Greetings!
Thank you so much to those who joined us at the inaugural meeting of our President’s Advisory Council Tuesday night. With gratitude to our chair, Jeannie Lavine, and our guest, Dr. Yehuda Kurtzer, I left Temple Emanuel grateful to all of you and energized about our Jewish future.
We talked about some of the challenges we are facing as a community here in Boston – and, more broadly, as Jewish Americans – but also about the things we’re doing well and the opportunities that lie ahead. Your pride in our community and investment in CJP are extraordinary and I continue to believe that being in conversation with you will help us drive the change and imagine the future we want to create in this community.
Our discussion about the future centered on how we transmit what we care about to our next generation, and how we inspire and empower them not merely to receive it but to create and recreate it for their and subsequent generations. At my table, and I know at others, we surfaced tensions and questions – for example, what does it really mean to “meet people where they are,” or why does it seem like the more “orthodox” versions of every religion (not just Judaism) are growing faster than those closer to the center? Several of you noted how important it will be for me to be having conversations about our next generation directly with the people who are part of that generation, and I agree that their voices are critical. I’m already talking with my team about how to create a conversation like the one we had with a group of next-gen leaders and philanthropists.
For those of you who were unable to join us, we missed you and look forward to hearing your voices at the next meeting in the spring. In the meantime, I welcome you to consider the same questions we discussed last night:
- Imagine your grandchildren and great-grandchildren are sitting in this room – this community has 10X more people strongly engaged with Jewish life. What did we do to achieve that? Conversely, imagine your grandchildren and great-grandchildren are not sitting in this room. What went wrong? What did we miss??
- As you look out across our community right now - is there something that you’re seeing that’s working – if we could dramatically scale that thing would it be a game-changer?
- Similarly, is there something that you’re seeing that’s not working, that if we could just fix it, it would be game-changing for our community?
Most importantly, I want to thank you, everyone who was there for your presence and the energy you brought to the launch of our PAC, which was everything I hoped it would be. Please feel free to reach out to me with thoughts and ideas anytime.
Wishing you all a Shanah Tova – a happy, sweet, and joyous new year.
With deep appreciation,
Marc
