Newsletters

Worship Event
of the Week

Shabbat-Sukkot Study, Service and Seudah
We look forward to gathering at the home of Fay and Rabbi Doug (and on Zoom) this coming Saturday, October 19, beginning at 9:30 a.m. for study, prayer and our Seudah — a festive Shabbat-Sukkot brunch, with time in the Sukkah. In our study hour, we continue our series on the how and the why of prayer. Additionally, both adults and kids may create a fun Sukkot-themed craft.
For Zoom participation, click here.

Upcoming
Social Justice 
Event

MFAF Service Night in Lexington
Kol Ami returns to Lexington, Mo., Monday, October 21, from 4:30 to approximately 7 p.m., to help pack and organize meal kits for migrant farmworkers, and provide to-go desserts (cookies, cookie bars). We will carpool from the All Souls parking lot, with a departure no later than 3:30 p.m. If you can’t make it to Lexington but want to contribute, bakers are also needed. 

Interested in volunteering or have questions? Email Brad Ordo at kehilahvp@

kolamikc.org.

Yahrzeits
This Week

October 17
Richard Esten – husband of Ellen Karp

October 19
Marvin Hirschman – father of Marion Breinin

October 20
Seymour Greenwald – father of Brian Greenwald

We Wish Mi Shebeirach
A complete healing of mind, body and spirit:

Robert Clinton
Kenneth Dantzler
Alan Dietchman
Renée Dietchman
Megan Garrison
Harriet Greenwald
Carrie Hollister
Karla Jacobs
Yale Krugman
Steve Sackin
Melvin Michael Slater

If you would like a name to continue to be listed or if you have a
new name to include, please send an email to  healing@kolamikc.org. 

Rabbi's Week in Review



It is always a gift for me to gather with the Congregation Kol Ami community/family. Our High Holy Days — both our Rosh Hashanah celebration and our reflective, serious observance of Yom Kippur — are both given meaning by sharing them in community.

This point was driven home to me in our Yom Kippur study session. We kicked off the “How and Why of Prayer” by asking why we pray. Amongst the more pervasive answers was the draw ... Click here to read the rest of Rabbi Doug's blog post.

This Week's Torah Portion



As we celebrate Sukkot, we have Torah portions that are assigned specifically in celebration of the chag, the holiday. Both in the Book of Vayikra/Leviticus and the Book of Shemot/Exodus, the special readings give us a description of Sukkot and the other holidays mentioned in our Written Torah. That they were given specific dates on the Jewish calendar speak to the seasons in which they occur.

Sukkot, as well as Pesach/Passover and Shavuot, have their roots in agrarian harvests. They also speak to the rhythm of the Jewish calendar and the natural order of G-d’s created world.

Kol Ami News


Participants at the Kol Ami Cooking Series September 23 make honey cakes to hand out at the Rosh Hashanah morning service.

Weekly Feature

Yizkor Thoughts From a Childless Dog Lady 
By Ellen Karp

With Yom Kippur’s Yizkor meditations freshly in mind and Sukkot starting up this week, I find myself thinking about losses and the need for shelter from the pain of those losses.  I find it apropos that Sukkot quickly follows Yom Kippur, and we ritually nourish ourselves and take shelter inside the Sukkot booths.

For me, the deepest idea of shelter is found in family. After all, Genesis, where the Torah begins, is basically a family saga, starring our patriarchal first family. 

Besides being a childless cat (well, dog) lady, I am an adult orphan and a widow. So I bask in the presence of my delightful nieces and nephews, their wonderful partners and their fabulous offspring.  Their families are their own Genesis creations. I am thrilled to be invited in, even temporarily. 

I have a pretty good inkling of what I passed up in the parenting department – both the joys and the tribulations. One advantage of being childless is the ability to stand at arm’s length and not be enveloped the way a mother or father is. Yet we childless adult orphans realize no one is going to think of us the way we do our own departed parents. 

My mother and father enlivened and enriched every day of my life and will do so for every bit of the rest of it. Their memory is so much more than “for a blessing” — it is my abiding source of energy in the world and simultaneously my shelter from it.

I was blessed as well with an amazing husband for whom I always came first.  I have dear friends who make my life a pleasure, and others whom I simply am glad to be around.  That said, I’m resigned now to come first only with my dog!

All of which is why our synagogue family is foundational as a home, a shelter. 

“When I feel that my family is scattered, hundreds of miles away, I find the nearness of family here. …”
(“Here,” from Siddur Sha'ar Zahav)