This past Sunday, we held our spring community meeting. Each of the agenda items for our meeting connected, on a conceptual level, to this one idea: planning for our future. There was the budget discussion and approval, allowing us both to articulate and achieve our goals and plans for the coming year. There was voting in our new slate of officers, offering gratitude to our outgoing Chair and Vice-Chair and welcoming our new Chair and Vice-Chair. There were our round-robin committee conversations, helping everyone learn more about the incredible work of our committees and bringing new people in to serve on them, enriching them with new energy to keep moving forward. And indeed, this final part of Sunday’s gathering was full of excitement and forward-thinking energy.
The parallels between our community meeting and the events of our parashah as we start the book of B’midbar present themselves readily. The Torah reading begins with a census, the accounting for which matches the accounting from the census back in the book of Shemot, when each person made a donation to support the work of the community. That’s the budget. In counting the people in each of the tribes, the text calls forward the head of each tribe by name. That’s our leadership transition. Later in the parashah, we learn how the different tribes were arranged when encamped and how they marched when the people traveled. It describes the organization of the community and the different roles that each segment performed. That’s our committee round-robin. Both the parashah and our community meeting demonstrate the importance of seemingly mundane details for ensuring the sustainability and vitality of a sacred community. I want to zoom in on one aspect of the census from the Torah reading. B’midbar 2:33 notes: “The Levites, however, were not recorded among the Israelites.” Although the various essential tasks and roles of the Levites are well enumerated in the parashah, the actual Levites are not counted together with their fellow Israelites. They are the leaders of the community in many ways, yet they are also invisible. This detail of our Torah reading speaks to something deeply true about serving in a leadership role. Good leaders - the Levites, our own officers and committee chairs, and many others - do not serve in positions of leadership for accolades or attention. They are motivated by a sense of purpose, obligation to the community, love for the work that they do, among other things. Often they work behind the scenes, making the trains run on time, as it were. Their role in supporting the life of the community is sometimes only noticed when the “trains” are late, which is inevitable. When things are running smoothly, their skilled leadership can remain invisible. But without the Levites, the spiritual core of the nation would be hollow; there would be no one to manage ritual matters or inspire connection to the Divine. Without our officers and committee chairs, so much of what makes our community special would similarly be missing. It is with this in mind that I want to offer my gratitude to all who serve our community. From those who think about our financial future to those who care for us in times of grief, from those who plan programs and events that express our most deeply held values to those who seek out opportunities to engage folks on the margins, from those who bring us stimulating speakers to those who manage our communications (and hock me a tshaynik to get this weekly message in on time!) - I say thank you, and we see you. We count on you, and your tremendous contributions count beyond measure. Shabbat Shalom.
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Shabbat MessageA message from Rabbi Jacobs to the Congregation each Shabbat. Archives
November 2024
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