Shabbat Shalom ~ VayiGash 2025

Dear WJC Family,

Let me start by wishing everyone a 2025 full of blessings: good health, deep relationships, and much joy. Like most people, the turn of the calendar page has got me thinking about the year ahead. It’s not resolutions that are on my mind, so much as revolutions. No, not the uprising kind revolutions, but the journey around the sun kind of revolutions. 

It is a peculiar journey our planet makes every year – it more or less starts and ends in the same place every January 1st; we move a lot and get basically nowhere. It seems sort of senseless.  However, as I understand it, the sun itself is revolving around the center of the Milky Way Galaxy, which itself is moving through space on a circular path around some intergalactic cluster center. The cluster moves through space, not orbiting anything. So, when we turn the calendar year, we may appear to ourselves to be right back where we started, but in truth much has changed, parts of the system that don’t even recognize each other exert great influence on each other’s journeys. 

It is a pretty good metaphor for communities. We come together as a group of people, who are in turn often parts of families. The families organize into friend groups/special interest groups/learning clusters, which in turn revolve around a central idea – that a synagogue can be a spiritual home and that together we can make life’s journey more meaningful by sharing Judaism and Jewish experiences. 

We are on a journey together, and though it isn’t always clear exactly where we are going and we aren’t always aware of who’s traveling with us, it is clear that we are part of each other’s journeys, linked together through beautiful ideas and values. It is such a privilege to journey with all of you.

 

That being said, we are always trying to think of ways to enhance the journey, to make it more meaningful and beautiful. I want to share two ideas that people have brought to me recently and that may interest you as we travel this next revolution.

 

1. A New Adult Bat/Bar Mitzvah Cohort – a few people have approached me interested in an adult b’nai mitzvah program. I am polling to see if we have enough interest to offer a cohort. Ideal participants are interested in learning regularly in a seminar-style class and completing their learning with a group bat/bar mitzvah. This is open to participants whether or not you already had a bar or bat mitzvah ceremony. This can be a celebration of a new stage of your Jewish journey or your first bat/bar mitzvah. If you might be interested, please let me know.
2. Community Resource Center Support Committee – The Community Resource Center (CRC), which serves the immigrant and Latino community in Mamaroneck, has been a partner       organization with WJC for decades. They have asked us to help prepare volunteers for an anticipated uptick in need over the next few years. They are particularly seeking bilingual people to support their clients, attorneys willing to donate time and services, and mental health providers to support members of the community. We are also hoping to set up a standing subcommittee of SOJAC to help manage the relationship with the CRC and allow us to be responsive to their changing needs. If you are interested in getting involved in this effort, or know someone who might be, please contact Sharon Silver.

 

Both of these initiatives came to us through interested members of the WJC family. So, if you have an idea you would like to bring to the table in 2025, please let me know and if it is feasible, we will do our best to help you achieve your vision!

 

See you in shul,

RJA