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Thank you Alan. And thank you for once again starting these High Holy Days on such a warm tone.
L'shana Tovah! Once again it is my joyous honor to stand here as President of Keddem Congregation and welcome all of our members and guests who have come to worship and be a Jewish community together.
Just over a year ago, I tripped on an uneven surface and broke my ankle. While I'm all for learning new skills, walking with crutches wasn't one I would have chosen. I actually fell a few more times while learning, in part helped by two rambunctious kittens who liked to move about the house with me, under foot, cast and crutch. After I was healed, I managed to again trip but caught myself—a move my knee didn't like. My physical therapist started giving me exercises to improve my balance. Alas, physical therapy can't help other areas of life which require balance. Like so many of you, I am constantly working to balance the things what I want to do with my available time, money and even energy.
As your president, I see the same challenges here in Keddem Congregation. Preparing for this evening, I found resonance with this sentence on page one of our Machzor: "We are here in celebration and in search, in judgement and embrace, ready to confront ourselves and the world in which we find ourselves this night." Earlier this week, I had my faith in the celebration reinforced while attending three preparations in this very building. The ushers met to discuss their roles of greeting and seating people at each service. The Junior Congregation leaders met to practice for their service tomorrow morning. The song leaders rehearsed all of the many rounds. And I went back and forth among them. The combination of the practical voices, the future voices and the inspirational voices left me in awe. At that moment, everything was in perfect balance.
Would that we could find that balance so beautifully throughout the year. One of the strengths of Keddem is our creativity; indeed our existence is based on a small group trying to do something different. Implementing ideas take time, money and energy. Gee that sounds vaguely familiar. It isn't easy when we want to do everything. We are made up of a lot of very intelligent individuals who are, how do they say it in business? "self-starters." We have to balance that individual sense of independence with the need to strengthen community by working together. We have high standards and diverse voices which lead to many opinions and revisions which must be balanced with deadines and accomplishing goals. How do the needs of the community balance with the varying needs of members?
Oh, and remember those rambunctious kittens? They are both now fifteen pound rambunctious cats. They still follow me around and like to stomp all over me when I'm resting - the paws are hard. Im flexible and (as you can see) well padded, so I do bounce back. But when well-meaning friends stomp all over each other's brilliant ideas with hard verbal paws, it's harder to bounce back. Theres an art to balancing frankness with kindness and respect. I'm pleased to see that we are offering some Yom Kippur workshops around this theme.
Keddem Congregation is at a point in our existence when we really have to address these issues of balance as well as others. We need to confront in a positive manner the questions of where we are at and where we are going. Thus the Board of directors approved the Long Range planning process. It's tricky balancing the time, money and effort taken for this process with those needed for our ongoing programs. Moving forward with the planing process was a risk that we needed to take.
We want to thank so many of you for participating in this process. You're serving on the committee or advising; you have taken our quick surveys; you've been posting on our community blog. During the last two weeks of October, we will be organizing meetings in people's homes to continue the conversation. Look for the e-mail invitation after the High Holy Days are over.
Now is not the time for me to talk about the results - it is too soon. The process isn't always going where I had thought it would in the beginning. But, I realize, to paraphrase a popular song, "you can't always get what you want, but if you take time, you might just get what you need."
When the process is finished, we will have to make some decisions. At times like this, I remember my favorite poem from Robert Frost. I share it fully, for context, as myreading tonight:
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that, the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence;
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I —
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Keddem's founders were very creative people, with a vision. They took the road less traveled by and that gave us a strong foundation. I believe that whatever we decide in our plan, we will take a lesser traveled road - it will be challenging, it will be exciting, it will make the difference and it will be a strong Keddem.
Shana Tova U'metuka. May you and yours have a good and sweet year, one which finds you in balance.
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