Today is the due date for for our little one, and while there are no immediate signs that they’re going to arrive on schedule, I’m beginning approximately one month’s worth of parental leave starting tomorrow. (Going with a fixed date regardless of when the baby comes helps Rabbi Winokur have the certainty of when he’s going to be on. Caroline and I are so grateful to him, Hazzan Jessi, Sahar Oz, and the many others stepping up in my absence.) As an aside, I just want to say, it has been such a blessing for my family to continue to form under the literal roof of this community: Caroline and I got married at SHS on September 2, 2018 while I was Associate Rabbi; Lila was born just over nine months later and is now a student in the Sun Class of the SHS Playschool; and here we are expecting another member of our family whom we look forward to welcoming into this community. It has truly been a blessing.
As I step away, I note that another blessing is the at least temporary reprieve we are beginning to experience as the Omicron spike subsides. By no means is Covid over: we owe a responsibility to those who are immunosuppressed or otherwise vulnerable to continue to reflect on how best to tend their well-being. But there is no doubt that circumstances have improved since January: case numbers and hospitalizations are down significantly.
So what does that mean for us? Well let’s start by saying, we have, in a sense, been treading water for the last couple of years. Not in terms of our efforts—we’ve been something like a duck: paddling furiously under the surface in order to float along peacefully above the surface. By that I mean, over the last two years, we have worked tirelessly to generate a range of programs, services, and points of connections for folks to experience both from their homes and in the synagogue. Whether it was Friday night candle lightings, Saturday morning Torah discussions, weeknight minyanim, a bevy of adult education opportunities from Holiday Boot Camps to Beginner and Intermediate Hebrew, social action opportunities like our Food Insecurity Initiative led by Laurie Krivo and Bob Kaufman, a Shabbat Shalom calling tree where Board Members and other volunteers called synagogue members to check in each week, moving Hebrew School to an Immersive Shabbat Hebrew School experience and slaloming from Zoom, to in-person outdoors, to in-person indoors, back to Zoom, and back to in-person again, a Playschool that has effectively balanced health with learning and social objectives in order to thrive—all these were efforts we made as a synagogue community to keep us connected.
But there are limits to the amount of growth and connection a synagogue community can experience when we’re masked, distanced, and unable to dine and celebrate with one another extensively. For someone to join a synagogue, they often want to really feel it. Experience it. Get up close and personal with the people who make up the community, so they can feel the energy pull, the centrifugal force, if I may be so bold in saying, where people are gathering to experience something exciting, and where that force then grows from its own momentum. Without dining experiences, without the opportunity to really schmooze and converse and rub shoulders, that momentum has a hard time developing. So the efforts we’ve made, while in many ways tending to the needs of our present community, lead to an experience that involves furiously paddling in order to largely stay afloat and remain present.
We’re hoping the months to come foretell a shift, and that the paddling begins not only to keep us afloat but to help us generate a momentum. To that end, as our President Jeremey Newberg indicated in his last Kesher column, I’ve helped us put together the first draft of a strategic framework for how to plan for the years to come. Thanks to thoughtful input from the Board and fellow clergy and staff, it’s beginning to take shape.
For starters, it includes having a good sense of who we are and being able to communicate that clearly and consistently to the broader Philadelphia Jewish community so they know what we have to offer. There are a lot of benefits to being an independent (i.e., nonaffiliated) synagogue — we don’t need to follow any particular dogma or ideology, for example — but it also means we have to do a lot more work defining to the public who we are. So stay tuned in the weeks and months to come as we work to hone and craft our message of who we are and what we have to offer. We’ll be looking for your input.
Second, we want to continue to invest in enriching the experience of Jewish communal life here at SHS. Right now is a moment when Jewish community can really help serve fundamental needs we have as human beings: feeling and being connected to others; having a sense that we are serving not only our own needs but the needs of those around us; being attuned to the sacred and the holy; having a sense of continuity and tradition and that we are a part of something larger than ourselves; wrestling with the fundamental questions of our existence, like the role of God in our lives, life, death and beyond; and so much more. SHS, and Jewish communal life in general, can, I believe, step in to fill an important void. We want to continue to invest in the programs and services we offer so that we can better facilitate these connections in our community.
This starts with Shabbat, which is in some ways the anchor of our weeks, the space and time that serves as the opportunity to make this happen—through prayer and the sterling Torah discussions we’ve had together Saturday mornings during services, connecting ancient, timeless words in profound, relevant ways to our lives; through eating together after (and even if we don’t attend!) services; through beginning to enhance even more the musical opportunities on Friday nights, and more.
It’s also what happens beyond Shabbat, through adult education opportunities with a variety of talented teachers, through social action and a growing array of opportunities to give back, and through cultural and social opportunities, organized by volunteer leaders, so that our synagogue can step up to being a hub for thoughtful guest speakers and lecturers and opportunities to connect socially.
In continuing to invest in the experience of Jewish communal life here at SHS we also need to continue to ensure we’re investing time and energy in making sure we’re as inclusive as we can be: of interfaith couples and families, of LGBTQ+ individuals, of individuals of all racial and ethnic backgrounds, of individuals of all abilities, of the elderly, of families with young kids, and more. Thanks to modeling from the Interfaith Engagement Committee, as we look to expand and enhance our programming, it’s important that we also make sure we’re doing so in alignment with our values of inclusion and empathy.
These are just some of the priorities we’ve begun to identify as we plan for our future, hopeful that involves more and more in-person contact while ensuring we continue to make our programs available through online means, which we’ve invested in so heavily over the past couple of years. We’re so grateful for the ways in which so many have stepped up to help keep this community close.
I am blessed to be the rabbi of this synagogue. Moments like this, where I have the opportunity to step away for a period, help me see this even more clearly. I am excited for where we are, I am excited for where we’re going, and I’m excited for the continued process of growing and being in community together. Thank you for having my family and me as part of this community.
