CyberTorah

"Teach these words to your children...(Deuteronomy)." God lives in history; so do the Jewish people. Our tradition, its wisdom for living and practice, are meant to continue throughout history. Times and situations change, but the underlying divinely inspired wisdom of the Bible and the Rabbinic tradition continue to guide us and direct us.

Conservative Judaism in particular reminds us of the deep connection between eternal wisdom about the human condition and the changing dynamic nature of our lives. As Conservative Jews, we believe in Klal Yisrael (the whole of the Jewish people) and Ahavat Yisrael (love of the Jewish people). That means we believe in a respect for others and for creating a wide open Jewish space in our Synagogue. It is this place of religious pluralism and respect from which we discover a promised land flowing with milk and honey.

It is a core part of our mission to pass these values of Jewish learning, wrestling with faith, creating room for the other, on to another generation. In the last year and a half, Kol Emeth has been wrestling with ways of fulfilling that holy educational mission to more completely embody our values as a Synagogue.

Through the Bureau of Jewish Education we have received a 3 year grant to help us better understand how to fulfill this sacred responsibility as a community. Now mid way through that process called NESS, we are beginning to see some real results on the school and the community. Among the success stories of NESS so far:

A whole new group of leaders has emerged to help guide us through this process. Parents and community members have been giving so generously of their time to examine curriculum, community, issues of outreach, and our core values. Even if NESS produced nothing else, this would have been sufficient.

NESS is also teaching us new ways of running meetings and projects. NESS gives to us a management consultant who regularly look at new ways of becoming an evaluative thoughtful community capable of envisioning and then implementing change. This too would have been sufficient were it the whole of NESS.

Hanukkah and Purim in their new intergenerational celebrations were also a direct result of the NESS process. NESS isn't just about the religious school because the religious school can succeed only when it is strongly connected to the rest of the community. So NESS helped create an evening for adults at Purim. We have also put out a coffee cart on Thursdays to build community. This too - dayenu.

Finally, the leaders involved in NESS have created a mission and vision statement for the school. This statement is very much a product of Kol Emeth. It is caring and detailed and includes Jewish text at its core. Since this document will point us towards the future in ways that involve the whole community, Michael Kahan (Co-Chair of NESS), Rabbi Matzkin and I will present it to the community this coming Shabbat at around 11:30am as part of our morning service. It will then be emailed to the congregation.

I hope you can join us this Shabbat as we worship together and take this opportunity to learn, inspire, and be inspired.

Shabbat Shalom

Rabbi David Booth