President’s Column — February 2021

At our next Trustees meeting we will be thinking about ways to innovate our Purim Celebration this year. Purim last year was celebrated right in our sanctuary with about 20 people attending in person. It is hard to believe that after Purim, we will have celebrated all our holidays in the midst of COVID-19 with all the restrictions and cautions in place. Just writing that makes me sad. We are such a varied and exuberant group when we meet in person. We like each other and always seem to take great joy in being with each other. This year we have not been able to gather. This has made it an incredibly challenging and difficult time for all of us, and there has been tremendous pain and loss in our country. It is human nature to look for what these challenges are teaching us. One thing this pandemic has surely done is take us all out of our comfort zones and force us to be more creative and innovative in how we express our Jewishness in our community. We are in this together. I thank every one of you for standing with us for an entire year. I realize that we all have Zoom fatigue. (A year ago, no one even knew that existed.) But Zoom is the way for us to be together and remain safe from contagion from the virus. We will continue with virtual services and events until our governor signals that it is ok to gather again. In the meantime, please look at the February calendar and choose something you will attend. Reach out if you are not comfortable with Zoom and I will be sure you get instructions to help you with it. We can continue to support each other.

I send a huge Thank you to everyone for paying your membership dues and continuing to give donations in memory and in honor of our members. While our expenses for heat are a little bit lower, most of the expenses are fixed, and we pay them if we are in the building or not. So, thank you, thank you, for all the financial support you are giving.

Hope to see you in person soon,

Stephanie