Take a moment to look
around the room. We have a wonderful
community. Yes we could have more
people, we could be in a different building, and we could have ... many things. What we do have is over 300 men, women, &
children who care about celebrating Judaism
in our community. We have friends
here. We celebrate together. We mourn our losses together. We solve problems together.
We believe so strongly in
this, that we pay dues so that we will have: our building, Rabbi, Educator,
Teachers, Cantor, Pianist, Building Maintenance, & Administrator. This
evening, I would like us to focus the education provided, under the leadership
of our Temple Educator, Judy Alexander.
One of the basic tenants
of Judaism is to study. Without
education, we will not grow. This is
where we learn about our history, our traditions, our rituals, and our reason
for being. This education helps us
choose the direction of our life.
Sometimes we forget, some of the most basic questions. The book, Kid's Prayers, reminds us of some
of the questions we all had, as we were beginning to understand religion.
One child prays "Dear
God: How did you know you were God? Who
told you?
Another prayed "Dear
God: I bet it's hard for you, to love all of everybody in the whole world.
There are only 4 people in my family, and I can never do it.
We have celebrated 100's
of B’nai Mitzvahs in our congregation. We have a never ending stream of adults
learning about Judaism, and how we can live more cooperatively, within our
faith. We learn in the classroom, and
from our actions. Stop to think what we
modeled for our children and community, by sharing our building with the
College Street Congregational Church for six months this year, while theirs was
being rebuilt. Another prayer from the
book, Kid's Prayers, is: "How come you did all those miracles in the old
days and don't do any now?" I bet
the people of the Congregational church saw this as a mini-miracle, when they
had no place to worship.
The tradition of most
Temples including ours is that adults attend educational classes at little or
no cost and parents pay for their children to go to religious school. In our temple, parents paid about $500 per
child per year. I ask you tonight, Why
is this right? Why should education be
based on the parent’s ability to pay?
Your board asked these
questions. We spent hours debating this,
and decided to ask all members of Temple Sinai, to pay for our Religious
education. As your leaders, we try to make decisions that are in the best interest
of our community. We decided to change the "tradition" of many
congregations, including ours, by spreading the cost or our education, among
all members.
Each
of you received a letter from me this summer asking for contributions to our
Education Fund, to pay for our religious school. We have received almost $11,000 of our
$22,000 goal. We need $22,000 a year to
continue this approach. If every member
contributed $200, we would have over $30,000 for our Education programs. Benjamin Franklin said it best, "An
investment in knowledge pays the best interest." I want to show you how
your investment in our students paid off, by asking Drew Coel to join me up
here.
I asked Drew to read the poem that she wrote
in Dana Rachlin’s Chai School class last year. She was one of eight students in
Dana's class. Dana's mission was to "develop a superb program, that
established core areas and philosophy we could bring to Jewish teens in our
community" and "To help High School students learn about their
heritage and religion, in order to bridge the gap of knowledge, between
Religious school and adulthood".
(Drew’s poem will be included in my next blog.)
Thank you Drew for reading
your poem today. I liked it as much the second time as I did the first.
I ask each of you sitting
here today to decide whether sharing the cost of religious school all members
is what you want. Please go online, send
a check, or call our Temple Administrator Stacie Gabert with your payment or
commitment. Thank you to the 27 members
and one non-member that have made contributions.
I have some final thoughts
to share, as this is my last speech from the Bema as your President. As with any job I take on, there are times
when I say "why did I do this" and times when I say "I am glad
that I am doing this." I am truly
glad that I am serving as President. I will miss my time on the Bema for
lifecycle events. I will miss challenging the board, staff, & members, about
how we have done things and asking, "Is there another way?" I will miss having ideas not work, because I
know we tried and I always learned something new. I will miss the relationships
with other temple Presidents around the country and the ideas that we have shared. Thank you to all who have been involved
during my term. It's been an honor and a
privilege to stand before you as your president and stand beside you in
leadership. Your ideas, questions, and
actions are an inspiration to me. We are
a great community and it is because of each of you.
Shabbat Shalom
