Happy Secular New Year and Merry Christmas to all our families that celebrate. I am just mesmerized by our community support not only for our Temple Sinai families but also to our greater Jewish Community in Northern Nevada as I saw so many of you at all the Hanukkah events this past week. Not only was it the right time for us to open Temple Sinai – it was the perfect time for us to support each other as we now know how this new normal is going to look for us.

Does this mean all is great? Of course not and we will continue to have our challenges as we know there are pop-up variants, non-vaccinated people, and those who are at higher risk. So yes, we will need to continue to wear our masks indoors, we will continue to do non-indoor Oneg’s and ask that you keep the recommended distances as you feel comfortable. Yes, it is OK to say, please keep your distance (no hugs please, etc.) without needing to feel that you are hurting someone else’s feelings.

The next couple of big events coming up will be our Semi-Annual Congregational Meeting which we will do as a hybrid meeting (in-person and virtual) and Pesach. Pesach will be in person at the Atlantis with a possible cap on the number of attendees. There will be further information to come out in February as we get closer to the event.

As we open our facilities, there will be a need here and there to help with the upkeep and maintenance. There is a volunteer board in the main hallway near the small social hall that will have odd jobs posted on it. We also have a list of volunteer opportunities on our website which you can VIEW HERE. If you feel that you can help and volunteer with any of these tasks, please let me know. I always appreciate any assistance with the upkeep. Also if you are interested in learning how to run our livestreaming to help out on an occasional Shabbat service – I can also use some assistance with this.

On another note, I want to let you, our members know that we have a new CFO, Terry Levenberg, and one new Member-at-Large, Jen Wolf, that have been added to the Temple Sinai Board. We still have two open positions – a Secretary and one Member-at-Large – that still need to be filled. Again, if you are interested in either of these two positions and are a current member at Sinai, please reach out to me.

Lastly, Rabbi Ben is doing a bit better, but it will still be a while for his full recovery. Rabbi Sara will be doing her best to cover what she can for all of us, but there might be a few responsibilities here and there that she can use some help with and likely some items that she will have to put to the side during the recovery period. Please be patient and if there is anything pressing that is needed, please do not hesitate to contact any of your board members and we will see how we can assist.

L’shalom,
Michael