Rabbis' Weekly Message

Dear Kol Rinah Family,

That was a Purim!

Preparations began weeks ago with recipe testing, dough mixing, and hamantaschen baking, led by Keith and Jinny Petrofsky. We delivered mishloach manot to every congregant household. Thank you to Barbara Shamir and Mitch Shenker, our volunteer co-executive directors, for their leadership in the mishloach manot packing and delivery. The ECC had a wonderful, packed Purim event Wednesday afternoon. We had a great mac-and-cheese dinner for kids, and a fun gathering of KR’s young families. Thanks to Toby Loewenstein and Rabbi Shafrin for their work in putting this all together. We had a well-attended mincha, and then a great megillah reading, interspersed with shpiel and jokes. The festivities continued with a party and more shpiel after megillah. Thank you to Cindy Payant for coordinating all our megillah readers. And a huge thank you to Benj Singer, Joanie Terrizzi, Amy Friedman, Max and Susan Brown, and Bob and Joyce Olshan for all their work in organizing the shpiel! The festivities continued with shacharit and megillah reading Thursday morning bright and early, for which we had a good group as well.

There’s no better way to recover from the festivities of Purim than with Shabbat. We’ll gather tonight for our special blend of classic and new melodies to welcome Shabbat at 6pm in the chapel. Candle lighting is at 6:57pm.

Tomorrow morning services will be at 9am in the lower auditorium. I’ll be teaching Torah Talk at 10:10am in the upper auditorium. Mincha Saturday afternoon will be at 6pm, and Shabbat ends at 7:56pm.

Tuesday night (7pm) begins Rabbi Shafrin and my mini-course on Love, God and Passover. Details here.

Next Shabbat we’ll celebrate New Baby Shabbat.

And in two weeks, on Saturday, April 6, Rabbi Dr. Pamela Barmash will speak on her recent responsum on Jewish burial in military cemeteries. Details here.

As a reminder, please sign up for minyan here. We need more people for weekday evenings. Sign up for one a month, or for once a week, or for your yahrzeits.

Also, please remember to help us be accessible and welcoming to all by not wearing perfume or cologne to Kol Rinah, as we have some attendees who have sensitivities to scents. Thank you!

Here’s a d’var Torah I wrote on this week’s Torah portion for the Jewish Light.

Shabbat shalom and see you in shul,

Rabbi Noah Arnow