Shabbat, Learning & Community

The longer days that herald summer’s approach provide us the opportunity to enjoy nature and those around us. I often find it a particularly useful time for reflection. In that mode, I want to look back at some aspects of the last four years during which I have had the privilege of serving as your rabbi. In addition, it is helpful moment to look forward to next year.

When I first arrived, I outlined three areas of focus: Shabbat, learning, and community. I’d like to discuss each one with an eye to the future.

Shabbat

For Shabbat, our goals were to build up our experience of Shabbat through a variety of traditional and creative approaches. We have experimented with Carlebach styled Friday night services and held “combination” Kabbalat Shabbat services with Minyan Katan and others providing musical instruments for the first half of the service, followed by a more traditional Ma’ariv (evening) service, as we did last month.

Last summer almost 200 Emunah-ites came together to hold a Friday night “BBQ and Barekhu” with food and music followed by davening. This year it is back by popular demand on August 15.

In addition, last month we expanded our Gimmel Siyyum so that our kitah gimmel (third grade) students led a wonderful Friday night service, after which we celebrated with a Shabbat dinner. I hope that in the coming year we will add more Friday night dinners and find ways that more of our community can kick off Shabbat together in shul.

On Shabbat morning, we have experimented with Synaplex Shabbatot that have brought in more folks to experience prayer, learning, and community in creative ways. Four years ago, David Landis initiated Family Minyan, and shortly thereafter Sharon Levin began Tot Shabbat; these two programs, along with Simḥat Tot and our Young Family Friday Night Dinners, anchor our Shabbat experiences for our youngest members.

This year, Paul Neustadt and I have led a new monthly Shabbat morning meditation. After shul, our young people have enjoyed KNISH luncheons and sports after an expanded Junior Congregation where some of our students read Torah. It is our hope to continue to hold all of these programs and expand them.

On Shabbat afternoons, we have a solid core who attend Minḥah, and hope that more participants will join our singing and learning, especially as Rabbi Jacobs and I will turn to our central liturgical text: the Amidah.

Learning

In the learning arena, Emunah continues to be a beacon. Next year, we will host Rabbi Benjamin Samuels from Sha’arei Tefillah in Newton who will, once again, lead CJP’s Ikkarim class for parents of young children. The class will meet on Monday morning with free childcare (registration is now open; for more information, contact my secretary Maria Espinoza:

This is a wonderful opportunity for you, your children, or others—please share this with others. (There is no membership requirement.)

Rabbi Jacobs’s Adult Bar/Bat Mitzvah class has had a wonderful year of learning and will celebrate their milestone at Shavuot 2009, which will also mark the beginning of Emunah 50, our year-long celebration of our 50th anniversary.

Our other learning opportunities continue with a wide variety of adult classes. Next year we welcome back Rabbi Gil Rosenthal as a teacher and look forward to our interdenominational rabbinic panels and a text class that Rabbi Marci Jacobs will teach with Rabbi Carey Brown of Temple Isaiah. On Sunday mornings, I will present a series of talks about Job, God, and the problem of evil and Rabbi Jacobs will open up the rich world of Midrash.

Our Halakhah Grant has afforded us many opportunities for study and enrichment. In particular, we have worked with our shliḥei tzibbur (those who lead davening) to enrich their skills, and this summer Rabbi Jacobs will lead a course during the month of July on leyning (reading with the trope) Torah. We also hope to add a class on Jewish law, starting with prayer on Wednesday mornings after our morning minyan, where we will share a light breakfast.

For our young people, we have enhanced our Religious School curriculum with our new tefillah moments this year—moments of spirituality through traditional davening, meditation, breath work, song, and movement. We hope to add to these experiences next year. A group of our teens joined me and my family in my home for six traditional seudah shlisheet (third meal of Shabbat) experiences where we ate, sang, learned, and ended Shabbat together.

For next year, we are happy to announce two additional initiatives. The first is sponsored by our Sisterhood, which is generously underwriting “Rosh Ḥodesh: It’s a Girl Thing.” This award-winning program was started by the Moving Traditions Foundation in Philadelphia to create a safe environment for girls to share, learn, and grow in a Jewish context. See www.movingtraditions.org for more information. I am excited that our youth director, Jodie Parnes, will be leading a group for sixth grade girls in conjunction with our Religious School elective program, and that my wife, Sharon Levin, a psychotherapist and group facilitator, will lead our monthly eighth grade group. We hope to offer a group for boys in the coming years when that curriculum becomes available.

Next year will also begin a new Family Education program for seventh graders and their parents. On a dozen Sunday mornings, we will learn how to don tallit and tefillin and hold a weekday learners’ service. After davening, we will enjoy a light breakfast followed by a family-oriented learning experience that Rabbi Jacobs and I will lead, focusing on the texts of our tradition, the evolution of modern Judaism, the cultivation of a sense of spirituality, and understanding Jewish ritual and practice.

For our high school seniors—both those in public school and at the Gann Academy—we hope to offer a “college bound” mini-course which will bring our 12th graders together for a few evenings of dinner and learning geared toward the transition they are about to make.

Community

Temple Emunah’s strength remains our heimishness, our sense of family. We are a caring community, one that takes care of each other in times of need. We are looking for more volunteers to help us perform acts of ḥesed (love) toward those in our shul and beyond. Whether it’s house sitting during a funeral, bringing over a meal for new parents, or tutoring a student in need, there are numerous opportunities to help. In addition, we are searching for new tzedek opportunities —how we can have a conversation about justice and the priorities of our community.

Our community is also strengthened by social events that bring us all together. Each week our Shabbat Kiddush affords us time and space to be together. We have found many more times to socialize, at events like our casino night, Brotherhood softball, 55+ breakfasts, Sisterhood mah-jongg, and more. This month, we will hold our second annual Steven Teitelbaum Memorial Basketball Tournament.

Our observance of the modern Jewish calendar, including Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day) and Yom Ha’atzmaut (Israel’s Independence Day), continues to grow and to be a vital part of our communal experience.

I hope we will continue to explore new social initiatives utilizing art, music, and film. A particular focus for us is on empty nesters and especially new empty nesters. What are your interests? Please let me know so that Emunah will remain a home for you.

Last year’s Israel trip was far more than a vacation and a moving learning and spiritual experience; it was a time to build the ties between us. I hope our next trip in 2009 will do the same.

Finally, in order that we maintain our community and grow, we rely upon our entire congregation to serve as ambassadors. Our Membership Committee is poised to reach out to prospective families, couples, and singles of all ages and backgrounds, but we need your help to help identify these folks and to guide them towards our shul.

The last four years have been extremely gratifying for me. It has been a wondrous partnership of staff and lay leaders, creating new initiatives and imagining our future. Our work in building a vibrant Shabbat experience, a strong learning environment, and a caring and connected community has been met with great success. But as the Mishnah teaches us: “The day is short and the task is great.”

May we all rise to the challenges of the next four years and continue “m’ḥayil l’ḥayil— from strength to strength.”

A personal note: My family and I will be leaving at the end of the June for an extended time in Israel. We will be living in Jerusalem while I attend the Shalom Hartman Institute’s Rabbinic Torah Study Seminar and officiate at two B’nei Mitzvah at the Masorti Kotel (the Southern end of the Kotel where we hold egalitarian services). We look forward to returning in August and sharing some of our experiences and learning with you.

Have a great summer,

Rabbi David Lerner