Category: President’s column

Change, Commitment & Continuity—A Tale in Three Parts. Part 2.

 

Melissa at BiennialChange:  There could be little doubt that we are in a time of change (no matter what your political sentiment) and that change can be unsettling. I find that when things are very far out of my control or are difficult or troubling that by acting on a very small, local level it is possible to affect change and feel better about the world. Temple Emanuel has many ways for you to be involved in improving the world on a local level, and it can start with tzedakah.

Commitment: The Jewish ideals of tzedakah were summarized and taught by Moses Maimonides, a great teacher who lived in Spain during the 12th century CE. Maimonides believed that tzedakah is like a ladder with eight rungs; each successive rung represents a higher form of giving. They are:

  1. The person who gives reluctantly and with regret.
  2. The person who gives graciously, but less than one should.
  3. The person who gives what one should, but only after being asked.
  4. The person who gives before being asked.
  5. The person who gives without knowing to whom he or she gives, although the recipient knows the identity of the donor.
  6. The person who gives without making his or her identity known.
  7. The person who gives without knowing to whom he or she gives. The recipient does not know from whom he or she receives.
  8. The person who helps another to become self-supporting by a gift or a loan or by finding employment for the recipient.

Continuity:   For Jews, the Talmud instructs that assisting the poor is not an act of grace on the part of the donor, but a duty. We are all obligated to give (even if we receive). So where will you help – with toiletries and diaper bank donations that the Men’s Club is organizing, with Abraham’s Tent that TE is participating in, with money or a job for one of our JCARR families that we are helping to resettle?  Please reach out and continue to make the change in the world that you want to see.

Change, Commitment, & Continuity

Melissa portraitA Tale in Three Parts

Part 1

CHANGE: Remember, the first 7:30pm service at TE will be on January 20, 2017.  The Family Service remains at 6:30pm on the first Friday of each month, and on January 13th we have a special Martin Luther King Service at Mishkan Israel at 7:30pm.  At the end of June, we will again send out a Survey Monkey to see what people thought of the change to see if we plan to continue it or to make other changes. The other possible change brewing is a switch to a new prayerbook for Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur (see the Rabbi’s Summer Shofar column for more on the mahzor).  The Ritual Committee will be leading several focus groups for people to interact with Mishkan HaNafesh. Please call Barbara Berkowitz or Barbara Goldhamer to be involved in one of them.

COMMITMENT: Our members’ commitment to our community is so fabulous.  I can only look on, cheer, and be thankful for their hard work. The last few months have seen some wonderful projects completed: the High Holy food drive collected 3.500 pounds of food under Will Sherman’s leadership, dozens of turkeys were donated to Downtown Evening Soup Kitchen at Thanksgiving under the watchful eye of Peter Stolzman, and 146 baskets were created by the school and some adult volunteers under the organizational skills of Julia Katsovich – one of our madrichim.  Julia is the first teen to head such an ambitious project, and it was a smashing success.  During this time Laurel Shader, the band, and the choir got together to perform, and Risé Siegel and friends helped to organize our first Annual Shir Magic concert in memory of Jerry Brieger z’l; thus, I believe we have solidified our reputation as the “sing-agogue” in the area!  Put in your calendars now the Debbie Friedman concert by our band and choirs at the Towers on February 12th and Yale Whiffenpoofs in concert at TE on February 26th.

CONTINUITY: It with great pleasure that I can announce that Rabbi Farbman has agreed to lead the congregation for another five years and that he and the Board have agreed on his contract.  Rabbi Farbman has been essential to the growth and renewed vitality of our community, and we can look forward to continuing to go from strength to strength in the coming years.

The Times They Are A-changin’

7-30-clockIn 1963, songwriter Bob Dylan wrote, “the times they are a-changin.” For Temple Emanuel this is true in more ways than one! Daylight Savings will soon end; we will have a new President in the White House; and the results of the TE Service time survey are in and are being acted upon. Whether or not Bob Dylan decides to accept the Nobel Laurette in literature I think he got it right when he said, “If your time to you is worth savin’, Then you better start swimmin’, Or you’ll sink like a stone, For the times they are a-changin’.” And I believe TE has the ability to change with the tides of our growing congregation (165 member units strong now!).

For many years the time for the start of services has been the subject of animated discussion for the Ritual Committee and for the community. Three years ago the Ritual Committee charged the Board with the task of looking at the issue and seeing if we needed to change. Our first explorations into this task involved discussions with individuals and small groups and a paper survey. This gave us good information but didn’t represent a majority of the congregation (only about 71 responses). So the Survey Monkey was created and was answered by 135 members.

Briefly, when asked, 57% of the responders preferred a late service with 55% preferring the 7:30pm start time. Of the 43% of the responders who preferred an earlier service, 58% preferred the 6:30pm time. In both groups there were about 20% with no preference. While this is not a scientifically validated survey, it does give us a feel of where we are as a congregation. The Board feels they have enough information to act upon and begin a small test of change for 6 months.

Beginning January 1, 2017 we will begin our usual service at 7:30pm instead of 8:00pm. The Family Service will remain at 6:30pm on the first Friday of the month. At the end of June, we will again send out a survey to see what people thought of the change and if we plan to continue it or make other changes. I believe we still need to provide a few more 6:30pm opportunities for our congregants, but we don’t want to create a confusing, unwieldy schedule.

Thank you to all of you who provided this valuable input. Thank you to Robin Levine-Ritterman for spearheading the effort, creating the Survey Monkey, and presenting the results to the Board. Thank you to the Board for voting on a change. I am looking forward to hearing from many of you over the next few months.

 

Belonging

Melissa portraitWhy belong? If you are reading this, I am probably already “preaching to the choir” as they say. Belonging to a synagogue community allows an individual to be enfolded in a group that is ready to celebrate and honor life cycle events together. It is a place where some of our “longings” can be met: spirituality, knowledge, music, food and friends—a Jewish home. Psychology research finds that individuals who have a sense of belonging to a larger community have improved motivation, health, and happiness compared with those who don’t. There is great comfort in knowing that one is not alone and that all people struggle and have difficult times.

This summer we lost a beloved leader, colleague, and member of TE—Rabbi Gerald Brieger. His life full of song, stories, study, and fun infused TE for almost 40 years. Looking around the packed room at the funeral and at the Briegers’ home, one could feel his continued presence. His warmth and love of the community set the tone of who we are. Rabbi Farbman and the current community will set the tone of where we are going. Our mission statement in our by-laws is a well-written but many pronged statement that defines what we aim to accomplish. However, it doesn’t define the vision of who we are. This year the Board is going to take on the challenge of defining this vision. Please speak with members of the Board and let them know what you think.

Our banner announcing the upcoming school year states: “you belong here.” Having a sense of belonging is a common experience. Belonging means acceptance as a member or being part of a larger enterprise.  A sense of belonging is a human need, just like the need for food and shelter. Feeling that you belong is most important in seeing value in life and in coping with intensely painful emotions. Some find belonging to a church or synagogue or mosque, some with friends, some with family, and some on Twitter or other social media. Some see themselves as connected only to one or two people. Others believe and feel a connection to all people, to humanity. Some struggle to find a sense of belonging, and their loneliness is physically painful for them. We have a fantastic community; now is the time to get your friends to belong with us.

I wish each of you a sweet new year full of belonging.

Gratitude, Again

Melissa portraitI haven’t mentioned Mussar practice in months….it seems like it is time to begin again. Repetition is one of the essential parts of this practice. You must identify traits you want to work on and then revisit them again and again. Although I am always grateful to TE, the end of the year seems like a wonderful time to thank all of the TE community for their willingness to participate, give-back, pay forward, lead, follow and belong to an extraordinary group of people.

If we include holiday services, Religious School events, social events and fund raisers, we have had something going on almost every week of the year. Thank you to the many TE members who led each of these projects. Thanks to Hilary, Ariette, Jodi, Kim and the Rabbi for providing the professional framework within which we volunteer. Thanks to the Board, the Executive Committee, all the Committee chairs and members who kept us on track. The daily/weekly activities are vital to our strength as a community.  Thanks to the “worker bees” who have kept our congregational life humming: Shabbat dinners- Randi Rubin Rodriguez and Fran Grodzinski, High Holy Day kiddushim- Robin Levine-Ritterman, Passover seder- Lily Katsovich & Olga Marcus, Music- Laurel Shader and the band, organizing Friday night Onegs- Barbara Goldhamer, creating the Shofar- Caryn Shaffer and Jen Poulsen, and getting the Shofar out- the Larkins.

One Campus: We are “One” and done with the project. From digging the foundation to erecting the building, to re-landscaping the grounds, to affixing the mezuzah, to taking down the old House–we did it!  We have moved on to what the synagogue is really about: people not buildings.

Going Green: This last year we have put up solar panels, replaced our bulbs with LED ones and put in an energy efficient HVAC. We continue to find ways to shrink our carbon footprint. And then, of course, we love the real green of our lovely grounds!

Tikkun Olam: It has been another vibrant year with our second blood drive, amazing success with the Food drive, our yearly school Hanukkah basket program,  our Martin Luther King school activity, our 7th year doing Abraham’s Tent and the resettlement of our first refugee  family as part of JCARR.

Amazing Adult Education: We have had a successful year of small group learning, speakers, outings to plays and exhibits, a weekend of learning, and films. A special thank you to Bennet Graff for leading the new series on Jewish short stories

Men’s Club and Sisterhood: These revitalized groups have had book clubs, lectures and outings. They have also provided generous monetary gifts to TE for the Memorial Boards, college scholarship, and other necessary TE items.

Leave A Legacy: Our thriving legacy program is one of the best in the community.

All this help has made my life as President easy. It’s allowed me to concentrate not just on money but on doing the right thing: on building and sustaining relationships, so that we to change our own lives, or community and the world.

 

 

 

 

 

Joy Abounds

IMG_9867-001Spring is a time of growth, celebrations, graduations, and special recognition.

By the time this Shofar reaches you, the spring flowers will be in their last beautiful display and TE will be in the middle of its’ b’nai mitzvah season. We have had the joyous celebrations of the Feuerstein and Ariker families thus far and look forward to the simchas of the Aferzon’s, Rivkin’s, Shanbrom’s, Aviad’s, Sauberman’s, and Boyd’s families in May and June. We will need to wait until October to celebrate with the Fried-Green family.  Check out the special information on each of these young adults in this edition of the Shofar. Remember the entire congregation is invited to the service that marks the start of Josh, Levi, Matt, Vanessa, Sarah, Oren, Abby, Annabelle, and Sam’s adult membership in the TE community. Mazel tov to all, we couldn’t be more proud of you!

Special congratulations to Laura Adams for winning the Susan Pinsky Bleeks College Scholarship. This $1,000 scholarship is  sponsored by the Board, the Sisterhood, and the Men’s Club and is given to a high school senior who has maintained a “B” or better in school, is active in TE life, and has written an essay discussing how Temple Emanuel has played a role in defining who they are.  Read Laura’s entire essay in this edition of the Shofar and come celebrate with Laura and her family on June 24th when she receives her award.

Celebrate your TE membership this June. Our Annual Meeting is on June 5th;  next year’s budget and slate of Officers and Board members will be voted upon. Come have a bagel, chat with friends hear the Annual Report and vote on these important issues. We will have a special Shabbat dinner on June 10th to thank the previous board and celebrate the new Board. It will be a relaxed time to get together with TE friends for dinner. Please plan on coming I look forward to seeing you there!

 

Construction-Demolition-Reconstruction

Temple Emanuel Board 2015-16
Temple Emanuel Board 2015-16

Judaism is wonderful at celebrating life cycle events and marking the passage of time. By the time you are reading this column, the House will have finally been taken down and the area filled in and graded. Yes, this project ran into a few road-bumps but it is finally done. So, (drumroll) this officially ends the “One Campus” campaign!! First, a huge thank-you to all the individuals who worked so hard to make it happen. This was no small task: from thinkers to donors to doers, the entire community pulled together to make it happen. But now where do we go from here?

Why, back to construction again. No, not a building project (yet) but the reconstruction of who we want to be and where we want to be going. There is so much we offer to so many groups: school-age education, adult education, life-cycle celebrations, holy day celebrations, tikkun olam projects, and social events. Can we do it all? Can we afford to do it all? Do we need to add something new: day care, preschool, more family events, elder care, openness to the LGBT community, interfaith programming to name a few? We are going to talk about it over the next several months. Hopefully we will be doing some workshops on leadership (if we get chosen by the URJ to be in their pilot program) or at least talking about leadership. TE Board elections are coming up in June, and I would love to have some new faces involved in the joys of running their community.

This is where you come in. Please volunteer to work on a project, sit on a committee, be on the Board, or hold an Office. Let me or the Rabbi or Jodi or the Office or Lew Shaffer (head of the nominating committee) or any of the Committee Chairs know how you would like to be involved. I wish I could tap each of you on the shoulder and ask you personally, but I just can’t. Consider this your “tap on the shoulder.”

 

The Board is Never Bored

Temple Emanuel Board 2015-16
Temple Emanuel Board 2015-16

One of my favorite jobs as President is to work with our Board and encourage conversations that help TE move forward. The Board’s responsibility is to oversee TE’s strategic and financial policy, develop funds for the organization, and advocate for the organization.  I thought I would share many of the significant issues that have been discussed and the decisions that have been made by the Board over the last year. Please use this as a springboard to ask me or the Board questions.

It seems amazing that it was only December 2014 that the Board listened to the bids of many contractors and chose Pat Panza’s company to complete our building project. Over the year, the Board made numerous decisions picking an alarm company, an HVAC system, a solar company, a demolition company, as well as working on the other details of getting through a huge project. I am grateful for the extraordinary vision of Alan Kliger with fundraising, Dave Pokras for building design, Bruce Spiewak for project management, Len Farber for money management, Rise Siegel for interior design, and Anne Eisner for landscaping. Their leadership has helped us accomplish a really miraculous feat!

On the fiscal side, the Board approved a budget, hired a bookkeeper, changed banks (we are now at Webster), and resolved to pay our URJ dues that were in arrears. They also unanimously passed two important Finance Committee motions regarding our very successful Legacy Program. These are:

  1. A Policy for Allocation of Leave a Legacy Gifts into Temple Emanuel Accounts:

Leave a Legacy donors shall be offered the option of having their unrestricted gifts deposited into the Temple Emanuel Investment Account at the Jewish Foundation of Greater New Haven, the Temple Emanuel Capital Reserve Account, and/or the Temple Emanuel Operating Account in the percentages they designate, or, when there is no donor designation, the gift shall be deposited by “default allocation” 50 percent in the Investment Account and 50 percent in the Capital Reserve Account.

  1. A Policy for Disbursing Funds from the Temple Emanuel Investment Account at the Jewish Foundation of Greater New Haven:

The Temple Emanuel Investment Account shall be allowed to grow until the value reaches $100,000 before any disbursement of funds is made. At that time, for each year that the value of fund on December 31 is $100,000 or greater, for every $100,000 in the fund, Temple Emanuel will disburse $2,500. The disbursement shall occur in July and be incorporated into the fiscal year budget as “investment income” when the budget is presented for approval by the congregation.

Both policies will remain in place until 2020, at which time the Board may renew the policies or change them.

Come celebrate our Legacy Donor program with dinner and Shabbat services on Friday, January 22. Our Legacy Donor Program has been the most successful program in the Greater New Haven area under the steady guidance of Ed Cantor, Phil Pivawer, Rise Siegel, and Jean Silk.

Finally, the Board has helped with or led many of our programs in Adult Education, fund and friend raising, and a renewed committed to Tikkun Olam projects.  From the Blood Drive to the Chanukah basket program to support for our newly established TE Refugee Resettlement Team, the Board has moved us forward in our resolve to repair the world. We have many challenges to take up in the coming years: our engagement with Israel, our ability to attract teens and young families with innovative programs that matter, and our ability to be more inclusive to our transgender and gender non-conforming individuals.  I am confident that the TE community and the TE Board are up to the challenge.

5776

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Throughout the last year I have written about the Mussar traits of enthusiasm, faith, joy, order, hesed, strength, responsibility, gratitude and awe as I feel they have related to our community. In Mussar practice each trait is concentrated on for a fixed period of time and then revisited to work on again and again. So this seems like an opportune time to briefly look at where we are going over the next year and which traits will inform our decisions as we go forward. As you look through this edition of the Shofar you will see boundless energy and opportunity. As the days get shorter, TE is truly is full of light.

I expect this to be a year of enthusiasm with lots of new programs planned by our Men’s Club, Sisterhood, and Adult Education Committees. Issues of faith and prayer will be looked at in greater depth. The Ritual Committee will be addressing whether we will continue to use the URJ High Holy Day prayerbook Mishkan Hanefesh. The Buildings and Grounds Committee has a long list of projects that they are tackling including the continued landscaping of the new addition, installation of solar panels, repairs to the sanctuary building, creating more storage, and the demolition of the House.

The school is a place of joy and order with new leadership, new teachers, new learners and returning students. Everything from Shabbat services to intergenerational activities are in the works. We are looking forward to a large class of b’nai mitvah students. Please plan to spend some Saturday mornings with them as they join the congregation as Jewish adults.

Our Tikkun Olam Committee is up and running at high speed, and there will be plenty of opportunities for you to respond with hesed to our troubled world. Our Board will continue to respond with strength and responsibility to our need to be fiscally responsible and live within a balanced budget. This is a year of contract renewal for our Rabbi, a need for continued fund raising, and an even bigger need for developing new leaders within the congregation. There will be a short summary of Board decisions in upcoming Shofars, so you can see what’s happening.

I feel continued gratitude and awe toward this community as I have watched so many members step forward to build a new educational wing and replace the HVAC in the  sanctuary building. I suspect they and others will step forward again to keep us moving forward. I am filled with gratitude for the unfailing ability of our community of volunteers to plan activities that will fill our buildings with life and hope. My profound gratitude extends to our professional staff and rabbi who work so hard to make it all possible. Thank you all.

5776 is shaping up to be an extraordinary year!

Awe – “Yirah”

 

At this time of the year, we are in the midst of the Days of Awe. This is a particularly appropriate time to think about this Mussar trait in relationship to our community. So, have you noticed what has happened at TE in the last year? I believe it is nothing short of awesome.

Awe has been defined as the feeling of being overwhelmed by a reality greater than yourself and greater than what you encounter in ordinary life. For a moment you are over taken by an awareness that life is astounding in its reality, vastness, complexity, order, and surprise. A glorious sunset, a whale surfacing, the beauty of the forest, the wonder of the human body, and the birth of a baby are among the things that will trigger awe in all of us. Jewish tradition encourages us to pay very careful attention to the awesome experiences that punctuate our lives. Awe is not just another one in the spectrum of emotions: it is considered a key to wisdom and understanding. And with practice and attention, we can be in awe daily. Whether it’s awe of nature, awe of our responsibility in the world, or awe of the people in our lives, we just need to wake up and take notice.

So, I am in awe of our community that has come together with creativity, ingenuity, cooperation, and wisdom to create a beautiful new building, a vibrant school, and a caring community of friends: a legacy for the future.

Alan Morinis suggests that the phrase to contemplate for this Mussar trait is, “The beginning of wisdom is awe.” I certainly have the awe; now I hope I will have the wisdom to continue to move us forward as a congregation. This coming year we will consolidate our community, we will venture into the world of energy conservation with solar panels as “TE Goes Green,” we will continue the work of repairing the world, we will study more, and we will continue to enjoy each other’s company. But, we also have some hard tasks before us: we need to say goodbye to the House which has served us so well, we need to get used to smaller space, and we need to meet our expenses. I am confident we have the strength to do all this and much more.

I wish you a healthy, happy, uplifting awesome High Holyday season. Let your membership in TE foster your capability to experience awe.