Rabbi's Week in Review Blog

I met this past week with my Clergy Leadership Incubator cohorts. As a group, we are tasked with envisioning a different and transformative future for our synagogue communities. I also had a couple of wonderful meetings with couples planning for their weddings.

While the CLI meeting may seem unrelated to the wedding-planning meetings, I see an important connection between the two. If we are to seek out a new vision that will set a future course for our shul, we have to begin from a place of hope: hope for a brighter and better future. The pandemic has postponed wedding plans for many couples, but it's emblematic of a hopeful future now that the planning and scheduling of weddings seem to be returning in a big way.

As we approach our Jewish New Year and we reflect on how we can improve our actions in the year to come, let us not lose sight of how we can look forward to the year to come, 5782, with positive anticipation and, yes, hope. We as Jews have survived and thrived through centuries of hardship by being a people who have always held on to our hope for a brighter future, and with a commitment to shaping that future.