What gives meaning to your life? Or, to frame the question another way, “When did you last experience a truly meaning-filled moment?” Let me recount for you one such moment that I recently experienced.
On Yom Ha-Shoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day), during our congregation’s annual observance, we removed from the aron (ark) our Shoah scroll, the Torah that came from a destroyed community in Czechoslovakia and which made its way to us via the Westminster Memorial Scroll Trust. That evening, as I handed that Torah scroll to each person who stepped forward to cradle it for a few moments, I was privileged to see a range of emotions wash over the faces of those who held that scroll close. Reverence, a profound sense of loss (and privilege) and tears were commingled. It was a charged and meaningful moment in the life of our community.
In recent weeks members of the Falmouth Jewish Congregation received a beautifully-designed brochure describing our congregation’s endowment development campaign whose purpose is to help secure the well-being of this congregation for decades to come. Fueling this campaign, as well as the lay-leader and professionals involved in its execution, is a deep awareness of just how much this congregation means–and has meant through the decades–to so many people. I encourage you to take a few moments to reflect on some of the meaning-filled moments that you have experienced because there was a Falmouth Jewish Congregation to facilitate them: joyous baby-namings, stimulating and thought-provoking book discussions, uplifting worship experiences, powerfully moving funerals, fulfilling classes and discussions, bar/bat mitzvah celebrations, quiet conversations with someone you came to know through the FJC, engaging in acts of tikkun olam (repairing the world) in the name of our community.
One of the most sublime functions of a synagogue is that of helping us to make and find meaning in our lives as Jews and as human beings. I happen to believe, with all my heart, that the Falmouth Jewish Congregation is an excellent “maker of meaning”. I believe just as deeply that we have a sacred obligation to sustain that “meaning-making” capacity long into the future. So, if that brochure and its pledge card are still sitting on your desk awaiting your response, let me suggest that you consider a contribution that you deem meaningful, one that asks you to stretch in fulfillment of our shared mandate to sustain this vibrant community.
It is my hope that you will find the act of making that pledge a most meaningful moment, indeed.
Reb Elias