Dear Kol Rinah Family,
I hope everyone was able to move easily through this snowy week! As fall moves into winter, and the days get shorter and shorter, we hope you will stay safe, warm, and healthy everyday.
I want to wish a profound and hearty mazal tov to Denise Field and Michael Cannon on the birth of a new grandson this week! We are sending all our best the whole family, including new parents Jon Cannon and Sara Mann, and many blessings on this newest lucky member of the family!
There is so much going on this week, and especially this Shabbat! Services tonight for our Kol HaNefesh services, featuring a contemplative, a cappella spiritual community with Rabbi Karen Kern and Rabbi Arnow, begin at 6:00 pm in the chapel. Candle lighting is at 4:30 pm.
Tomorrow morning, we will gather together to celebrate our military veterans and service members for our Veterans' Shabbat, beginning downstairs in the Mirowitz Auditoruim at 9:00 am. Torah Talk with Rabbi Arnow will be upstairs at aproximately 10:10am. We will also be celebrating the 50th anniversary of Harlan Heller's bar mitzvah. Mazal tov to Harlan, who will be reprising his role leading the community in the chanting of the Haftarah for this week's parashah, Vayera.
We will also be having Rhythm 'n' Ruach with Shelley Dean in Room 106 for our youngest members, as well as MifgaShabbat with Melissa Bellows in the chapel for our elementary school members. Both will be starting at 10:45 am and conclude with "kid"dush and motzi, and with all of our young friends joining us downstairs for the end of services and kiddush luncheon.
Following kiddush, our own Verein will be leading a discussion on Jewish perspectives on Good and Evil, featuring our own Dr. Ralph Graff and Larry Friedman. What are the ethical dilemmas facing the Jewish People today? What is the nature of good and evil in the Torah? Come discuss this and more with some brilliant insights from all throughout our tradition, and add your own voice to the discussion as well.
Mincha Saturday afternoon will be at 3:30 pm and Shabbat ends at 5:32pm.
This Tuesday night, at 7:00pm in our Social Hall, we will be hosting a program put on by the American Holocaust Museum entitled "Americans and the Holocaust: What Did Missourians Know?", and should be a fascinating look back at one of the darkest times in our history through the local lens of the people of Missouri in the 1930s and '40s. Click here for more information.
NEXT week, we will have the incredible and brilliant Dr. Marjorie Lehman visiting us as our scholar in residence. She will be teaching at Kol Rinah both Friday night and Shabbat morning, with a separate session Sunday at B'nai Amoona. We will also hosting a dinner with Dr. Lehman here at the shul. We have a wonderful group signed up already and RESERVATIONS FOR DINNER CLOSE ON MONDAY, NOVEMBER 18. Please see the information below; to register for the Shabbat dinner please call the office by MONDAY or click here .
And now for a very little bit of Torah…
My rabbi and teacher, Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson, spoke this week about ways of connecting our Jewish tradition to the veterans we honor this Shabbat. In his remarks, he comments that God is presented in two different and seemingly contradictory ways by our tradition. In Chapter 15 of Exodus, which becomes known as Shirat HaYam, The Song of the Sea, when the Jewish People cross through the Sea of Reeds and escape slavery in Egypt, God is described as איש מלחמה (Ish Milchama), a warrior. But to imagine God as a warrior seems to contradict other places in Tanach and our sacred literature which say that God's very name is שלום (Shalom), or "peace" (Judges 6:24; Talmud Bavli, Shabbat 10b).
But there is a way to unify these seemingly disparate ideas. The word שלום (Shalom) can be viewed as comprising a unity of two distinctly opposite Hebrew words: אש (aish - "fire") and מיים (mayim - "water"). Just as fire can represent violence and destruction, it can also symbolize warmth and passion; just as water represents flood and feeling overwhelmed ("in over one's head"), it can also indicate life and growth. Though fire and water appear to be opposites, a full life cannot be lived without the things that feed us and help us grow, as well as those that keep us safe and warm.
And more than this, God's nature is composed of both the passion to combat injustice and pursue those who do wrong, as well as the never-ending drives to protect, sustain, and care for those in need. The same can be said of our brave soldiers and veterans, who put their time, energy, and their very lives into the work of both fighting for freedom and defending our nation. Those who dedicate themselves to this sacred calling are truly fighting the necessary fights so that one day, God willing, we can all live in peace.
Shabbat shalom and see you in shul,
Rabbi Scott Shafrin
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