder. We hope that you will add them either to your preparations for Pesach, or use them during the seder itself as you make your way through the Haggadah. We now have a Kol Rinah channel on YouTube, and as soon as the videos go live, we will send out a message and post the link on our website.
And now for a little Torah...
In looking at Sefer Vayikra, The Book of Leviticus, which we started last week, Rabbi Jonathan Sacks had the following, inspiring, words to share:
The Hebrew words ‘mikra’ and ‘mikre’, ‘mikra’ with the letter aleph, ‘mikre’ with the letter hey. Mikra means a call and mikre means pure chance. What is the difference between a call and a chance? That is the message within the first word of Vayikra and I realised many years ago that deep insight can be shed on this if we look at the end of Vayikra...Rashi’s comments at the beginning of Vayikra and the Rambam’s comments on the end Vayikra are saying the same thing: that there is a very slight difference between things that happen by chance and things that are in some sense a call from God to come closer to Him. The difference is an aleph, and an aleph is silent.
In fact, the difference is a little aleph, and the little aleph is almost invisible, but that is the difference between Vayikra, ‘and God called’ and vayikar, ‘he just happened’. And that is really how the book of Vayikra begins and ends, saying yes, in one sense events are mere chance. In one sense. In the case of this pandemic it was a viral mutation that was almost randomly caught and transmitted and has now affected a quarter of the world’s population who are in lockdown as I speak.
That is chance, but perhaps also specifically in our isolation at a time when we have the opportunity to listen to our soul, to our mind, to our heart in a way that we don’t have at other times because we are so busy interacting with other people, perhaps also in our isolation, we can hear God’s very quiet call. A little aleph, almost silent. He’s asking us to question, is there someone I should call? Is there someone I should help? Is there someone I should thank? Is there a prayer I should be saying? Is there a text I should be learning? Is there a mitzvah I should be doing?
Is there something that I have been neglecting until now because I felt just too busy and now that I am in this isolation, in this silence, able to hear, able to think of? That is what vayikra means. It means an almost silent call, but one which we hear at moments of loneliness. Sometimes the really difficult times are the times of growth. They don’t seem so at the time. But when we look back, we see they were. The help we give others at difficult times is a good deed that is never forgotten ever.
So I just think that it is worth thinking in these times: Can I somehow, underneath this all, hear that still small voice of Hashem saying to me, use this time of being at one with yourself to listen and to hear and to heed and to do and to grow, and thereby become strong by giving strength to others because it is not only to Moshe Rabbeinu that vayikra, ‘God calls’, but to all of us.
May we hear and heed God's voice and may God hear and heed ours when we pray to Hashem. Please end this terrible time and send a refua shlaima to the cholei amecha, and to the cholei olam. To those of your people and those of all peoples who are ill, grant them a speedy recovery. And grant us all the chance to re-engage with life again.
Stay safe everyone, and continue to take care of youselves (mentally, spiritually, physically, etc.), your families, and those around you as best you can while exercising caution and the maximum degree of social distancing. I promise we will help one another through this.
Shabbat Shalom and (early) chag sameach,
Rabbi Shafrin
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