Community at Temple Israel
Rabbi’s Message – January 2, 2025
As we ring in the New (secular) Year, it is often a time to reflect on the values that bring us together and guide our community.
Last month, Matt’s grandmother passed, “Bubbe” to our kids, just days after Thanksgiving. As we gathered in New Jersey where she lived for the funeral and shiva, the elephant in the room was the knowledge that those shiva minyans were likely the last time 30+ family members would be gathering in that house – the one my in-laws grew up in, on the street that is named after them. No one was going to ask where Seder would be – it was certainly too soon for that question to be spoken out loud.
After we returned to Ohio, I thought more about a piece Matt wrote, but didn’t share, highlighting the different “seats” he took at Thanksgiving over the years and what he learned from the vantage point of that location around the table. Now, shloshim is over, the year has turned to 2025, and routine is settling back in.
Bubbe’s death has not been the only death in the family since I became a mom and a Rabbi – but it did hit differently. Her daughter gave everyone in attendance at the funeral a glue stick and in her eulogy explained that Cynthia was the glue that held the family together, and now we each need to be the glue. It was kitchy, and resonated: What does it mean to collectively be the glue that holds the family, or our community, together? The answer I’ve come up with in the last month is to continue celebrating, to foster relationships, to provide space for others, to inspire, and to lift up. These are things we’ve been doing at Temple all along. As we enter this New Year, I invite you to recommit yourself to being the ‘glue’ in our community, and in your families and other circles.