Belonging

I just received this email from the Temple today stating that the congregation plans to affiliate with the URJ. I received this news with great happiness, even if it means including a few extra dollars in our annual membership check.  I am pretty sure this action is the result of our wonderful lay leader choosing to retire soon and our impending need to hire a Rabbi, something we'll need help from the URJ to achieve. Sheldon does a wonderful job leading the services but he does not perform the teaching and counseling duties I associate with a Rabbi.

With our burgeoning membership (over 700 and growing), an active Brotherhood, Sisterhood and Hadassah, and even serving younger congregants from the area through Bar and Bat Mitzvah training, it is definitely time for a full-time Rabbi (probably even two!)   Our Temple has certainly evolved from a "community of Jewish friends" into a full fledged congregation in need of all Rabbinical services.

But most important of all, at least to me, is the need to affiliate with other congregations throughout the USA.  In unity we can find a stronger voice and a shared purpose.  We will no longer be a lone band-of-brothers in a very gentile land.  It's calling  "belonging", the same feeling one might get from their affiliation with the military, a sorority or one's extended family.

Shabbat Shalom!

;-)