President's Message

July 24, 2020

Dear Fellow Congregant(s)

Your KI team has been working diligently to determine how to give you all you hope for and more from the High Holy Days – while keeping all of us safe from COVID-19.  

For as long as we could, we held out the possibility that this might include a physical gathering in the Sanctuary.   However, we eventually recognized that doing so would be unsafe, and that the precautions necessary to attempt it would significantly detract from the services.
 
We turned our full focus to fulfilling what we all cherish about the High Holy Days - without gathering in the Sanctuary.  As we found elsewhere – lack of access to our traditional ways can lead to new, joyful, and meaningful ways to satisfy our wants and needs. 

We will stream beautiful services from the sanctuary for 5 major services.  They will include music and Torah readings from our choir and congregants, pre-recorded to keep them safe.  Congregants at last week’s Zoom Shabbat service saw a test run of “Heal Us Now” and many told us they were deeply moved.  

The services will be professionally produced and released for home viewing on Rosh Ha Shana and Yom Kippur at the appropriate times.  This enables us to deliver services that will make up for the lack of physical presence with features to connect you with KI and each other.

High Holy Days are much more than the main services!  We are also planning our traditional Meditation Service (by Zoom), Zoom Family Services, Learning & Experiential opportunities, socializing between services in Zoom breakout rooms (similar to very popular sessions at the “Gala Like No Other”), outdoor Tashlich, photo montages of our congregants, and more!  We will support your viewing from home with printouts of the service contents and inspirational readings, resources for “creating a sacred space”, a technology guide, and more.

With our main services settled, we are turning to the other activities described above.  You will soon receive a survey so we can get a sense of what interests you most – and collect any ideas that you have.  We’ll appreciate your input and speedy responses!

Thank you to the teams that are working hard to provide you High Holy Days you will cherish!  This includes, Rabbi Seth; Vikki Dunn; Melissa Hakim and the Health & Safety team; Tom Freedman and the Technology team; Patty Carlis and the Production team, Karen Berta and the choir; Martina Obenski and Religious Practices committee for important initial guidance – and others that you will hear about.

Wishing you a safe summer and looking forward to wonderful High Holy Days together!