Read’s the President’s Kol Nidre Address
The President will be in
Wednesday, February 22nd, at 6:15 p.m.
Spending time at Silverman Preschool’s Parent Committee Meeting
This month I’ll be spending some time just with our preschool families during their Parent Committee meeting. I look forward to hearing their ideas to keep our community thriving while looking forward to the future.
Although it won’t be an opportunity to talk business, it will be my pleasure to greet so many friends at our annual gala, Moulin Rouge. The evening promises terrific fun while supporting our congregation. If you haven’t made your reservations, please do so by February 13th.
I am doing my best to alter dates and time to better meet the needs of everyone’s busy schedules. If you should wish to reach me outside of our monthly gatherings feel free to email me.
Seth Krosner, President
Tifereth Israel Synagogue
President’s Address to the Congregation
Kol Nidre, October 7, 2011 / 5772
In the last four years, I lost my Mother and my Mother in law, both after long battles with cancer. I fathered a son. I built a new home. And I became legally married. These are perhaps the five most important events in my adult life. I cannot imagine having gone through any of them without my synagogue family.
I’ve read that 90% of San Diego’s population was born elsewhere. Most of us live far from our extended families. We lead busy, disconnected lives: we work long hours, we drive long distances, we are over-scheduled, and like many generations of Californians before us, we come from other places. I, and probably many of you, hunger for a sense of having emotional “roots.” I want to feel I have a home, and I’m not talking just about the driveway you pull into after work every night. This synagogue is also home for me, and it can be for you. I want each of you to feel that this shul IS your home. I hope you’ll come chat with me during my monthly “President Is In” office hours. Share with me the things you like about our synagogue, and also the things you’d like to add or improve about synagogue life. I want to hear your ideas and opinions: I value them.
I’d like to ask you now to turn to the people on either side of the folks you came to services with tonight. Chances are you don’t know them, or only know them by sight. I want you to introduce yourselves to them. Just tell them your name, and ask them theirs. Wish them a Shabbat Shalom, and a Shanah Tovah. I’ll wait.
See, that was not so hard. (By the way, I hope you got it all out of your system, because as far as I know, there’s not going to be talking during the Rabbi’s sermon.)
People come to synagogues for many reasons: for prayer, for reflection, for spiritual renewal, for education. None of these need a special building — you can pray and reflect at the top of Cowles Mountain (or, for that matter, at the bottom and save the hike), and you can certainly feel spiritually renewed watching the sun set over the Pacific. You can read and study in a library, at home, or even in Starbucks if you have an IPad.
So what does a synagogue offer you? A community. When I said Kaddish here, for my mother, may she rest in peace, I didn’t feel less sad, or miss her less. I still miss her. I miss her now. But I felt less alone. When, just one year later, I held my infant son here during new baby Shabbat, I didn’t love him more, and I wasn’t more proud of him. That would not have been possible. But I got to watch him become part of my family, and part of my world. And I got to feel myself as a father by watching my community see me as one. And it made my life richer.
I’m not here to speak with you tonight about God, or our religion. Those topics are for the Rabbi. But I do know about the hunger for connection, and the real need to feel part of an extended family, to belong. This synagogue is my community, and yours. It takes little more than just showing up to be part of this community. Just come, show up, be here. This is your community.
When I moved to San Diego more than 13 years ago, I made the rounds of the Conservative and Orthodox shuls. At Tifereth Israel someone made a point to say Hi to me and introduce themselves, so I came back. And Tina Friedman, thanks for chatting with me that Shabbat morning – that’s why I chose this shul over the others in San Diego. That’s why I’m here now. Tonight someone said hello to all of you, and wished you well. And you reached out and met someone new. Next year, or the year after that, when you have, God willing, something wonderful in your life, the people you met tonight may be there to celebrate with you. And if, God forbid, you suffer a loss like I did, those people who were strangers when you walked in tonight might be the friends who come to sit shiva with you. Because that is what a community is for. And this is your community.
Tifereth Israel Synagogue. Tradition. Community. A future with you.
I wish each of you a meaningful fast and a year filled with joy. May you be inscribed, and sealed, in the Book of Life. Shabbat Shalom.