High Holiday Service Times
Note: We do not require tickets or ask a fee for attending High Holiday services.
Friday Evening Service
Reform
Sep. 21, 7:30 p.m.
Shabbat Service
Conservative
Sep. 22, 9:30 a.m.
Upcoming Holiday
Yom Kippur
Sep. 18 – Sep. 19
What’s Happening
September Bulletin
Agudas Achim’s September bulletin can be found here. Read more about what’s going on in our congregation and community. Our Bulletin is published every month. Contact the office if you would like to be on the mailing list.
The Embodied Experience
This is the last sermon I will give before I cycle off for my maternity leave and so I’m taking my chance by making it a little more personal and I hope you will forgive me for doing so.
Saying Goodbye to Gusti Kollman
I went to see Gusti today. The hospice people told Gusti’s daughter “final days.” Gusti looked comfortable when I saw her, quiet and small and breathing well. No IV, no tubes, no oxygen. Just her face, soft and old, and her skin, thin and crinkly. She looked like she could open her eyes at any moment and smile, but she could not hear us and seemed to be starting a trip, an inward trip across an ocean.
Healing Trust
There’s a healthy amount of trepidation I feel as a Rabbi preaching a sermon on medical issues in a congregation with plenty of doctors. So this is my obligatory disclaimer: I am not a doctor. Any advice dispensed from the bimah is not valid medical advice. This is where my rabbinic authority ends.
Coming Out of our Wilderness and Entering Our Promised Land
When the Torah tells us to ‘sh’lach l’cha’ or ‘lech l’cha’, to send from ourselves or go into ourselves, as in the case of Abraham’s calling, we know that something transformational is about to happen.
July Bulletin
Agudas Achim’s July bulletin can be found here. Read more about what’s going on in our congregation and community. Our Bulletin is published every month. Contact the office if you would like to be on the mailing list.
Relishing the Road Ahead
Over the years, I’ve grown fonder of Numbers. Called ‘Bamidbar’ or ‘in the wilderness’ in Hebrew, there is something untamed about its stories. This is the book in which the Israelites become unhinged. Complaint follows complaint, rebellion follows rebellion. It’s a brilliant study of human nature and group dynamics. In Parashat Beha’a lot’cha, we are starting to see the cracks.
Agudas Achim at Pride
Many thanks to Pastor Sam Massey and the First Presbyterian Church for inviting us to march with them at the 2019 Iowa City Pride Parade!
D’var on Tsitsit
In 1930 Solomon Gandz claimed that Incas and Hebrews had invented in parallel, on separate continents, a common root of all literacy: knotted cord records. Gandz’s conjecture isn’t taken seriously today. Yet neither was it foolish of Gandz to wonder how threads and knots became a way to declare truths without words – and why knotted threads convince and compel us (and the Incas) in a way that seems self-evidently powerful.
GROWING & FOSTERING OUR JEWISH WORLD
Calendar
View the calendar for upcoming events.
New to the Area
Check out the Iowa City/ Coralvillle Guide to Jewish Life
WELCOME FROM OUR RABBI
A Personal Invitation
Welcome to the
Agudas Achim
Congregation Website!
Learn More
RELIGIOUS SCHOOL
Hebrew School meets on October 8 through December 5, resuming January 14.
Sunday School meets on August 26 through December 2, resuming January 20.
ADULT EDUCATION PROGRAMS
The Talmud study group resumes Sunday morning, September 9 at 9:30 a.m.