News from Kol Ami

I’m sure you’ve all been bombarded with “Change is Good” messages, imploring you to go “outside your comfort zone” and leave your “safety net”. But we all know that change isn’t easy, that we like things the way they’ve always been, and want them to stay that way.

But sometimes circumstances present themselves that make it impossible to do things the same. One such example was a few weeks back, when smoke from an HVAC failure on Friday afternoon caused a smoke-filled evacuation of the Kol Ami Atkinson building

With no way of knowing whether the building would be safe or heated on Saturday, we made the quick decision to move Torah Study and Shabbat services to another location. Fortunately, Dana Glickman had a contact who was able to secure two rooms in the Kimel Education Building of the Lebovic Campus (yes, the same building where we have our Sunday Religious School). It took a bit of juggling, and we had to cancel Saturday Religious school classes, but we otherwise had an enjoyable experience that morning.

I’m now going to draw an analogy to this year’s combination of the Neshamah and Kol Ami congregations. Over 100 families have had to leave their comfort zones and join a congregation with a new name, new location (except the Sunday school), new Rabbi and new fellow congregants.

We’ve been pleased to see an increasing number of new faces at events we’ve held since High Holy Days. We know it’s not easy going to services and events where you might initially only know two or three other people. But we’ve all had to leave our comfort zone at some point, otherwise we’d all still be living with our parents and none of us would have ever experienced the community that is synagogue membership.

So, drop that safety net, embrace change, and join us for one of our many fun, or serious, or meaningful events or services. Many of them are listed in this version of the Voice.

Shana Tovah - Happy Secular New Year!

Elliot