Dear Friends:
As you most likely know, this coming Shabbat morning we are having a special kiddush to mark the 10th anniversary of my service to Kehilat Shalom. Because we have been taking RSVPs for several weeks, we won’t be asking for registration via our signup sheet as we normally do for in person services. However, please make sure that you understand and follow our current COVID mitigation regulations which can be found at this link. This is particularly crucial given that we want to make sure that everyone is healthy for the coming High Holidays and because we have had several cases of COVID in our community recently.
You may know that three of the Conservative congregations in upper Montgomery County, including Kehilat Shalom, have decided to combine their religious schools for the coming year. We will be joining forces for religious school with Tikvat Israel and Shaare Torah. This decision makes sense given that the educational goals of the three congregations are quite similar and all of the congregations in the area have had shrinking enrollments in their schools. This decision makes sense for us; over the past few years we have had a number of potential member families decide against joining Kehilat Shalom because of the size of our religious school or because we could not guarantee that there would be a class for their child. If you have a child in grades K through 7 who is not currently enrolled in religious school and you would like to consider enrolling him or her, please contact me. If you know of a local family with a Jewish child in these grades who might like to enroll, please put them in touch with me. Although religious school starts this coming Sunday, we will continue enrolling students even after school starts.
I am having drop-in hours on Thursday afternoon from 2 to 4 at the shul. 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