Monthly Archives: August 2011

This is going to be the best year ever.

Maybe it’s a coincidence, but I hope it is much more than that. I sat down to write my weekly “From the Rabbis Desk,” but procrastinated for a moment to see what Rabbi Broide wrote about in his outreach column. Low and behold the same thing is on both of our minds and likely on the minds of all of the members of the BRS professional team. Despite the growing challenges in the world around us with rockets falling in Israel and the stock market falling in America and many other difficulties, we feel from the bottom of our hearts that this is going to be the best year ever.

The famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright designed many beautiful buildings, homes and other magnificent structures. Toward the end of his career, a reporter asked him, “Of your many beautiful designs, which one is your favorite?” Without missing a beat, Frank Lloyd Wright answered, “My next one.” If we focus too much on the challenges, the obstacles and the problems, we will become paralyzed, apathetic and stagnant. The challenge in life is to be firmly rooted in realism, but inspired by a healthy dose of optimism. Like Frank Lloyd Wright, one must always believe that the best is yet to come in our marriages, parenting, spiritual ambitions, professional aspirations, health consciousness, and more.

The BRS team has been hard at work this summer planning an amazing year ahead. Our brand new, state of the art website will be fully functional within a few weeks allowing you access to everything you want to know about BRS in addition to a member section to pay your bills, sponsor a siddur, make a donation, etc. As Rabbi Broide writes, we are working hard to expand our outreach efforts to bring the beauty of our Torah to thousands around us, and to bring the beauty that those thousands have to offer, to our community. Our Welcome Committee, Chessed Committee, and Hospitality Committees have come up with innovative new ideas to encourage participation in their critical work.

We eagerly look forward to welcoming fantastic scholars in residence this year including Nobel Prize winner Professor Yisroel Auman, Award winning actress Mayim Bialik, Rabbi Daniel Gordis, Charlie Harary and many others. This Elul we will be launching our ‘Giving is Getting’ initiative including service learning trips throughout the year and disaster relief work if God forbid necessary. Under the leadership of the dynamic Rabbi Uri and Aliza Pilochowski, our youth and teen departments have incredible new programs planned.

With all of the challenges, rest assured that there is a lot to look forward to at BRS in this coming year. With your help, partnership and support, I am fully confident that together the BRS community will have its’ best year ever!

Shabbat Shalom

BRS is not just a Shul, it is a community

As we often say, BRS is not just a Shul, it is a community. Our goal is to cultivate a culture in which people don’t feel I am a member of BRS, but rather, I am a member of the BRS community. What is the difference between being a Shul and being a community?

 

A shul is a place to attend classes, davening, events, programs and activities. A community is so much more. It is a family that celebrates with you, mourns with you, provides support, love, and a sense of mission. BRS’s mission is to invite Jews of all backgrounds, levels of knowledge, observance and diversity to participate in our modern orthodox, Zionist community committed to the study and observance of Torah, to outreach and to contributing to the world around us.

We feel deeply honored and proud that our community is not limited to Montoya Circle. Firstly, there are individuals and families that identify with our mission and our sense of community and therefore attend BRS despite the distance from their home. But secondly, our community transcends Montoya Circle because of our wonderful satellite, BRS West.

Since its inception, BRS West has provided its members a ‘small community’ feel, while at the same time being part of a larger mission, vision and affiliation. BRS West members are full partners in the BRS family, participating in our programming, leadership and activities. We are profoundly proud and feel indebted to the BRS West families who through their commitment to BRS’s sense of community and mission have expanded our border and our reach westward. We are also grateful to Hillel Day School and their leadership who have been gracious hosts and generous sources of support in hosting BRS West on their campus.

This Sunday, under the outstanding leadership of Rabbi Mordechai and Hadassah Smolarcik, BRS West together with BRS will be celebrating a major milestone, the dedication of the BRS West Beit Midrash in the new middle school building at Hillel Day School. Shacharit will take place in the old Beit Midrash at 8:00 am after which the Sifrei Torah will be accompanied into the new Beit Midrash. A light brunch will follow.

Please join me in attending this momentous occasion and showing our full support to the BRS West branch of our family. May we celebrate many more milestones together, in partnership, for years to come.

Shabbat Sholom

There is the loss of our innocence, replaced by feelings of fear and dread?

Two recent horrific tragedies, the murders of Leiby Kletzky and Rabbi Elazar Abuchatzeira, continue to devastate the Jewish community. Many of us are filled with questions, not only about how this could happen to the victims, but about the identity of the perpetrators themselves. It is hard to remember a time in which a so called orthodox Jew murdered a fellow Jew in cold blood, let alone two such incidents in such a short span.

 

There are multiple layers to these tragedies and their impact on our people. Of course there is the loss of precious life, the potential that can now never be realized, and the impact of these individuals that will no longer be felt. There is the tragedy of the murderers and how they have forfeited their Godly spirit by having engaged in acts that are the epitome of evil.

But it occurs to me there is yet another tragedy and loss – there is the loss of our innocence, replaced by feelings of fear and dread. Leiby’s murder has inspired parents of young children around the globe to wonder should we let our children walk around alone? Beginning at what age? For what distance? At what time of day? Rabbi Abuchatzeira’s murder has already motivated Rabbis to ask questions such as “can I meet with people one on one anymore? Am I safe even around congregants and students whom I thought I knew well?”

Some may argue that asking all of these questions is a good thing and will yield greater safety in the long run. Others believe that harping on these questions will produce a culture of neuroticism, paranoia and unnecessary worry and fear. After all, these were isolated incidents carried out by deranged, psychotic individuals and in no way reflect a real danger. I personally don’t know which attitude is correct, but I do know that prior to a few weeks ago we were not struggling with these questions and that too is a great tragedy in my opinion.

As we rapidly approach Tisha B’av and please God conclude this inauspicious period of mourning and heartache, let us look forward to the time that the Navi (Prophet) predicts in which men and women will sit in the streets of Jerusalem and watch as children play freely in perfect safety with unbridled joy and happiness.

Shabbat Sholom

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