Dear Friends:
I want to thank everyone who helped out to make the High Holidays at Kehilat Shalom so memorable. In particular I want to thank Hazzan Komrad who worked so hard and was in such fine voice. I also want to thank Pepco for the partial power outage that made our Neila service so atmospheric and Tom Loggie for having headlamps at hand so that the Hazzan and I could continue to lead services despite the lack of lighting in the Sanctuary.
So many others contributed hard work as well -- our Administrator Joan Teich, ushers, chair and Zoom equipment setter-uppers and taker-downers, and Charlotte Strauss, Joe Lustig, Gail Lieberman and Bryan Levenson for keeping track of honors and readers. And of course everyone who chanted Torah or Haftarah or who had a reading or Ark opening. There is always a risk in listing people as inevitably someone is omitted, but know that I am grateful to everyone who helped our in ways large or small, whether I listed you or not.
Thank you to those who shared words of support and feedback after my High Holiday sermons. If you would like to read the texts of the sermons, here are the links:
Services for the first day of Sukkot this Saturday morning will be in person and on Zoom. For those attending in person, services will be followed by “Pizza in the Hut”, a pizza kiddush in the Sukkah. Services Sunday morning are on Zoom only.
Because the first day of Sukkot is on Shabbat, the lulav and etrog are not used on that day. If you have ordered a lulav and etrog set through the synagogue, please make arrangements to pick it up by closing time on Friday.
The synagogue sukkah will be open for you to use throughout the holiday.
As a reminder, I am having drop-in hours on Thursday afternoon from 2 to 4 at the shul -- after a hiatus of two weeks for High Holiday prep. You do not need to make an appointment -- that would negate the whole point of drop-in hours -- but I’d urge you to check and make sure I am there regardless as sometimes there are unavoidable pastoral or other emergencies which might take me away from the building.
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. 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.
L’shalom,
Rabbi Charles L. Arian