Dear Friends:
A few quick notes before this Father’s Day and Juneteenth weekend:
* We welcome Mike Goldman’s brother Al who is visiting from the Albany, NY, area. Al will be leading Shacharit and Mike will be leading Musaf tomorrow morning. We’re looking forward to meeting Al Goldman and hearing him lead services.
* On the subject of leading services, if you were at services last Shabbat morning you heard Barnaby Yeh chant the Haftarah using the trope system of the Jerusalem Sephardic community. Most American congregations use the same standardized Ashkenazi trope system but there are actually a wide variety of different systems. All use the same notation but the way the notes sound varies from community to community and Barnaby knows a great variety of different systems. He will chant the Haftarah again tomorrow using a different trope than he used last week and I’ve asked him to explain which system it is before chanting. This is a great opportunity to expand our knowledge of different Jewish communities’ musical traditions.
* We had an interesting discussion last night about the entanglement of religion and state in terms of civil laws trying to make sure that food sold as kosher is indeed kosher, and that Jewish women are not extorted by their ex-husbands before being able to remarry. The video of the class is at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uad-vN0UfrI
* It was ten years ago this Shabbat that I came to Kehilat Shalom to interview for the rabbinic position here. It was, however, not the first time I had been to Kehilat Shalom. I had been the Hillel director at American University in the early to mid 1990s and as I was driving along Montgomery Village Ave. on the way to the shul I had a feeling of deja vu. This feeling got stronger as I entered the synagogue parking lot and I was certain that I had been here before. The regional Rabbinical Assembly would meet at various area synagogues and when the sanctuary was new, or possibly still under construction, Rabbi Saul Hyman z’l hosted a meeting of the local Conservative rabbis.
* Happy Father’s Day to all the fathers out there. This will be my first Father’s Day without my own father and it was a year ago that I last saw him relatively healthy before his final illness.
As always, if I can do anything for you or you need to talk, please contact me at rabbi@kehilatshalom.org or 301-977-0768 rather than through the synagogue office. Although I am working primarily from home, I am happy to meet you at the synagogue by appointment. I have been spending more time in the synagogue recently but if you want to speak with me it’s best to make an appointment rather than assuming I will be there when you stop by.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Charles L. Arian