Dear Temple Family, 

Greetings! As the summer continues and we see the advent of the next school year (and the High Holiday season which is very early this year on our calendars and in our minds), we welcome back Rabbi Mann after his June holidays and additionally welcome Katherine (“Kitty”) Hall, who began official duties as our Religious School Principal on July 1. With her wealth of experience and innovative ideas, we can expect that the positive steps initiated last year by our own Barb Sered-Zabelin to reinvigorate the school will be solidified and expanded. We also sadly report that longstanding members David and Sylvia Nemenoff, who have served as pillars to our community, have moved to Peoria to be closer to son Brian and grandchildren. Dave assures us that he will be back (and Brian and Marla affirm this) from time to time to be with his Temple family (and we are in initial stages of planning a formal dinner or brunch to celebrate in October David’s “5 chai” birthday)!

As promised last time, I am reviewing the book The Self-Renewing Congregation by Dr. Isa Aron, which is a product of the Synagogue 2000 Revitalizing Congregation Life Series, and which I plan to highlight for the congregation over the next months. All quotations below are from this source.

Dr. Aron points out that 40% of American Jews currently belong to a congregation and that 80% at some time of their lives have belonged. She discusses the early movement to optimize continuity of Jewish participation and identity through day schools and “informal” institutions such as camps and community centers. These early pioneers of change realized that the congregation could not be bypassed, discussing the “enormous potential” of the congregation and the realization that many congregations “fall short” of this potential.

She describes the mission of basic congregational life as helping Jews connect with Jewish “Tradition” and to “live by its precepts.” This mission involves questions such as the responsible force for interpreting tradition, finding balance between having the goal of assisting individuals in connection and the goal of furthering connection, and whether congregations should set “standards” for the congregants. She highlights the notion that these fundamental questions cannot be set once and forgotten, as the change in society and societal needs dictate that these may vary from time to time.

Her recommendation to congregational communities is to openly discuss issues “before they erupt,” solicit opinions from all subgroups and to form a “collective spirit of experimentation,” where we “scan and interpret the environment… in search of potential issues,” explore the “range of new direction,” act, assess outcomes, and repeat the cycle. She contrasts this to the way that many congregations actually function, believing that “the way that it has always been done” is not to be questioned, as this was thoroughly thought through initially or has evolved through a process and should be sacrosanct.

Dr. Aron ends chapter one describing the challenge of definition of a congregation more as what they do than who they are, since members and environments change over time, not a “bad” thing but merely a real thing. Cornerstones of congregational self-renewal include the following: “thinking back and thinking ahead,” “enabling leaders to follow and followers to lead,” “seeing both the forest and the trees,” and “honoring the past while anticipating the future.”

I would appreciate any feedback about the above, either positive or negative, to allow the Board of Directors and the congregation-at-large to be “all that we can be.”

My best wishes to you and to your families for the remainder of the summer. See you at the Temple and hopefully at the Annual Picnic!

Sincerely,
 

David Leader