Siding is slowly going up this week, but more importantly there’s been a lot of development on the inside! The old glass doors have been removed between the lobby and the addition, the wall between the old bride’s room and the new office was also removed, a second door into the women’s bathroom was closed to allow for a new wall for the coat room, and the glass window panes have been removed from the wall between the sanctuary and the addition, and used to replace the two panes in social hall that have ‘clouded up’ over the years.
Author: Rabbi Michael Farbman
Faith
“Emunah”
It seems that discussing a trait like “Faith” with a faith community should be a straight forward task. But in fact, I have had some difficulty. This is partly because the topic of faith seems to me to be more in the Rabbi’s corner and not in the President’s domain and partly because as Reform Jews we often skirt the whole issue of Faith and G-d.
For the sake of sticking with my plan of discussing these Mussar traits as they apply to our congregational life and not our spiritual life, I will limit my discussion to what I need to have faith in as President and what you need to have in faith in from your Board leaders.
I have faith in the people who carry out each of our activities. I have faith that even more of you will step forward to become involved in the leadership of TE. I have faith that the projects we have started will come to fruition. I have faith that as I err, stumble and fall that I will be forgiven and shown how I can improve. As a congregation you have had to have faith that we are being fiscally responsible and that we are making good decisions. We have all had to have faith that we would collect the funds to make the new building the reality which it is. I need to have faith that members will still come forward to furnish it and figure out what we will do with the House.
You will be receiving the budget for the coming year in the mail very soon. It is prudent, well-thought out and only 3% above last year’s budget. A pretty amazing feat given that our school has grown almost 50% over the last 3 years. To accomplish our goals we all need faith that each member will contribute a true “Fair Share” of what it takes to support this community.
Alan Morinis describes that experience is the gateway to faith; it cannot be understood intellectually but rather needs to be appreciated from experience. To have real faith in our community and its vibrant existence you must come experience it. Sunday, June 7th is the Annual meeting; a time to vote on the budget and the slate of Officers and Board members. Please take the time to come to this important meeting and express your opinion. Too often this is a sparsely attended meeting. Now is the time to come forward and have faith in TE.
on the 70th anniversary of the end of WWII…
This year marks the 70th anniversary of the end of the WWII. This symbolic date is marked on different days in different parts of the world. It is a date that is recorded differently in the psyche of the nations that see themselves as participants of that massive conflict. Most likely there will be little to mark this occasion in the American and British media this spring. In Britain, it is Remembrance Day (11/11) that is widely used to commemorate the lives lost in the sacrifices of that generation. In United States, you may hear a reference to WWII around Memorial Day. The Nazi Germany capitulated on April 30, 1945, and in many history books this day marks the end of the war with Germany. Of course, the conflict continued in the Pacific until the fall of 1945, but for most Europeans, this was the end of the war.
The former Soviet Union marks the victory day on May 9th, the day when the first victory parade was held in Moscow in Red Square in 1945. Every year as a child when I would watch the veterans walk down the central street of my city, I would greet them with flowers and listen to their stories. I would think what it would be like to have my grandfathers in my life, sharing stories about the war on that day…
I never met either of my grandfathers, Shmuil Farbman and Yakov Chernov. In fact, my parents don’t really remember their fathers either – they were one and two years old when their fathers kissed their families goodbye, put them on trains headed east and marched into the conscription office to volunteer to go to the front… Neither one came back alive, and we do not even know where they were buried – or if they were buried at all… In those days, “lost in action” (the military term in Russian is actually “lost without a trace”) was all too common, especially in the first days and months of the war, which claimed millions of lives of Soviet soldiers and civilians – close to 40 million total losses estimated. My uncle turned 18 during the war and was drafted, never to return home. He, too, was lost without a trace: no date of death, no grave to visit, no stone to erect.
May 9th was always about three things for me: the parade of the veterans in my town, the big military parade in Red Square (that I would watch on TV sometimes) and the quiet family gatherings, somber in spirit. The sadness of that day belonged to everyone – the many songs that were written and performed on that day spoke about ‘happiness with tears of sadness in your eyes.’ This was the only day when we could mourn and remember my grandfathers.
When I moved to England to attend rabbinical school, there weren’t any commemorations on May 9th, and the military parades in Red Square looked so strange and out of place from a distance… As a young man, I didn’t pay too much attention to this. In fact, I developed a healthy, skeptical view of the way Russians marked that victory. When the iron curtain fell it became painfully obvious that the victors were in much worse shape than the country they defeated, and so I began to question the entire idea of the annual celebration, as did many others. When we returned to Russia in 2004 I was dismayed to find the country spending millions on military parades while often failing to provide the basic needs for the very few remaining veterans of that war… I was angry at the system, but I would also get caught up in the spirit of the day and think of the war and my grandfathers and my uncle Moses, whose name I carry as my Hebrew name (Moshe).
For the last seven years I have largely ignored the day here in America. I would call my parents, mostly because I knew they needed to receive that call from me. This year, on the 70th anniversary of that first parade, things will be different. I will take my parents to a special concert in New York on May 8th, and I will talk about the day and what it means that evening at Shabbat services. I will talk to the veterans I know, who somehow survived that devastating war. I will remember my grandfathers and my uncle, people I have never met but whose DNA I carry. I will ignore the parade on the Red Square and all the political madness that surrounds it. I will work hard not to allow the Russian propaganda machine upset me. I will reclaim the part of that day I remember from childhood – honor for the living and memory of the fallen… This year, I will mark the 70th anniversary of this victory in the most personal way I know: by lighting a yizkor candle and by telling my children why the sacrifices of my grandfathers mattered. May their memory endure for a blessing…
Check out this week's progress!
Most of the outside work has been completed and some of our trees and bushes have been lovingly re-planted!
The windows are going in!
The roof has shingles (and yes, we have a roof!)
Frame is going up!
1. Exterior walls and interior partitions have been installed
2. Trusses are delivered
3. Trusses to be installed tomorrow.
4. Roofing is scheduled for Thursday
5. rubber roof EDPM is to follow next week.
6. Window delivery for the balance on Thursday
7. Windows install on Monday or Tuesday.
Concrete slab has been poured!
The weather has finally allowed the preparations for the concrete slab to be completed – and the slab has now been poured!
Responsibility – Achrayut
TE Goes Green (or is at least trying)
“You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to desist from it “,Pirkei Avot 2:2
As Jews we are asked to live lives of responsibility, whether for our families, our business, our culture or our people. However, responsibility in current society has negative connotations. When something goes wrong, everyone looks for who is “Responsible”. Responsibility has become a synonym for “guilt.” Whoever is responsible, is the one who is guilty. Yet this is not really what the term was designed for.
Alan Morinis points out in Everyday Holiness that there is debate among scholars whether the word achrayut is derived from the Hebrew root achar, which means “after,” or “acher,” which means “other.” The essence of responsibility can be seen as being concerned about what comes after (i.e., the consequences of one’s actions) or being sensitive to the other (i.e., attending to the needs of the people around you). Morinis describes responsibility as anticipating the outcome of what we do. The responsible person considers the likely outcome of his or her actions, or lack of action, and changes course accordingly. Responsibility creates an awareness that everything we do has consequences and that those outcomes really matter, whether they play out over time or in the lives of other people.
A low carbon economy is a world goal on a large scale that seems beyond our reach. But Genesis teaches that we are responsible for this earth, whether as rulers (Gen 1:28) or custodians (Gen 2:15). TE’s commitment to a lower-carbon “footprint” started this year with Bob Herrick and Jean Silk participating in the People’s Climate March in New York City on September 21, 2014. We started small by recycling and utilizing re-usable utensils at Shabbat dinners all year. A more modest improvement is that the new building addition has plans for LED lighting and more energy-efficient heating. Rise Siegel has met with a lighting specialist who will help us move from incandescent lighting to greener and brighter options in the Sanctuary building. An even larger scale project will be solar energy. Steve Grodzinsky and Rise are helping to plan the addition of solar panels to the Sanctuary roof this Spring. An exciting development in our quest for solar energy is that we have been approved by United Illuminating for a State program which will allow us to sell back energy credits to the network. This will greatly facilitate our ability to finance solar panels. Of course we are also going to need matching funds from the congregation to proceed. Do you have ideas, energy or enthusiasm for this important work? When we all are responsible and do what we are capable of doing, we repair the world and make living for all more bearable. Please call me or Jean Silk, chair of the Tikkun Olam Committee and get involved.
Almost ready for the slab!
Currently backfilling foundations and prepping for slab pour.
Update on Schedule:
- Foundation , stone under slab are ready for slab pour, now scheduled for next Wednesday or the following Monday depending on weather.
- Roof trusses and lumber have been ordered and released for delivery to ship.
