Posted on October 9, 2026 by Rabbi Noah Diamondstein
Dear friends,
I have been anticipating this Shabbat for months! Later this afternoon, Elana Arian and her clarinetist Ivan Barenboim will arrive at TBE for what will be a full weekend of amazing activities. Tonight will be our first Shabbat K’hilah experience, beginning with our ‘pre-neg’ gathering at 6:30, followed by an amazing musical service in the round, concluding with a delicious kiddush and oneg. We will meet each other, sing together, share Torah and delicious food–and the best part is, this is only the beginning! We’re going to get to make Shabbat together like this every month! If you know you’re coming, make sure you tell a friend in the community to come with you.
We begin our story anew this Shabbat, as we again open the book of B’reishit and read about what happened “when God began to create the heavens and the earth…” (B’reishit 1:1). Our liturgy on Shabbat, pulled from the Book of Psalms, imagines that the world itself is singing praises to God. When we make Shabbat in community, we harmonize ourselves to the melodies and rhythms of creation.
In many ways, our community is a microcosmic imitation of that Divine creative work. Just as the universe needed laws and regulations, multiple spheres of life, and a multitude of creatures to breathe life into them, so too does our Jewish community live by our ethics and values, create multiple pathways toward Jewish living, and actively include everyone so that all can contribute to our communal life.
My dearest hope is that not only tonight’s beautiful music and words of Torah, but also the staff and lay leaders who have set up tables and chairs and who will make sure that no one stands alone, remind you of the power of community and your place in it. I hope that you are reminded that we all have a role to play, we all have gifts to give and ways we can use our uniqueness to contribute to the larger whole. I hope you are inspired to keep coming back, to get more involved, to feel connected and to be a connector.
Here’s looking forward to another year of Torah, and another year of co-creating our TBE community.
Shabbat K’hilah Shalom,
Rabbi Noah Diamondstein