TST Chai-Lights: 5783-1

In October, we had a special kallah at the Temple for the board. It was great to be together again in person; our plan for the future is to alternate between hybrid and remote meetings. After some dinner and socializing, we split our time between typical board agenda items, and then spent most of the evening reviewing and discussing results from the two surveys that were conducted for the temple over the last six months.

We began the evening with updates. Cantor Hollis reflected on the experience of this year’s High Holidays, including the beautiful Erev Rosh Hashanah combined concert with the United Parish of Brookline, healthy participation in person and online, and our fantastic outdoor service at Camp Chickami. Heartfelt thanks to Richard Kaye, John Legg, Emma Lurie and Roy Lurie on their many hours of work supporting all audio visual aspects of our High Holy Day services. Also, kudos to Student Rabbi Heather on her amazing Yom Kippur Yizkor sermon. On the whole, the clergy team felt proud of the opportunity to bring our community together, in a variety of ways, and will capture lessons learned to apply to next year’s services.

Finally, Cantor Hollis said she and Rabbi Danny are looking for help identifying congregants who are in need of pastoral care. People who could benefit don’t always feel comfortable reaching out themselves, and congregants don’t always think to tell us when they know of something going on. The clergy can’t help

We would love to get your ideas and suggestions for how we could continue to improve Chai-Lights. Please send your ideas

suggestions to Andie Watson at awatson@shirtikva.org.

Letter from the President

unless they know about needs, so we need the help from the Board and others in the congregation to alert us. People can reach out directly to Rabbi Danny or Cantor Hollis, or contact Karen Edwards who will pass along requests to them.

Stephanie Lerner provided an update on the ELC. We are seeing healthy growth in enrollment. She shared the understanding that our youngest members are thriving in a community where parents, educators and class environment all work together. Stephanie shared pictures and videos of our children learning, playing, and growing together in the ELC.

Rebecca Chasen gave us a financial update. As she begins her term as Treasurer, she is looking closely at the cost structure of the temple to ensure that we are being as efficient as possible with our funds. With increasing costs across the board, and after several significant capital outlays to attend to long-delayed repairs, the temple is facing some challenging financial times. Rebecca is seeking additional help for the Finance Committee to take on projects looking at fees and spending.

Mary Beth Rettger reported on current membership numbers, which remain stable. We have seen a healthy inflow of new members, across the demographic spectrum, at the same time that we have seen a natural outflow as members move or leave the temple for other reasons. Building repairs (roof, sprinklers) have

continued to take up surprising amounts of time for the team.

Bob Koster and Mike Wadness presented a motion to the board to approve signing a contract with Solect Energy to install solar power for the temple. The selected vendor will install solar panels on the roof of the education building, as well as solar canopies (similar to the Wayland town offices) in our front and back parking lots. This 25-year contract will provide about 85% of our electrical needs using green energy at no-cost to temple, helping us move to our environmental goals of being carbon neutral and reducing costs for the temple. Thank you to the entire team that worked to identify and bring this opportunity to us.

We spent the bulk of the evening reviewing URJ survey, in which many of you participated, gave us insights into our community, and the OnBoard Board survey helped us understand opportunities for improving our effectiveness of the board.

An example of the quantitative highlights of the URJ survey can be seen in the graph on the next page, comparing our results to the average results of other similar synagogues. In addition to the quantitative results, respondents provided additional comments and suggestions. Congregants talked about how much they appreciated the clergy and staff, our music program, and our feeling of community. Responses also reflected longing for additional connections, more programming for adults, and

Remembering Joyce Pastor z"l

Remembering Joyce Pastor, Former TST President and Beloved Community Member

Joyce loved Shir Tikva, every corner of that first funky building, more comfortable for lobsters than people, and then in this building where Joyce served (reigned) as president for three years.

We are in a space that was filled with Joyce’s vibrancy: …studying, planning, praying, enjoying, leading us, embracing friends, making new ones.

Here, with Bruce, she celebrated Carrie and Lauren’s joyous moments as B’not Mitzvah. Here, many years too late, she stood on this bimah as a Bat Mitzvah. Here, with Bruce, each year she marked Andy’s yahrzeit, by reciting Kaddish. Here she joyfully marked the special life moments in the families of dear friends. Here she belonged. Shir Tikva became her class room, her platform for teaching us how to be better neighbors and more responsible Jews. Yom Kippur Food Drive – Joyce. Outreach to our Muslim neighbors - Joyce. Thoughtful interfaith connections – Joyce. Participation and leadership to enrich the greater Jewish community – Joyce.

Always organized, always enthusiastic, always energetic, always on the move, always smiling.

When Joyce was president of this congregating, we used to meet regularly. Shuffling papers, she would always begin with something like, “First, I have some bits and pieces.” I would roll my eyes and think, “What’s coming now?” Bits and pieces. I always remember those words. Her life was not cluttered with bits and pieces. She had ideas, visions, projects to help all of us – at every age and stage of life – to be better Jews, better citizens, better parents. This is how she lived. This is the legacy she has left each of us. So, when our emotions have quieted, when we lift our heads from acknowledging what we cannot know, then with renewed energy we will follow the life path Joyce scribed out for herself and modeled for us.

5783-1

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An excerpt from Rabbi Emeritus Herman J. Blumberg's remarks on the passing of Joyce Pastor z"l

Scenes from Hineini

TST Community Fun

STIFTY Teen Fun

TST Adult Learning

Rabbinic Pairs in the Talmud with Congregtion B'nai Torah of Sudbury

High Holy Days 5783

Kesher

Kesher, meaning 'connection' in Hebrew, is a TST initiative that encourages and nurtures a compassionate community where we support each other during difficult times and celebrate joyous occasions together. They welcome newborns into the community, reach out to the ill, provide rides when needed, connect, and comfort our bereaved.

member created a seven-week meal train to provide the nourishment my family would need while I would not be able to function at my best. While this temple member is also my cousin, she was able to call upon members of our community who readily took the open slots and filled up the meal train within minutes.

My dear friend (who I met at temple), graciously used her nursing skills to answer my hundreds of questions (over and over), be present at a second opinion appointment (which she arranged), and sat at my bedside day after day during my hardest times.

Thank You for Showing Up for Me, Temple Shir Tikva

by Jane Horne

This past August, on just about the day I turned 40, I was diagnosed with cancer. I soon had surgery, and thank G-d, I do think I will be okay. As we do when going through a traumatic event, I have done a lot of reflection—what was really hard, how I may look at things differently now, what helped me the most, etc. One thing I have wanted to shout from the rooftops is how grateful I am for my Shir Tikva community who helped carry me through. It’s not that I wouldn’t expect to receive support from my temple during a trying time. Of course, one of the functions of a synagogue is to provide its congregants with pastoral support at different times in our lives, both good and bad. What I never expected though, was the depth to which I felt so truly cared for and carried from the very day of my diagnosis physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. One temple

Kesher showed up at my front door with a bag of goodies, including a very special “Healing Shawl” that I began to wear daily, including

Kesher

when I was wheeled in for surgery and wheeled out. The comfort that I received from the beautiful shawl continues to the present day.

Our clergy left me phone message after message, as I had not returned their calls. Our clergy did not give up and kept calling me until I picked up. I was able to connect with others within the temple who have also gone (or are going through) a cancer journey, which made me feel like I was not alone.

religious education, or to go to services on the High Holy Days.

Your synagogue is also well more than its physical walls. All the support I received was outside of the building—it was within the walls of my own home and the medical offices I occupied.

I didn’t get this support because I am anyone “special” within the temple community, either. I continually feel like I need to do more, be more active, and spend more time sowing the roots I’ve put down. In fact, I would have thought that I really needed to be someone who puts a lot “in,” in order to get a lot “back” in such circumstances. This isn’t true.

Our synagogue will be there for you no matter who you are or aren’t. I share the above not just to give thanks to these individuals and to my synagogue, but to also speak to the questions many of us ask ourselves, or are asked by others, from time to time.

What value am I really getting from my synagogue? My children have had their B. Mitzvah/are off to college/I’m an empty-nester —how is temple still relevant for me?

Please know that your synagogue is well more than just a place for your children to get a

Your synagogue—and the people you meet within it (and those who even you don’t meet) will show up for you in your time of need. Your synagogue will wrap you—mind, body, and soul with love, compassion, and support.

Thank you, Temple Shir Tikva, for showing up for me. I will never forget your kindness.

If you, a loved one, or know of someone in our TST family is in hospital, facing medical or personal challenges, or in need of help, please reach out to a member of the clergy so that we can provide any support that might be needed.

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If

You Give A 4 Year OId a Hammer: Teaching Collaboration in Early Childhood

Original article published in Early Childhood Educators of Reform Judaism

by Stephanie Lerner, Director of Early Learning

Collaboration is a key component to the Reggio Emilia-inspired philosophy of the Early Learning Center (ELC) at Temple Shir Tikva collaboration between children, between children and teachers, between home and school. Even the ways in which the children interact with materials is a collaboration. Roberta Pucci, a Reggio Emilia educator, says: “Every material has its own qualities and personality. It is a kind of natural grammar. This grammar is the range of possible transformations that the material can undergo. You can have a dialogue with the material and the material will reveal itself to you.”

This collaboration began in our 4-year-old room, where the teachers observed that building was a common thread that ran through the class. The teachers offered a variety of materials and made note of the types of structures the children were making. From there, the children and teachers co-constructed a curriculum about building and architecture. They looked at photos and illustrations of many types of buildings, and created skyscrapers that now line the walls of their classroom from floor to ceiling. Supporting the ongoing focus, the next logical step was to actually construct a building. During morning meeting, teachers and students brainstormed a list of ideas they wanted to incorporate into the structure: the number of doors and windows, a rainbow rock

path, and a chalk wall.

As the director, I meet weekly with the classroom teachers, modeling and facilitating collaboration for our professionals. They shared the idea for this project and I wondered if this could expand as a schoolwide collaboration. We asked the other teachers in our five classrooms of learners ranging in age from 18 months to five years of age, “What would you want to see included in our dream structure?” Plans for a sound wall, a magnet wall, a mud kitchen and a garden soon emerged. We purchased materials and excitement for the project was palpable throughout the school.

A basic tenet of Reggio is that children are valued as competent and capable. We supported our young learners as they took up real tools- hammers, sandpaper, nails, and got

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to work securing boards into place. There was a job for everybody—every ELC teacher, administrator, and student, even our youngest learners, not yet 2 years old, contributed to this project by weatherproofing boards, beading a curtain, or painting a rock to add to the rainbow rock path.

I believe teachers who are engaged, flexible, and invested in their children’s learning are the best teachers. By actively engaging in the process of learning with the children, and by providing them the opportunity to speak, not only did they hear and honor the children’s ideas, they facilitated a project that brought the ideas to life and empowered them to make decisions as part of a community of learners. In this way, the children shaped their own learning. The Reggio community often speaks about children “co-constructing knowledge” alongside their teachers. At the ELC, children are physically building with wood, hammer and nails; they are building their brains and expanding their knowledge base; and they are collecting the social emotional tools necessary for collaboration.

Extending this collaboration further included the partnership with the synagogue. The ELC enjoys a beautiful relationship with our senior rabbi and cantor. They are a beloved presence during our weekly Shabbat services, and any time they visit the ELC. Upon completion of the building, it still felt as though something was missing. One of our teachers had been given a beautiful mezuzah, and we invited our senior

rabbi to offer a blessing as we hung it on the entrance. Each teacher and administrator took a turn in hammering in the mezuzah, as the children repeated the words of the blessing.

One of our favorite teachings at Temple Shir Tikva comes from the Talmud and is an interpretation and play on words in Berakhot 54a: “And all your children shall be taught of Adonai, and great shall be the peace of your children” (Isaiah 54:13). The sages go on to instruct: "Do not read [the word, banayikh] as your children, but as your builders [bonayikh]."

Our children, our learners, are those who will build peace for their generation. In this instance, we found that honoring their ideas, and trusting them to collaborate brought the entire school and synagogue together in a meaningful project that will forever be a tangible realization of our school and

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Focus on Repentance and Returning to our True Selves

I’ve never succeeded in making a New Year’s resolution that has stuck beyond the end of January. I’ve made pledges about exercising, about eating more healthily, about staying in touch with friends — but despite my best intentions on Jan. 1, they always fall away before the month is out. Making resolutions is a part of New Year celebrations like the ball drop or Auld Lang Syne, it’s just something that you do hoping that the ensuing 12 months will be better than the ones that have just ended.

As Jews around the world celebrate our New Year with the festival of Rosh Hashanah, I am relieved that the making of resolutions is not part of our regular practice. While there is a sense of reflection on where we have been and where we are going, the making of resolutions is not something that we Jews do at the beginning of the year.

Instead, our primary practice is something called teshuva; it is often translated as repentance. But in reality, the meaning is closer to returning. On our Jewish New Year, we are seeking ways to return to our true selves, return to a connection with something greater

than ourselves; we are returning to a place of justice and peace.

While there are significant differences between the practice of making resolutions and returning, what they have in common is the hope and aspiration that the next year will be better than the one that just ended.

As the new year begins, we cannot help but reflect on where we have been over the past 12 months. It’s a year that I imagine many of us are pleased to leave behind. Rising levels of hate and extremism in our country, the brutal war in Ukraine, the ongoing climate crisis that threatens our world, and a society that appears to be ever more fractured there's been a lot of bad news to deal with.

We can make resolutions about how we want things to be different and we can consider the values and ideals the values and ideals to which we want to return in the forthcoming year.

In the Bible, we begin with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden who are told that they bear responsibility to till and tend the land. How can we, as a society, return to this original call to be stewards of the Earth? We can return to a time when we did not treat the world around us as a resource to be exploited and resolve to think about the ways that each one of us can make a difference through environmentally conscious behavior.

While the cracks in society may be growing

With Rosh Hashanah,

Originally published by MetroWest Daily News by Rabbi Danny Burkeman

on the Web

wider, right now I am so proud to be a Bay Stater. The way that the people of Martha’s Vineyard, and Massachusetts as a whole, responded to the deplorable airlift of 48 Venezuelan immigrants from Texas by the governor of Florida has filled me with hope that we can model a different way of treating the stranger in our society.

I want to return to the time when America erected monuments inscribed with “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” And I resolve to support local agencies supporting the settlement of refugees locally such as the Jewish Family Service of Metrowest.

There are a lot of resolutions and acts of return that we need as we enter this new year, but as the poem says we also need to make sure that “the eyes of my eyes are opened” to the positives that are already happening around us. Tonight, as Jews around the world celebrate our new year, I look forward with hope to a year filled with potential together we can ensure it is a good one for all of us.

As the winter’s first snowfall got underway, Dr. Kathryn Flanagan, astronomer emerita at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI), gave a riveting presentation about the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to a spellbound audience of 100+ people at Temple Shir Tikva in Wayland, Mass on Sunday, Dec. 11th.

Dr. Flanagan, former mission head of JWST and former deputy director of STScI, explained how the telescope uses infrared sensitivity to look at distant galaxies and peer into dusty environments, seeing the first galaxies formed shortly after the Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago. Floating about a million miles from Earth, the telescope explores regions where stars and planets form, and traces how galaxies have evolved over time.

Dr. Flanagan commented, “Astronomers have been racing to analyze the latest JWST observations and publish findings with breathtaking speed. This mission is an international collaboration and has captured the imagination of people all over the world. It is especially fitting that JWST data are available for anyone to access. In fact, citizen scientists are already contributing in a big way, creating

James Webb Space Telescope: Lifting the Veil on the Universe

Originally published by Framingham Source

TST on the Web

stunning images from the publicly available data. It’s a very democratic process that is transforming our understanding of the universe.”

Before JWST, optics used in space telescopes were limited in size since they needed to fit into rockets. JWST embraced an innovative design that segmented the mirrors, which were folded for launch and unfolded in space, dramatically improving the sensitivity, and providing exquisite imaging. As the largest astrophysics mission in NASA's history, JWST was launched on December 25, 2021, and released its first science images and data sets in July. Since then, JWST continues to break its own records by releasing new images of stars, galaxies, and exoplanets deeper and further back in time.

Jill Abend, a congregant at Temple Shir Tikva, noted, “I’m so glad that Temple Shir Tikva was able to bring Dr. Flanagan to speak to our community. We really love being able to learn together.”

events by visiting

Tarantula Nebula Pillars of Creation

James Webb Space Telescope Presentation

Community Updates

Framingham

Lynne and David Auslander

Dan and Suzanne Rabinovitz

Sheldon and Judy Small

Hudson

Erica and Ryan Ankstitus

Nantucket

Cara and Tue Nielsen

Natick

Robert Berwick

Gregg and Laura Cohen

David and Lauren du Moulin

Lauren and Noah Gallagher

Corinne and Ron Peck

Roberta Taylor

Sudbury

Alexander and Tyler Cohen

Jonathan and Melinda Karelitz

Brian and Kimberly Lustig

Adam and Natasha Ross

Howard and Marcy Wolke

Waltham

Elke and Jason Ganz

Marjorie Kitzes

Watertown

Alec Eidelman and Sarah Bashein

Wayland

Sonali Bloom and Ilan Gutherz

David and Sally Dornaus

Seyla Azoz Gayshan and Stas Gayshan

David and Melissa Hackmeier

Karen and Stephen Hurwitz

Weston

Anna-Marie Tabor and Quentin Palfrey

y

Mazel tov to our recent B. Mitzvahs!

Kai Andelman

Samuel Chasen

Tristan Dehner

Eliza Goldman

Violet Kuris

Juliet Morenberg

Jenna Salloway

Alon Solomon

Harrison Stein

Olivia Umina

Congratulations to Our Consecration Students!

Aviva Abrams

Asher Adelson

Nora Ankstitus

Leo Blocker

Benjamin Burkeman

Emily Cohen

Olivia Cole

Lilah Davis

Anya Desatnik

Ruby Donnell

Andrew Dottin

Jackson du Moulin

Karl Fabulich

Eli Fixler

Lydia Funk

Josephine Funk

William Glynn

Eli Goodman

Eliana Gordon

Elise Greenstein

Milo Halfond

Shayna Homer

Jordan Hyatt

Julia Karelitz

May Karelitz

Aiden Krochmal

Gabrielle Lerner

Sadie Bell McBride

Lucas Mennillo

Olivia Mennillo

Isaac Orkin

Serena Palfrey

Gavin Peck

Olivia Rivera

Evalyn Ross

Matthew Shtutin

Sloan Shtutin

Livia Singer

Benjamin Stern

Caleb Straus

Ida Sundet

Zev Sundet

Landon Sussman

Caroline Tofias

Samuel Tofias

Benjamin Tulgan

Milo Waltuch

Penelope Watters

Emalia Wolke

Judah Wolke

TST Chai-Lights • 5783-1 • Learn more about our programs and events by visiting www.shirtikva.org