Bylined opinion and news columns published by United Hebrew Congregation Terre Haute.
Much as time and care go into our generic, daily, Jewish lives, an inordinate amount of care goes into crafting, reading or lifting a scroll.
The first time someone picks up a Sefer Torah scroll really conveys the weight of the book. Maybe that is the reason we keep using this ancient technology. The scroll has the heft of a toddler, is at least as cumbersome and is almost as holy.
The past month of April, and now the month of May, present a microcosm of our congregation’s character.
In fact, instead of lamenting the small size of our congregation, after seeing all that we accomplish, we might instead start proclaiming that small is indeed beautiful.
From my professional view as an economist, we talk about the concept of “free-riding”, when people do not contribute their share of the work even while enjoying the community’s benefits because they know that someone else will chip in (particularly with volunteer time or monetary contributions).
This is easier to do in a large organization, because your individual participation may or may not seem to matter.
At 11:30 a.m. May 20, our congregation will hold its annual meeting. This is a time for us to get together and celebrate our accomplishments during the past year.
Most recently, we launched another young adult, Izaak, who became Bar Mitzvah.
I find it remarkable, and I hope that you do, too, that our small Jewish community educates our young people as well as many larger congregations.
Our religious school children learn so much from the Purim holiday. The first thing they learn is that it doesn’t always take an army to win a battle. In this case, it just took two individuals who loved the Jewish people to save them from elimination.
Bruce Black conducted Shabbat services on February 2, the Friday after Purim. I have heard the Purim story read many times but not the way Bruce told the story. I could envision every character as if watching a movie.