Shalom Friends,

This Shabbat we begin reading the fifth and final book of the Torah, D’varim. The Hebrew word d’varim means “words;” the name of the book and the first portion come from its beginning words, Eileh d’varim – “These are the words that Moses addressed to all Israel on the other side of the Jordan…” Thus begins Moses’ lengthy final speech to the Children of Israel as they stand poised to enter the Promised Land, recounting their 40 year journey in the wilderness since the Revelation at Sinai. You can read Parashat D’varim here.
 
Moses has some important lessons to share with the Children of Israel, and he has some interesting lessons for us in the process. This evening I’ll be sharing a few of them with you in an interactive D’var Torah following the Torah reading.
 
Yes, you read that correctly! This evening is our first IN-PERSON SHABBAT SERVICE at our new home, at House of Prayer Lutheran Church. The address is in the box below. We will be returning to using our prayerbooks and to reading Torah most Shabbat evenings.
 
Taking a little inspiration from Moses, I want to share a few thoughts with you on our journey as a congregation and where we’re headed. (SPOILER ALERT - I will have much more to say about this on Rosh HaShanah!) We formed our congregation because a group of members of another congregation about to file for bankruptcy didn’t want to “scatter to the winds.” This group felt strongly that our community was special, and they wanted to stay together. So in the midst of a global pandemic, Congregation Shalom was established.
 
Despite our remaining almost exclusively online, for both worship and education, for the 18 months since we first started organizing, we have not only managed to maintain a sense of community, but we have welcomed new members, held congregational meetings for the purpose of collaborative decision-making and transparency, and recently started to build a committee structure.
 
We now stand poised at a critical juncture in the life of our congregation. We have made the commitment to rent shared space so that we may return to in-person worship and learning. Now it is time to prove that this is the right decision! Yes, we know that some people cannot attend in person for health reasons, and so we will continue to broadcast on Zoom and livestream to YouTube so everyone may participate. However I ask you to please not choose to join us online because it’s the easy and comfortable choice. After two years of logging onto your computer for services while you make dinner, watch the ballgame in the background, have a snack, check your email and social media (Do you really think I don’t know you’re doing those things? I do them too while I’m on webinars!), it’s tempting to be complacent. I get that it’s hard at the end of a long week to motivate yourself to drive to go to services. But remember how it feels once you’re there. Remember what it’s like to hear other voices reading and singing the prayers together with you, even with everyone masked. Remember what it was that made us the special community that we are to begin with. It wasn’t looking at mostly names and a few faces in boxes on Zoom. It was being face-to-face, sharing each other’s joys and sorrows, along with our communal celebrations that brought us together as a community.
 
Tonight we will read from our new Torah for the first time, and Kim Martinez, our new Secretary, will embrace the Torah for the first time as we welcome her into the Covenant of Israel. Manahara Virasinha will be our guest accompanist. We will all join around the Torah for a group aliyah and take a photo of all present with the Torah. This photo (and a few others) will be sent to the president of Temple Kol Shalom, the congregation that gifted us with the Torah, to be sent to the American Jewish Archives as part of their dissolution process.
 
Do I expect to fill our space right away? I would love for that to be the case, but I'm much more realistic than that. I know full well it will take time and a serious drop in Covid risk factors before our on-site numbers are back to pre-pandemic levels. And I also know it will be worth moving the furniture and setting up the chairs weekly, and shlepping the stuff I need from my house every week as well. It will even be worth wearing shoes!
 
I can’t wait to see you, read and sing with you, and celebrate Shabbat with you in just a few more hours!

Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Lisa Goldstein