This month is very exciting at Temple Sinai. We obviously have enthusiastic new Rabbis. I hope everyone will soon get a chance to welcome Rabbis Sara and Benjamin Zober. Maybe not so obviously, we have new members, new Trustees, new committee chairs, new councils, new services, new songs, new prayers, new friends, new Torah and Talmud portions, new religious school teachers to train, new donations, new paint soon in some of the classrooms, a new school calendar, some new curricula, new classes for adults, new policies, new parts of the Bylaws, new meeting schedules, new email addresses, and soon a new website- if we can manage it! I for one am very thankful to all of you who are making all these changes happen. It’s a huge amount of work, and none of it would happen without you.

All this change, it’s hard! It’s hard way beyond all the hard work required. Maybe it’s even harder on those of us who have been around a while, than it is on new members? We all need measures of comfort and stability – at least from time to time – and every one of these changes is stressful and discomfiting. Peggy Levine was a member and loyal volunteer at Temple Sinai for more than fifty years(!). This week, as we mourn her recent death, I pointedly feel the need for old friends, old ways, old prayers, old habits, my old schedule, old advice, old Minhag – the whole old Megilla.

So I ask for your patience, your forbearance, and especially, your determination. Don’t let me or the rabbis forget what you need. You may have to tell us again. Please keep telling us what helps you feel comfortable and at home at Sinai. We are listening.

Shalom,
John