Synagogue Updates

Thank you to everyone that attended our Annual Meeting on Wednesday. It was great to see so many congregants there learning about and celebrating our community. I am happy to send the video of the meeting to those that are interested. Our photo montages will be included in Hallie's Tuesday email. Here is the link to the Annual Update that we shared. 

The summer is naturally a time for us to reflect and plan for the upcoming year. Our staff and leaders are actively thinking about September and beyond, but there is still plenty of opportunities to be had in the summer. Softball season has begun today. Our Men's Club and Sisterhood are exploring social events. We have added in person morning minyanim on Monday and Thursday. You can rsvp on our website: https://www.tbhbe.org/calendar.  All of our minyans will continue to be streamed. As we are creating programs, we are utilizing our COVID-19 guidelines, which are continuously being updated. The guidelines are available here. 

This Tuesday at 8pm, we will have the first of our Town Halls to speak about our COVID-19 Guidelines and our initial plans for the High Holidays. You can access the meeting via zoom here.
The password is 4 Phases

After a great decline, the number of cases in our region have started to creep upwards. We are being very cautious in the types of opportunities that we put out. We are continuing to offer shopping for our congregants. If you need anything, please reach out and I will send it to our team of volunteers. One of the benefits of being a part of a synagogue is a community that can help support you.  If you are interested in the numbers for Montgomery County, they have a great data website (that I am kind of obsessed with looking at): https://data-montcopa.opendata.arcgis.com/pages/covid-19

Our challah initiative is going well, and we are continuing to improve how we are organizing it. Thus far, our volunteers have offered to make more challahs than we need to deliver, and we have not needed to utilize the help of those that have offered to deliver a challah.  So we have room to grow! We have modified the form to allow you to select to bake or receive for the next three weeks. I want to encourage you to bake and/or receive a challah if you are able. This initiative fosters relationships between members of our community, enhances the Shabbat experience, and as one our participants stated: "allows them to do the mitzvah" of helping another.  Sign up here!

We appreciate all of you for being members of our community. In addition to the mailing we sent out, our membership forms are available online here. 

Our synagogue continues to work on our relationships with other churches and the greater community. Below is an email that Rabbi Cooper just sent to St. Mary's Church after their Black Lives Matter sign was vandalized for the second time in two weeks. 

May you have a week of relaxation and inspiration,

Ken
513 503 9559

 To St. Mary’s Church,

This is terrible. Although the banner was not placed on the grounds of my synagogue, I and we all feel a sense of personal violation.  That someone disagrees with the implication of “Black Lives Matter” and feels it proper or justifiable to destroy the sign is a serious problem.  But the deeper issue here is the the bigger problem.  The problem is not ripping up a sign.  That is the symptom.  For me, the problem is the underlying racism, the implied rejection of uniting with the Black community and the angry violence which accompanies this attack. 

Those who support “Black Lives Matters” are, and should be, horrified and angered by this direct attack.  But for those who agree or disagree, what does this say about the ways that Americans dissent?  Those who disagree may have allies, although those allies know that it is only when hidden by darkness that they feel safe to express their hateful attitudes.  But, the message itself, the overt rejection of the notion of the equality and the holiness of every life, that we need to address.  How did it happen that over the past 240+ years into this experiment of freedom, democracy and equality (called the USA) the message has been neither accepted nor internalized.

The sign will be replaced.  The appearance will be restored.  But this problem will not have been solved.  We must ask ourselves whether we have given our congregants/ parishioners unwitting support for for such a belief.  Have we not made clear that we are all, even blacks lives, even Jewish lives, share an equal measure of humanity and holiness? 

On behalf ofTemple Beth Hillel -Beth El I extend our horror and sadness at the destruction of the sign.  I share with all our sense of solidarity with St. Mary’s. And I stand with all in LM Clergy Consortium as we commit ourselves to strengthening our message, adamantly insisting that each of us must be ambassadors for equality and insisting thT all recall that most basic message of all religions, on the basic our perceptions about the equality and sanctity of every person

My we be blessed with strength, unity and peace.

Rabbi Neil Cooper
Temple Beth Hillel - Beth El
Wynnewood