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From the Rabbi's Desk
Sunday, July 10th marked ten years since I started at Shir Shalom. Sometimes it seems like a moment and sometimes it seems like I have been here forever. I have been blessed beyond blessing to have served this congregation and to have been welcomed into this beautiful congregational family. As a congregation we have grown significantly over the past ten years. So many of you have served as my counsel and guidance and I have had the gift of sharing in so many of your family simchas. We have blessed babies, sanctified marriages, celebrated many wonderful moments, and we have shared the gift of mourning our loved ones together. Our newest members have helped bring new wonder, new creativity, and many beautiful children to our community. For all these moments of connection, I offer gratitude to each of you and to the divine.
Of course, our work as a Jewish community is never done. Thirty-seven times we are commanded in the Torah to care for the widow, the stranger and the orphan. Over the past few weeks, the Shir Shalom Vermont community has begun creating a task force working to support a Ukrainian family, potentially bringing them to the U.S. This work is progressing and will be brought to the board at the July board meeting. We are working with HIAS (the Hebrew Immigration Aid Society), in an advisory capacity, to help us determine the best way to move forward. We are commanded to care for the stranger and will with your help, live our Torah.
If you would like to be a part of this work, please reach out to Andrea Felix [email protected] or Mickey Elsberg. [email protected]
This is a moment of profound disruption in our nation. The witnessing of a shift in the ethos and commitment of the highest court in the land, working in tikkun olam, coming together where we care for the stranger is perhaps our deepest potential to our hope for a better world.
Sharing the wonder of our Shir Shalom community with those in need helps us to transform our anxiety, fear and deep disappointment into agency. We have so much to give, please come and be part of the work and part of the hope for a better world. MaTovu, (How good) is the blessing offered when a curse was expected.
Kol Tov and thank you all for your support, now and over the past ten years. Here’s to many, many more wonderful years to come.
Rabbi Ilene Harkavy Haigh
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