Community and Gratitude

October 2022   Keeping Connected

Happy New Year friends!

It’s hard for me to believe that is my 4th time standing in front of you on Rosh Hashanah as President of Congregation Shalom, and for the record, my last time.  Every year, I struggle with what my message to the congregation should be.  This may sound crazy but I do think this is one of the hardest jobs of being President.  And with every year, it gets much harder for me to decide what I am going to say.  But, then, all of a sudden, you get an idea and it starts to come together.  So, this year, I want to talk about two things, community and gratitude.

So, community.  Some of you may not know this but I grew up going to an Orthodox synagogue.  My family was not Orthodox, per se, but my mom kept a kosher home, I was expected to go to Shabbat services almost every Saturday morning, and we had a traditional Shabbos meal every Friday night (chicken soup, challah, and the works, always a special dinner).  And I went to Hebrew school three times a week (Mondays, Wednesdays, and Sundays) and believe me, it was not ½ as much fun as I see our students having!!  But, I grew up in Fall River, where, of course, Jews were a minority and maybe there were 4 or 5 Jewish kids in my class (I had 850 kids in my high school graduating class so that is <1%).  I was also the victim of anti-semitic taunting when I was in middle school.  Sometimes I did not even want other kids to even know I was Jewish.  So, as you can imagine, I did not really have that community outside of my family.

Now, sometimes maybe a family community may be enough.  I will tell you that my parents are now divorced, and my mom re-married an Orthodox rabbi.  They are in Israel right now for the holidays.  But, my mom’s husband (my stepdad) has 4 daughters, and each of his daughters had 6 children, so he has 24 grandchildren, but the craziest part is that his 50th great grandchild was just born about 1 month ago.  And almost all of them are in Israel. So, that is a different level of family community.

Anyways, as I said, I did not really get that sense of Jewish community outside of my home.  And I did not find that sense of community until I arrived here at Congregation Shalom.  So, I went a long time in my life without that or honestly even knowing that it was a thing.  And because of that, I cannot tell you how truly grateful I am to this community.

And that brings to me to the second part of my speech on gratitude, which will also have a tie-in to community.  As I said, this will be my 4th and final year as President.  But, there is no way this role could be sustainable or just even do-able without each of you.  I was originally thinking that it would be fun to go thru the whole membership list and literally thank each of you for what you have contributed, but I know that would take just way too long.  But, I want to do something else.  I do want to thank and recognize each of you and to do that, I am going to start listing some functions, committees, roles within our temple and if you have helped in any way with something I say and especially during my time as President, I ask that you stand up (maybe wave your arm so everyone can see you).  I would like you to remain standing until I am done.  And if you are already standing, and you hear another role that you have assisted with, just wave your arm, stand on your chair, jump up and down, whatever you want.  But, please remain standing until the end.

So, these are kind of in alphabetical order because there is not really 1 function more important than another.  So, here we go…

  • Adult Education (if you are on the committee or have provided programming yourself)
  • B’nai Mitzvahs (tutors, help with rehearsals, coordinating dates)
  • Beautification/Fine Arts Committee
  • Board of Trustees
  • Temple Book Club
  • Break Fast Committee
  • Brotherhood
  • Calendar Committee
  • Cantorial Soloists
  • Caring Committee (organizing or if you personally helped a member)
  • Caring Yarns Committee
  • Cemetery Committee
  • College Committee
  • Communications Committee (so our publicity folks, producers of weekly updates, Keeping Connected, our website, those who help review these communications as well)
  • Finance Committee
  • Flowers for High Holidays
  • Founding families
  • Fun Committee
  • Fundraising Committee
  • Good & Welfare Committee (formerly Remembrances)
  • If you have helped with the Hanukkah Party for our kids
  • House (anyone involved in maintaining our building, our grounds, purchasing items for our kitchen, setting up the chairs for high holidays)
  • Ice Cream Committee
  • Investment Committee
  • Kitchen Supplies Committee
  • Making Latkes for our school kids
  • Library Committee
  • Lithium Ion Battery Committee (yes, there is such a thing, and you may hear more about this in the near future)
  • Membership Committee (including helping out at our high holiday welcome table)
  • MOCA (Members of a Certain Age)
  • Music (our music committee, Shpiel, anyone involved in bringing music to our community)
  • If you have participated on the Nominating Committee in the past few years
  • Our amazing Office Staff
  • Oneg Committee and our RH Oneg chairs
  • If you have served as Parliamentarian at Annual Meeting
  • Organizing our Passover Community Seders
  • Phased Reopening Committee
  • Pledge Committee
  • Putting up the temple’s sukkah
  • Our incredible Rabbi and friend
  • If you have led services when Rabbi Perry was unavailable (maybe a Shabbat service or a shiva service)
  • Safety Usher volunteers
  • School (so our teachers, our school committee, our madrich, our aides, our tutors, any volunteers for special school programs, and of course, our Ed Director)
  • Scholarship Committee
  • Security Committee
  • High Holiday service usher volunteers
  • Shalomites (our kids, our advisors, and other volunteers or chaperones)
  • Shofar blowers
  • Sisterhood
  • Social Action/Social Justice
  • Social media
  • Anyone who has helped plan a social event (like our Parking Lot party, the gala, our Rabbi’s anniversary, any other social events)
  • Supermarket Gift Card Committee
  • Maintaining our on-line Temple Directory
  • Anyone who has helped out with temple technology
  • Torah readers at High Holidays
  • Coordinating Tree of Life donations
  • Yard Sale Committee
  • Those that have donated their professional knowledge to our benefit
  • Those who want to continue their Jewish learning
  • Those who bring Jewish traditions into their home
  • Spouses, partners, or children of members who give a lot of time to our temple (we need to be especially thankful to you also)
  • Any one who wants to volunteer or get more involved in the coming year
  • If there is a category I have left out, PLEASE feel free to shout it out now because I certainly do not want to leave anyone out.

I’ll bet there are some functions just said that you did not even know about.  This is a true community, a true extended family, and Congregation Shalom would not function without each and everyone of you.  So, this is why I am grateful for my Jewish community.  And, in preparation for this speech, I asked Rabbi Perry if there was a prayer I could use to express my gratitude and she said, “Isn’t there a prayer for everything?”  But, she did provide me with this prayer.

Baruch atah Adonai eloheinu Melech ha’olam, asher kidshanu b’mitzvotav, v’tzivanu la’asok b’tzarchee tzibur

How full of blessing you are, eternal one, our God, majesty of the Universe who has consecrated us with Your commands, and commanded us to involve ourselves with the needs of the community.

  בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְיָ אֱלֹהֵֽינוּ מֶֽלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם, אֲשֶׁר קִדְשָֽׁנוּ בְּמִצְוֹתָיו, וְצִוָּֽנוּ לַעֲסוֹק בְּצָרְכֵי צִבּוּר

.

So, thank you all for involving yourself with the needs of our community and making it as special as it is.

You can all be seated now.  And I want to wish each of you a happy, healthy, sweet, new year.

L’Shana Tovah.