We are fortunate to live in one of the most beautiful areas in the world. This is, no doubt, one of the reasons many of us choose to live here. With the arrival of Spring, we are reminded of the natural beauty of our home as our natural environment renews itself each year.

The concept of environmental sustainability refers to the potential longevity of vital human ecological support systems, such as our planet’s climatic system, and our systems of agriculture, forestry, fisheries, and industry (yes, even industry), as well the sustainability of human communities in general. We frequently talk at Shomrei Torah of our commitment to Tikkun Olam, repairing the world. We all want our planet and our human community to be sustainable for future generations, and we feel the same way about our local Shomrei Torah community. I am proud to say that at Congregation Shomrei Torah, we walk our talk on sustainability.

In recent memory, there has been no greater testament to Shomrei Torah’s dedication to environmental sustainability than our participation in the Santa Rosa Creek Cleanup Day on March 9. Thanks to the efforts of the Congregation Shomrei Torah Environmental Action Committee, more than one hundred people turned out on a beautiful, warm day to scour the banks of Santa Rosa Creek from the beginning of the Prince Memorial Greenway at Santa Rosa Avenue all the way down to Pearson Street. We collected scores of bags of garbage, and enjoyed spending time with our families and friends in the spring sunshine. Representatives of the City of Santa Rosa, who instructed us and supervised our efforts, said that this was one of the largest groups — if not the largest — of creek cleanup volunteers they had ever seen.

None of this would have been possible without the remarkable efforts of Susan Richter, who spearheaded the event, coordinating our participation with the City and with the Chaverim Jewish Teen Program (a joint program of CST and Congregation Beth Ami). Susan was ably assisted in the planning by Lorna Myers, Franny and Scott Posner, as well as the co-chairs of the Environmental Action Committee, Sue Lewis and Roy Sparrow. Several other members of the Environmental Action Committee also worked to make this event run so smoothly: Billie Blumenthal, Fran Danoff, Sherry Fink, Meryl Fischer, Wendy Horn and Bill Skoonberg.

Thanks also to Rick Concoff, the Director of the Chaverim Program, for leading our community’s teens in their creek cleanup efforts. More than thirty teens from Chaverim came out to help. They did a lot of hard work, and had a good time doing it. We appreciate their participation and great attitude, and look forward to partnering with them more in the future.

Because part of sustaining our environment is sustaining our human communities, and particularly our Shomrei Torah community, we also thank those who are doing so much to provide the critical financial support our Congregation needs. Our growth, our new building, and related staffing requirements have presented your Board of Directors and its Finance Committee with budgeting challenges, so remember that your financial commitments to CST are more important than ever. Your annual membership pledges are by far the single largest source of revenue for the Congregation. That is why it is necessary for everyone to do their fair share. For those of you who are able to do more than your fair share, please know how appreciated you are.

A smaller, but no less important source of general fund revenue for CST is fundraising events. On March 30, Congregation Shomrei Torah held its annual spring fundraiser. This year, thanks to event co-chairs Melissa Jason- Ike and Lisa Ehrlich-Giglio, the event was fruitful and a lot of fun. They did a tremendous amount of work to put it together, and it was a success by any standard. What makes it so amazing is that both Melissa and Lisa work full-time and are the parents of young children. Thank you for showing us that even people as busy as you can take leadership roles at CST. Many hands make the work a lot lighter, and Melissa and Lisa had great help from a large cadre of volunteers, including Leira Satlof, who selected and directed our many talented CST members who performed, and Shirley Liberman, who again came through and did a great job organizing the raffle.

As part of our ongoing efforts to sustain our Congregation in perpetuity, CST’s Endowment and Gift Group is seeking to honor all of the Shomrei Torah members who have remembered the Congregation in their will or trust, or by making a major gift. For more information on how to remember Shomrei Torah in your will, trust or by a major gift, please contact Dianne Smith .

Congregation Shomrei Torah was wellrepresented at the Union for Reform Judaism’s Biennial Convention in San Diego in mid-December. Joining me and my wife, Ann, were Rabbi George, Fran Brumlik, Melissa Kort, Dianne Smith and Ben Benson, Marcy Marrin, John Weinstein and Heidi Stewart, Cynthia Nestle, Sue Lewis, Paul Munson, Miriam Marlin, and Sheila Katz Feiwell.

My thanks to each of you for spending the time and going to the expense to attend this important event, and for sharing the ideas and energy you have brought back from Biennial with the entire congregation.

In a separate article in this Voice, Ben Benson has gathered reflections from many of the CST members who attended. Please spend a few moments to read about what they learned.

It was simply wonderful to spend five days with over 5,000 Reform Jews from across North America. We sang, learned, prayed, and laughed. We were entertained by and got to sing along with the greatest musicians and vocalists in our movement (including Debbie Friedman). We shared congregational and personal stories and ideas during some of the sessions, and gained new insights into congregational life from hearing others’ stories and ideas.

Then there was Shabbat. The emotion and inspiration of praying along with 5,000 other Jews is something you have to try for yourself. We shared the music that, for me, makes prayer come alive. We used the new Reform prayerbook, Mishkan T’filah. We also learned beautiful new melodies for several prayers, and these were mixed with the ones that just a few years ago were new to us at Shomrei Torah, but which are now as familiar to us as those from childhood. The entire experience was deeply moving, and I was sad to see Shabbat end.

Every Reform Jew should attend a URJ Biennial once in his or her lifetime. There is nothing like it in the American Jewish experience.

In my adolescence, I was fortunate to have spent several summers at Jewish camps, and camp was the single most defining Jewish experience of my life (even more than my bar mitzvah). To have shared Biennial with such a terrific group of people from Congregation Shomrei Torah made it the closest thing to my experiences at Jewish summer camp that I’ve had as an adult. Being at the Biennial will continue to define my adult Jewish experience.

As great as Biennial was for me, the best part was sharing it with Ann. We already plan to go to the next Biennial in Toronto in 2009. I hope you will join us.

Shalom, and Happy Chanukah!

As the President of Congregation Shomrei Torah, I am deeply honored this afternoon to welcome all of you to the dedication of our new sanctuary.

As many of you know, the word “Chanukah” means “dedication”. This holiday is a time to remember the Maccabees rededicating the temple in Jerusalem after their struggle for religious freedom.

For me, and hopefully for each of you, during every Chanukah from this time forward, we will remember this very day, when we gathered to dedicate our own temple and celebrate our own 21st century version of what it is like to experience true religious freedom. Today, as Jews in America, we are free to not only build a Jewish temple, but to build it up here, on this hill above our entire City, where it stands proudly—and where we stand with it—saying that we are proud to be Jews; that we are proud of the beautiful light we have created in our lives by being part of this caring, warm group; that we are proud of sharing that light, which radiates both literally and figuratively from this building; and that we are proud of our history as a people of remaining true to our faith and passing it l’dor v’ dor, from one generation to the next, too often against unimaginable challenges and risk.

Before I go any further, let me ask you to please stand or raise your hand if you were a member of the Congregation when it began in 1974. Thank you for starting us on the road which has led us to this joyous occasion! Please stand or raise your hand if you joined the Congregation in the 1970’s.The 1980’s? The 1990’s? And please stand or raise your hand if you joined within the past 7 years. Thanks to all of you. Each of you deserves the honor of this moment, because each of you, by becoming part of our Shomrei Torah community, have, in some way, furthered our collective vision of this day.

And each of you in your own way have helped fulfill our congregation’s mission to create a sensitive, caring and supportive congregational community where all are welcome and included; to act with responsibility and compassion in our community, and to support the principles of equality, freedom and shalom among all peoples.

Finally, who here helped—in any way—with our efforts to build this beautiful home we have created for ourselves? Please stand or raise your hands.

Thanks to each and every one of you….

By being here today, and by returning here to pray, to learn, to cook, to celebrate, to mourn, to plant, and yes even to pull weeds or paint or fix fences together, all of us here—together—will continue to build both this building and more importantly, what lives and thrives inside this building: a community of kind, caring, and so very generous people.

For most of us, today will be the only time in our lives when we will dedicate our own sanctuary. Let’s stop for a moment. Look up at this space. Then turn around and look at this entire beautiful sanctuary. This is our holy place. And while we each may have other individual holy places in our lives, this sanctuary is our community’s holy place.

Now, please join me in singing the schecheyanu:

Baruch atah adonai eloheinu melech ha'olam shecheyanu v'kiy'manu v'higyanu lazman hazeh.

Blessed are you God, creator of time and space, who has supported us, protected us, and brought us to this moment in our lives and in the life of our congregation.

In reflecting on the High Holy Days just past and looking to this New Year as it is beginning to unfold in our Jewish community, I am awestruck by the depth of talent and energy in our congregation, and in the incredible opportunities that we have at Congregation Shomrei Torah, thanks to our volunteers and to our Rabbi and staff.

We have talked in Board of Directors’ meetings about what we envision for our synagogue now that we are “homeowners.” One theme that keeps rising to the top is the hope that we would become the center for progressive Judaism in Sonoma County. We have only been in our new home for six months, and a quick look at our website (www.shomreitorah.org) will confirm that we are well on our way to realizing that goal.

A synagogue has three traditional functions. It is a Beit T’fillah (House of Prayer), a Beit Midrash (House of Study), and a Beit K’nesset (House of Gathering). Our being a Beit K’nesset is part of our becoming the center for local progressive Judaism, and we are well on our way to serving both of these roles. I see the evidence of our success in each of the following:
• The largest religious school enrollment in Shomrei Torah history (150 kids) and one of the largest B’nei Mitzvah classes ever (28);
• The largest attendance ever at our High Holy Day services this year (the LDS Church ran out of chairs to accommodate us!);
• 90 Sonoma County teens enrolled in our new Chaverim youth program (which itself is an historical partnership between Congregation Shomrei Torah and Congregation Beth Ami);
• Our Women-to-Women group is bringing the internationally-recognized author Anita Diamant, author of The Red Tent, to Shomrei Torah.
• In the last two months, we have had lectures from Rabbi Dr. Donniel Hartman, co-director of the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem, and Dr. Hermann Simon, director of the historic Neue Synagogue in Berlin, an event which we co-sponsored with the German Consulate.

And just look at the other activities that are listed in the November 2007 calendar and on the pages of this edition of The Voice: Judaism and the Environment classes are being taught by Rabbi George; Jewish Philosophy and Ethics classes are being taught by Rabbi Jerry Danzig; Rabbi Geoff Dennis, author of The Encyclopedia of Jewish Myth, Magic and Mysticism, will speak on Judaism and the Occult. And that’s just in November!

With these rich and varied adult education courses, including our Pathways to Judaism course, which concluded this past month, our Shabbat services on Friday and Saturday, our Men’s Bagel Club meetings, and activities with our many committees including Caring, Social Action, Environmental, Membership Involvement, Youth, and Recreation, there is truly something for everyone at Congregation Shomrei Torah in the New Year.

Please be sure to take a look at our new website, where you will always find the most current and also recent versions of The Voice so you can stay in touch with upcoming activities, and where you can listen to one of Rabbi George’s sermons, look up the location of the next Chaverim dinner, check the religious school schedule, or even hear podcasts of our choir and the blowing of the shofar on Rosh Hashanah. A special thanks to Shomrei Torah member Jay Peretz for designing and building the new website.

As part of your commitment to yourself for the New Year, please spend some time taking advantage of one of the above opportunities to connect with your Jewish community. Come to our Beit K’nesset, and help us as we become the center for progressive Judaism in Sonoma County.

URJ BIENNIAL
Please join me, Rabbi George, and the fun and diverse group of our congregation leaders who will be attending the URJ Biennial, which takes place in San Diego, Dec. 12-16, 2007. Our group includes Temple Administrator Fran Brumlik, Dianne Smith and Ben Benson, Melissa Kort, John Weinstein and Heidi Stewart, Jan Gilman, Cynthia Nestle, Marcy Marrin, and Paul Munson.

There is so much to experience and you will treasure spending time with the largest gathering of Reform Jews in America. It’s for everyone in the congregation. You will really feel a part of our American Reform Jewish Community, and you will have the opportunity to learn, sing, pray and be inspired about what we are doing together at Congregation Shomrei Torah. For a terrific video and information on the Biennial, go to www.urj.org.

HIGH HOLY DAYS THANKS
There is no such thing as too much thanks and praise for all of you who volunteered your time and energy to make our High Holy Days services so inspiring and run so smoothly. It would take another page to list all of you here, so please know how much your community appreciates what you have done. Thank you again!

We are now approaching that most serious and introspective time when, together as a community, we welcome the New Year and ask for God’s forgiveness and compassion for our behavior in the year that has just passed. It is also a time when we personally ask for forgiveness from those whom we may have hurt or offended.

Just as there are many ways to perform acts of teshuvah (repentance), there are also many ways that we, as members of the progressive Reform Jewish community at Congregation Shomrei Torah, can support our communal Jewish life.

Out of approximately 15,000 Jewish households in Sonoma County, only 1,000 or so support synagogue life with memberships…almost 400 of them here at Congregation Shomrei Torah. Our community is here for you 365 days a year. This is where we celebrate a bris and a bat mitzvah. This is where we see our children married, and it is where we mourn the loss of our loved ones. It is where we pray, and where we go to know that we are a part of something bigger--a part of our community. It is where we share the events that are our lives.

The Shomrei Torah community has incredible heart. We pitch in and make our world a better place. We show our heart in many ways: by building a home together; by being politically active on many fronts, whether it is housing and homelessness, civil rights, the environment or the State of Israel; we visit, give rides to, and care for our elders and the infirm, Jewish and non-Jewish alike; we take food and give comfort to our members in their times of need; we host programs for our teens as well as our toddlers; and we have many active Chavurot. Thanks to Leira Satlof and our many talented congregational musicians and vocalists, we sing, we play music at Shabbat, and have a great choir.

We have fun together. We care deeply for each other and it shows. It shows in our fine administrative staff, and in the great leadership and staff of our excellent and very popular religious school. It shows in the gratitude, respect and admiration I hear in Rabbi George’s voice when he talks about us as a group. It shows in the gratitude, respect and admiration and the genuine love I hear in the voices of our congregation and its leaders when they talk about Rabbi George.

It’s a fact that Shomrei Torah has tons of heart. But there’s never enough of such a good thing, and we need even more of it. We need you. If you’re already helping with your time, then the Congregation thanks you very much. We look forward to your continued help this year, and ask that you commit yourself again to being as active as you can be.

If you aren’t involved right now or haven’t helped in awhile, we need your energy and participation. As it says in Pirke Avot, “If I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?” Just a few hours total a year would make a huge difference. We’d like your help so that we keep improving on our annual membership pledges. And we’d like your help, if you are able, so that you can say, by the time our capital campaign ends in December 2007, that you are a founding donor in the building of our beautiful new home.

Please make these goals a part of your commitment to yourself for the New Year. Please get involved in this, your temple community. Bring your friends, your spouse or partner, and please bring your kids. Many hands make light work, and there are always good, kind people here to do the lifting with you.

I look forward to seeing you and your families at our High Holy Days services, and wish each of you Shanah Tovah, a good year.