Clergy Blog

What kind of person are you? What have you done this year and who do you want to be in the year to come? The month of Elul leading up to  Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur encourages us to think critically about our lives, take stock of where we are and envision where we want to go in the next year and beyond.

In this year of transitions at Temple Beth Hillel-Beth El we focus on the future and ask not only who do we want to be as individuals but what do we want our community to look like in the years ahead. This community has been blessed and built by so many dedicated individuals over the years and it will only be carried forward by the intentional work of the people who make up this synagogue.

To that end I invite you to share with me some of your goals and hopes for the future. In this time of big questions, I want to ask each of you three things:

1. What is a goal you have for the next year? 
2. What about our community do you want to be true in 30 years? 
3. What do you hope future generations remember about us? 

Consider these questions through different lenses. How would you answer as an individual, a family member, a citizen and as a Jew? If you are comfortable, please share a short video of you and your family answering one of the questions or send me an Email. We will share some answers, with permission of course, over the course of the month and the year.

I hope this process will help us focus on the process of heshbon hanefesh, taking stock of our lives that is the project of the season. I look forward to spending the holidays with you and building something wonderful together.

Yours,

Rabbi Ethan Witkovsky