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May 24, 2019 – Rabbi Arnow

Dear Kol Rinah Family,


This Shabbat we'll celebrate the bat mitzvah of Rena Buhler. Mazal tov to her parents, Wendy Love Anderson and Jeremy Buhler, her brother Zachary, and her grandparents, our members William and Meris Hamilton.


Services tonight will be in the chapel at 6pm, with our usual blend of music and spirit. Candle lighting is getting later, at 7:56pm. Tomorrow morning, we will be downstairs in the lower auditorium at 9am. Mincha Saturday afternoon will be at 7pm and Shabbat ends at 9:01pm.


After a busy week of Chai+1 de Mayo, Sisterhood Study with the Scholars, and Lag B'Omer, this will be a relatively quieter upcoming week.


Minyan continues though! Please sign up on the website here if you know you'll be at minyan. 


Our Friday nights at Villa Park begin in two weeks, and Shavuot info will be coming out soon. (I know I said that last week!)


As a reminder, I meet periodically with my "Rabbi's Kitchen Cabinet, whose purpose is to offer feedback, advice and support to me. The current members of the kitchen cabinet are Jaron Asher (jaron.asher@gmail.com), Benita Boxerman (bwbox@mindspring.com), Marty Israel (mhi@wustl.edu), Zach Leeds (zacharyleeds@gmail.com) and Karen Rader (karenjoyrader@gmail.com). 


I'm always looking for feedback on how to better serve Kol Rinah. My preference is for you to share feedback about me directly with me. Additionally, I encourage members to give feedback to, and I always welcome feedback from, Kol Rinah's leadership, including our president, Randi Mozenter (president@kolrinahstl.org), our board chair, Sherri Sadon (boardchair@kolrinahstl.org), our vice president for personnel and our personnel committee chair, as well as our officers and board members (complete lists are here). 


I invite you to share feedback you have about me with any members of the "Rabbi's Kitchen Cabinet" if for any reason you would prefer not to share it with me directly or with a member of Kol Rinah's leadership. The feedback will be conveyed without names attached (unless you give explicit permission to share your name) and confidentially discussed. 


And now for a little Torah...


It may seem obvious to us that it's a good thing to find reasons to do mitzvot (commandments) and that it's good to find and explore explanations for mitzvot , but it's actually rather controversial! The other option is just to do it, not because one has an understanding or rationale, or will benefit from doing the mitzvah, but rather, because it is God's commandment, and any other reason for doing it denies God's sovereignty. 


Now, that's a rather strict, even harsh, way of thinking about mitzvot, and not really the dominant school of thought, but it's worth considering and playing with. 


The commandment regarding the shemita (sabbatical) year is a great example of this. In our portion this week (Behar, Leviticus chapter 25), verse 2 reads: "When you enter the land that I assign to you, the land shall observe a Sabbath of the Lord." It goes on to explain that we work the land for six years, and let it lay fallow in the seventh so that it is "a Sabbath of the Lord." The justification for this practice is theological, not practical, despite the fact that even non-farmers nowadays recognize the importance of letting fields and soil rest. 


The danger of the explanation approach to mitzvot is that we'll only do them if we find them meaningful and beneficial. That in some sense, I think, was the concern of those who suggested not searching for explanations. 


But in the end, our tradition is replete with meanings and explanations for mitzvot. And for most of us, I think, a mitzvah needs to have some resonance for us to do it. The growing edge for us all though, is to be willing to search deeply for that resonance, to try the mitzvah before we understand it or "feel" it. 


The mitzvah of the sabbatical year only applies in the land of Israel. But what is one mitzvah that you could try to find a little more of a connection to, or feel like you need to explore and try on it a little more? 


Shabbat shalom, and see you in shul!

Rabbi Noah Arnow
Fri, March 29 2024 19 Adar II 5784