Erev Shabbat Evening Service - Congregation Kol Ami - Salt Lake City, UT - March 21st, 2014

   I have been away from the Jewish community too long. My visit to Congregation Kol Ami reminded me of so many of things I love about organized religion. The Congregation Kol Ami is a community born out of the combining of a Reform Jewish Community with a Reform Jewish community. The group that was there for Friday was smaller, but still a big small congregation and had quite a few visitors like me who were there.

    Throughout the service there was familiarity and discussion of some of the ideas that the service covered, which I'll get into further down on this blog. There were two families present and when I arrived everyone was socializing.

       The service began with prayer in both English and Hebrew. One thing that Judaism and a few other faiths have that I found beautiful is that prayer is song, rather than them being separate. Which, along those lines...what does song mean in the Christian context? Is it considered prayer? Or only if it is a psalm? Within Judaism, every prayer is a song...and it is the this celebration of something greater, the unknown, God, Virtue and the Good (which was mentioned in almost all the prayers that were read today), is something I find important and beautiful.

    During the service the Rabbi lived the theme with making right with others and reminding us that the important thing was repentance and atonement to actual people we'd wronged or hurt. It took the sin beyond the abstract and was a call to action. It wasn't on God, it was on Us.

      There then was a discussion in identity and how we lose sight of the literal symbols in the book (The Red Heffer, Golden Calf or Temple of Solomon) as examples rather than seeing the symbolism and looking at the point of the stories and how the Red Heffer is noticing our own value versus the Gold Calf our mistakes and how it is important not to to forget.

    The service ended with us all introducing ourselves and check-ins on the congregation as whole who wasn't there in regards to how people were doing. It was lovely and I plan to visit again. This community, like the Sikhs and Episcopalians are ones I would like to be more a part of, even though I don't see myself converting to any faith.

     For this visit, was long overdo and reminded me of one of my communities back home (Bet Alef Synagogue) that I've missed visiting and taking part in.