Amy Asin

Erev Rosh Hashanah 5766

Accounting for Beth Am

There are about 2000 people sitting in this room tonight.  On Kol Nidre, our numbers will reach somewhere around 2300.  We’ll have 500-600 children, parents and grandparents for our children’s service and hundreds of people studying at afternoon study sessions on Yom Kippur. 

Numbers.  Judaism is obsessed with numbers.  We have a whole book of the Torah filled with multiple instances of census taking and counting.  Our schoolchildren are taught about 613 commandments.  That’s 365 negative commandments – the don’ts, corresponding to the number of days in a year, and 248 positive commandments – the do’s, corresponding to the supposed number of parts in the body. 

We at Beth Am are also aware of numbers.  We keep track of the 1400 individuals and families who belong to the congregation, the number of students who participate in our education programs, the number of Builders we print, and so on.  In any well-run organization numbers count. 

At this time of the year they can count even more. 

The name for an accountant in Hebrew is ro’eh cheshbon – ro’eh means “see” and cheshbon means accounts, so a ro’eh cheshbon is someone who looks at the accounts.  The reflective process that we go through during the High Holy Days is called cheshbon ha-nefesh.  Cheshbon is the accounting, and ha-nefesh is the soul.  This is literally an accounting of the soul, adding up the plusses and minuses of who we are.  It’s hard for me to envision accounting for my soul; even imaginary numbers seem to be insufficient.

Congregation Beth Am exists to bring Judaism to the lives of its congregants in a transformative way.  As we think about our congregational cheshbon ha-nefesh, we have to measure the impact that we have had on ourselves.  I think that it would be presumptive of me to make judgment on whether your connection with Beth Am has had a transformative impact on your life this year.  While, in my role, I get to see a lot of what happens, and I hear about a lot of the rest from you, I do not see everything.  I could not pass an accounting standards board test as the ro’eh cheshbon of this congregation.  But here are a few of the stories that I have heard this year…

A child in our education programs asked at the beginning of the school year to tell his secular school class three things about himself chooses to mention his Jewish identity in 2 of the three answers, giving this more importance than his love of the game of baseball as the things that he most wants his classmates to know about him.

A congregant reads some of Rabbi Marder’s writings and tells her friends, “I wasn’t doing so well.  But Rabbi Marder must have known exactly what I needed, because when I read what she wrote, I felt a lot better.”

A widow and his family find comfort and community after the loss of his wife.  Another man and woman, both of whom have suffered loss, find each other and start their lives anew.

Two friends reconnect at a potluck dinner and share the stories of the ups and downs of their lives.

We support our friends and colleagues as they struggle with illness and loss and we stand strong for them even though sometimes it’s too much for us to bear ourselves.

Two girls stand on the bima at their B’not Mitzvah, and, in addition to the tears of the entire congregation, we see them brought to tears by the meaning of the occasion.

I don’t know how to measure the strength of the soul of a congregation where these kinds of things happen every day.  I do not know how to measure this.

So with faulty measuring sticks we go on and we try to put numbers on things that cannot be measured.  And at the same time we know that numbers count.  There are three numbers that especially count for Congregation Beth Am this year, right now, as we do our cheshbon ha-nefesh and look forward to the next year.

The first number is One.  One God, one community, one team of leaders guiding a congregation made up of many individuals.  I want to thank our professional team for their outstanding work this past year and for their incredible dedication to our congregation.  While we know that they are called to their work, we cannot take their calling for granted.  They give so much to us and we are grateful. 

I also want to thank the Board of Directors and lay leaders for their hard work and thoughtful deliberations.  Congregation Beth Am has always been blessed with outstanding lay leaders at every level.  This also we cannot take for granted.  I thank all of you for your contributions.

I also want to thank each of you for the times that you have simply shown up and added your voice to our community.

One is also the number of new members of our clergy team this year.  We welcome Rabbi Micah Citrin as our new assistant rabbi.  I’m sure that you will come to love his energy and his wisdom, and we look forward to him leading and teaching us for many years to come. 

And one cantor, Cantor Greenwald , agreeing to partially postpone retirement for a year so that our congregation has the time to recruit and hire the best possible person for the job.  The Board has made it a clear priority to hire a new cantor to succeed Cantor Greenwald .  Last year we were a late entry into the recruiting cycle, and a thin field made it difficult to find the new person who will inspire our congregation musically.  This year we are committed to continuing the search, and bringing a new cantor on board by July 1, 2006. 

The next number to remember is 50, or maybe more modestly 25.  Last year we celebrated our 50^th anniversary as a congregation.  We had a wonderful year of community building and remembering.  And now we are thinking about our future.  A great team of lay people and professionals spent some time this past year beginning to envision what our congregation will look like in 25 years and helping us think through the implications for the next 10 years.  Our board of directors has made it a priority to continue work on this strategic plan so that we are ready and take the lead in ensuring our future.

And the last number to remember is the number 4 million.  Or, to be more precise, $4 million over three years.  Last year on this bima, Jim Heeger , then President, challenged us to raise an endowment to help secure the financial future of this congregation  This would be the first step in ensuring financial stability, creating a fund to support our continued drive for innovative programming, and the immediate income that we need to ensure that we can continue the amazing work that this congregation does.  In March of this year, after much careful consideration and thoughtful planning, the Board of Directors passed a resolution formally establishing the Congregation Beth Am Fund for the Future, and we began making calls on potential donors.  I am proud to announce tonight, that in seven short months, we have received pledges of close to $1.5 million and have well over a third of that in the bank.  Now that I can measure!

The congregants with whom we have spoken so far have been incredibly generous and excited about helping to build Beth Am.  They have signed on to a vision that includes us doing what is measurable and what is not.  They have seen that as more and more of us are moved and touched, we want to find even more ways to connect, invent new programs, need more pastoral care, more spaces in our classes.  Unlike a health club that thrives by signing up members and hoping that they show up just often enough to be willing to renew membership, we have been successful because our congregants do show up, yearning for Judaism and Beth Am to play a deeper and more meaningful role in their lives.  And to this request we, as a congregation, all of us, are obligated to respond.

But this has implications for our cheshbon, our accounting.  Balanced budgets in thriving congregations require more than annual dues and education program fees to break even.  That we are seeking to raise an endowment and do fundraising is not a failure of fiscal responsibility. It is indeed a sign of our success in creating a vital congregation that has an impact on the lives of its congregants.

While we have already raised over a third of our current goal we are still at the beginning of this campaign.  As with campaigns like this, we start slow and build.  If we have already called on you, I thank you from the bottom of my heart for your generosity.  If we have not yet had a chance to meet, the endowment committee and I look forward to speaking with you to hear your stories of how Beth Am has touched your life.  I hope that you dig deep to make that opportunity available in more ways and to more of our congregants, now and in future generations.

Tonight, tomorrow and the next few weeks will be a time of deep introspection for our community.  I know that some of you will have incredible moments of insight, connection and meaning in the days ahead.  Your lives will be touched by what happens in this room.  Others will be happy to simply sit quietly and reflect, and maybe reconnect with some friends who they haven’t seen in a while.  And there will be some of us who simply sit and wait.  We’ll wait for the moment of meaning and understanding to come.  As we yearn for something bigger than ourselves, we’ll wonder where it will come from and when.  It may happen this year, in this room.  It may not.  I only hope and pray that we will keep yearning together as one community made stronger by our common will to transform our lives, to touch each other deeply, and to make our community and the world a better place.  There are 2000 of us in this room tonight, and yet, I do not know how to measure this.  I do not know how to measure this.  But I will still hope and I will still pray and I will still do the best I can to help lead this congregation.  I hope you will join me.

Shana tovah.