On Wednesday morning, April 2nd, Lauren Simonds, our synagogue administrator, went to Kirkland’s Faith Community Convening on...

Shabbat Shalom! Hanukkah is afoot.

This isn't just my proclamation about human nature; it's God's voice in our parashah this week. Both stories found in Parashat Noach,...

We are not confined to a predestined reality. The world was not created so that it could be destroyed. We are not born sinful. None of that

Teshuva can mean to make amends: to do better, put right. This is one of our personal tasks at this season. Especially now during the 10...

This Saturday 2/25 has been marked as a national day of hate of the Jews-by people who really hate Jews. People who work in Jewish...

Love the stranger...this is the most repeated mitzvah in the Torah. It is not an option for us Jews. We have been strangers in a strange...

The entire Passover Hagaddah, the entire holy week of Passover, has one main goal- to pass to the next generation the story, this...

Shalom! A few weeks ago I invited our Kol Ami members and friends to use my new calendar site to make appointments with me to check in...

So many of you have been expressing interest in ways that you can help to heal and repair our broken world through the good works of Kol...

What to expect from our weekly Shabbat Celebrations? What to expect from our 5782 High Holiday Celebrations? What to expect from our Fall...

Life’s random and unexpected events threw me for the past few months. I had big plans for this spring at Kol Ami. Teaching online and...

1st Night Home Seder: Invite a few Kol Ami members to do a Zoom seder in a small group if you do not already have family or friends....

As a torch is not diminished though it kindles a million candles, so will he not lose who gives to a good cause. Midrash Exodus Rabbah...

Judaism has a love/hate relationship with astrology. If you travel to northern Israel and tour synagogues from the Greek/Hellenized era...

A Pandemic Hanukkah-who would have thought? Oy vey. Here we are. We have made it through Purim, Passover, the High Holidays, and now...

During Pandemic times Shabbat has become even more important in the life of our community. Creating sacred time, reflection time, family...

This is the season of balanced light. Day and night hours become equal and move towards greater darkness. This is the season of our new...

Glint By Cathy Cohen Beneath a sky of stars in this time of great answering I will sing     my own brief poem. If the bowl of the sky is...

Five misfortunes befell our ancestors … on the ninth of Av. …On the ninth of Av it was decreed that our fathers should not enter the...

Walking through Target the other day I looked longingly as the clerks set up the back to school sections and the “moving into your dorm”...

It looks like the situation has cooled off. The Trump administration gave the emergency government formed by Prime Minister Natanyahu the...

Every day is a new day. The world is always moving and changing, in small and large ways. A leaf drops. A baby is born. A garden is...

This week last year we moved to Kirkland. A year ago we packed up our little congregation in Woodinville and around 40 of us began a 14...

Last week Kol Ami kicked off 21 weeks of anti-racist learning and doing. It is not too late to join us. This is Jewish practice....

Black Lives Matter. Before last week writing these three words might have been a career-ender for some rabbis in this nation. Before last...

It is the season for blintzes. And cheese cake. And icd cream. And Torah. Shavuot, which we celebrate this Thursday night when the sun...

Havdalah is the Jewish ceremony which ends the Sabbath day, giving us enter into the work week ahead. The creation story in the book of...

In between the last global pandemic of 1918 and the pandemic we are currently in the midst of, the Jewish people have added several new...

By Rabbi Yohanna Kinberg What I am offering in my blog this week was written by Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan (1881-1983), the founder of...

The Jewish people know how to walk through massive disruption and make it onto the other side. But never in our history have we made it to t

This Thursday we will gather for our 2nd night community Seder—as we have for so very long as a community. Last year we had our Seder in...

The first night of Passover is next Wednesday, April 8. Time is particularly fluid these days. So many bench marks and scheduled events...

We will survive. Our species. Most of us will live. Too many will die. We will make it to the other side. But none of us will go...

We are being told exactly what to do. Stay home. Wash hands. Practice social distance. Our options have become very limited and our...

For the spiritual practitioner...this is what one prepares for through practice. We prepare for: Instability. Uncertainty. Weathering the...

How is this Purim different from every other Purim? Covid-19. And Kirkland, WA (of all places) is the epicenter? Oy vey! Our only option...

This week, in respecting the King County request for organizations to avoid large gatherings, Kol Ami is canceling all programming for...

Covid-19 has come into the world. Spread from one land to the next, one hand to the next. Invisibly. We can’t see it and yet we know it...

I think true love is not only true personal love but the totality of love, universal love - to be in love with everything manifest and...

Spring is technically weeks and week away. But little signs of it are popping up all around. It is subtle. But those signs are there....

This Friday I will speak at our Kabbalat Shabbat about how to participate in the World Zionist Congress and make your own personal mark...

Have you ever wanted to be in a band? Do you love Jewish music and world rhythms? Kol Ami: A Center for Jewish Life is dedicated to...

Rabbi Kinberg’s Seasonal Recommendations: 5 tips for the best December ever. The only “December dilemma” should be which fun and joyful...

The Jewish community is embarrassingly behind when it comes to holding male Rabbis accountable for sexual violations. The Jewish...

"In order that we will not have cruel hearts..." A Jew is taught to be delicate with the world. To tread lightly and consider that which...

I cannot claim to be anti-Capitalist. Target is my safe space. Amazon is my right hand man. Shopping is one of my hobbies. I like to...

We have a problem in American Judaism. A big one. We do not share a common sense of the role of the rabbi. "The rabbi should not wear...

Gate Keeper. In rabbinical school we were presented with the notion of rabbi as gate keeper. The rabbi is the one who stands at the gates...