Today Insures Our Future

Linda Rubin

Marla Shwarts

No doubt we would all agree that we benefitted significantly from reading our Temple Beth El family’s Elul Reflections from last month. Rereading them and perhaps even saving them has opened our hearts and minds to the opportunity to grow, learn, love, forgive, and understand one another in ways we could not have imagined. Our collective sense of appreciation for this lovely experience added to the importance of our personal journeys. How we made the experiences of last month’s High Holy Days meaningful contributes to our looking forward and even reimagining the life of our temple.

What is ahead of us as we look forward? We have mentioned in the past that this upcoming year is TBE’s 100th birthday celebration; we have lovingly suggested the moniker be our “Jewbilee Year” as we create our year-long celebration events. We want everyone to be involved throughout the year and we are asking for volunteers who would like to serve as co-chairs for the mitzvah opportunity, so please let us know if you would be interested in doing this. We’ve asked before, but we need to ask you again – thanks in advance.

Secondly, it is our desire to celebrate the Installation of Rabbi Cassi to our temple which has been sidelined for two years due to Covid consequences too numerous to cite here. We are all so very grateful for Rabbi Cassi’s presence as our rabbinic leader and teacher; she is especially worthy of our recognition of her, and we are eager to do this. It will be nice to properly welcome her as we concurrently celebrate our birthday year and her presence in our TBE Family.

Thirdly, we want to share with the world around us the wonderfulness of Temple Beth El via improved communication and publicity. Just think for a moment of the following – our amazing and ever engaging Rabbi Cassi; our innovative programs for young and old; our warm and welcoming community whose strength is accepting and supporting the stranger and one another; our remarkable and engaging Cantor Ilan, his musical skills, his voice, his compassion for all; our intrepid and dynamic Torah School led by Director Randi Sher and her cadre of awesome teachers; and our opportunities to engage with one another via MENsch Club and Sisterhood. There’s more as you well know, but space here is limited.

In thinking about this article we better understand our Elul Reflections from last month. They are the bookends for what we will do as we move ahead to enter into our next one hundred years of existence, for after all, we are in the business of not just taking care of ourselves, but for l’dor v’dor, our future generations who will find their presence at Temple Beth El to be meaningful, important, and a vital component to their future just as we have.