President's Message

Shanah Tova, a very happy new year to us all!

I work in a factory where we make parts for automobiles, trucks, and tractors. It’s a great place with great people, but with the downturn, we are about 40% smaller than we were a year ago. Ouch. You might expect that with fewer orders for our parts, and less production, we’d all have less to do and things would be more relaxed and easy around here.

Of course, there’s actually more to do, fewer of us to get it done, and more pressure to get things done better, faster, and cheaper. There is much more to do than we can get done, and we must prioritize and turn our backs on some things. As it says in Pirke Avot, "You are not expected to complete the work, yet neither can you desist from the effort." My boss hasn’t read Pirke Avot, so he still expects us to complete our work. But he’s just as busy, and frustrated at all the things he can’t get to.

In the middle of a very busy period, I told him, "If you were to judge us on how much we’re NOT getting done, you’d fire us all. However, if you were to judge us on what we ARE getting done, you’d give us a big raise." He understood completely, and agreed. Except for the raise. I’m left wondering how guilty I should feel about the stuff I’m not able to do.

Which brings me to the Temple, where some also feel guilty about the things they’re not able to do. One congregant came up to me, self-conscious that she couldn’t read the Hebrew prayers. But when she came in the door, she dropped off a bag of groceries into the Manna food barrel, as always. Another congregant was telling me about how badly he felt that he wasn’t able to come to Torah study, but this same congregant comes often to Shabbat services and sings beautifully.

Congregation Beth HaTephila is a gateway for many, many opportunities: Prayer and worship, singing, Tzedakah, fellowship, Torah study, Hebrew study, general study, Social Justice concerns, community activism, ritual, interfaith outreach, and really good desserts. No individual (except maybe Leah Karpen) could possibly do them all, and we might lament the ones we don’t have capacity for. But with all due respect to my mother, may her name be for a blessing, it is wrong for us to feel guilty about the activities in which we don’t participate.

Torah, prayer, acts of lovingkindness. As Rabbi Salkin said a few weeks ago, most of us major in one of these and minor in another, leaving less room for a third one. There’s no wrong priority. Each of them is an equally valid and wonderful expression of our Judaism and our values, and the Temple can be our gateway to all three. In other words, you have no business feeling guilty about not reading the Hebrew prayers – you just donated food to the Manna food barrel! If you are not moved to come to Torah study, that’s super. Instead, you sing during services, and you give the person next to you the strength to sing as well – what a blessing! You can’t make it to services very often, but you show up for Hardlox and make corned beef sandwiches, or serve matso-ball soup, or simply buy tickets and enjoy it. You use your Ingles card. You write a check. You bring your child to religious school. In all these ways, and many more, you are supporting the Temple and the Temple is supporting you. And we are supporting each other.

No matter how you choose to express your Judaism, and no matter how your Jewish values speak to you, Congregation Beth HaTephila is your home. Unlike at work, we’re not judged on how little we do or how much we do. Beth HaTephila is not a place for us to be judged, it is a place for us to welcome and honor each other, a place for us to be welcomed and included.

Kein y’hi ratzon.