This e-mail contains much Important Shabbat and Rosh Hashanah Information! Please read to the end.
I love Rosh Hashanah. And I love Yom Kippur. I love them because they are fundamentally hopeful and optimistic. Our holidays insist that we can change and improve, and that our world can change and improve. Things are not as they must and always be. This is not to say change is easy or a certainty. But it’s a “possibilist” mindset—so much is possible. Being reminded of our own mortality, of our smallness, and of all the ways we have to improve is challenging, to say the least. But we also are reminded of the urgency, the need, and the joy and accomplishment that we can create and experience. Rosh Hashanah invites us to begin, or restart, a conversation with ourselves about who we want to be, and become.
Whenever you find your attention wandering at services, or as you’re on your way to or from shul, or lying bed, falling asleep, this holiday season, ask yourself, over and over, “Who is it that I really want and need to be?”
This Rosh Hashanah, let’s inspire ourselves by remembering that so much is possible.
And now for the details!
First, mazal tov again to Grace Cooperstein, and her parents, David and Alisa, on Grace becoming a bat mitzvah in a joyous fashion last Shabbat.
Tonight, Kabbalat Shabbat services will be in the chapel at 6pm. It’ll be a more meditative, a cappella service with Karen Kern and me tonight. Candle lighting is at 6:32pm. This is the last Shabbat of the year, so come say good bye to the 5770s!
Saturday morning, we’ll have services in the lower auditorium. Torah Talk with Rabbi Shafrin at 10:10am will be in the Sara Myers Community Room. Mincha will be at 5:30pm, and Shabbat ends at 7:28pm.
Monday morning and Tuesday morning, services begin at 8am, and will conclude by 1pm. As we did last year, we’ll have a service in the lower auditorium with musical instruments that will not do the full liturgy for shacharit and musaf both days of Rosh Hashanah. We’ll be all together for the Torah and Shofar services (with a family musical experience simultaneous to the Torah service) in the sanctuary. And we’ll have a traditional service upstairs for shacharit and musaf both days too! Try out all of our different options, and see what speaks to you.
We also have exciting classes on Rosh Hashanah themes being offered the mornings of the holiday. Descriptions are available here. Thank you so much to all of our teachers!
Most important, please be kind, warm, friendly and patient throughout your time here during the Days of Awe. We will have many guests and others here for the first time, checking us out. The most important thing you can do is smile, say “hello” and “shana tova,” and offer help to anyone who looks like they may need it—help finding a seat, a book, a page; it may be someone older who needs a hand, or child who needs a little help, or parents of small kids.
Feel free to bring an appropriate book to shul to read—nothing wrong with that!
Kids are always welcome in services! But they should either be in adult services, youth programming or with a parent or guardian. Please do not have your children roaming free without your supervision.
Please refrain from wearing strong perfume or cologne, as some people have allergies.
Please keep all cellphones and other portable electronic devices off or on silent and put away within the building on Shabbat and holidays.
Finally, putting together the High Holidays at Kol Rinah is an enormous undertaking. Thank you SO MUCH to everyone who has a part, large, or small, in helping us prepare for these holidays.
I wish you again a good and sweet new year—Shabbat Shalom and Shana Tova uMetukah.
See you in shul!
Rabbi Noah Arnow
Kol Rinah 829 N Hanley St. Louis, MO 63130 314.727.1747 kolrinahstl.org
MISSION: Create a welcoming community that embraces Torah, meaningful worship, lifelong learning, music, Israel, and tikkun olam, guided by the tenets of Conservative Judaism.
Phone: 314-727-1747