During my senior year of Rabbinical School at the University of Judaism in Los Angeles, I took a class in "practical rabbinics." Rabbi Cheryl Peretz, who currently serves as the associate dean of the school, gave us several assignments, which prepared us for our lives as Rabbis. One of the assignments towards the end of our rabbinical school career was to create a rabbinic "vision" statement. Writing this one-sentence vision gave each of us a clearer sense of the direction we were heading with our rabbinate. Once we completed our vision statement, we had to write a mission statement. The mission statement (again, in one sentence) had to clearly explain how we were going to implement our vision.
This past Rosh Hashanah, I challenged each of us to create our own mission statement. For weeks, many in our congregation shared their vision statements with me. One of the central messages that Judaism teaches us through our rituals and customs is how the Jewish people make sense of the world. Our personal mission statements do the same thing for us. They define our purpose in the world and how we choose to live our lives.
Not only is it important to create our own vision and mission statements, but the communities we are involved in should also have a vision and mission statement. These statements should not just be written down on a piece of letterhead, but they should be "living and breathing" words that are at the core of our community's aspiration.
Our Religious School, under the leadership of our Educational Director, Lita Cohen and our Religious School Vice President, Mindy Gotterer, were inspired by this challenge. They created a sub-committee that also included Amy Grey and Alison Deutsch, to formulate a vision and mission statement for the Religious School. The sub-committee spent months researching, studying and meeting with myself, the Cantor, teachers, parents and other synagogue lay leaders. The focus of the work centered on the behaviors we wanted our Religious School graduates to exhibit and the role that our Religious School could play to lead the effort. Through this work it became clear Jewish education "takes a village" to enrich our children's lives with Religious School attendance only one component. As a Jewish Educational Center, our goal is to provide more tools and opportunities for families to participate, supplementing not only our children's Jewish education, but that of their parents and grandparents as well - l'dor vador, from generation to generation.
Over the next few months, we as a congregation will be receiving more information about this new vision and mission statement for our Jewish Educational Center. I encourage you to participate in the meetings and give your input. As early as this fall all members will have the opportunity to participate in some of the new programming originating from our new vision, including Shabbat B'yachad (Shabbat Together). If you have any questions or would like to participate as we bring our vision and mission to life please do not hesitate to contact Lita Cohen, Cantor Kula or myself.
We thank our Religious School Committee for being wonderful leaders and examples for all of us at Bet Shira. I look forward to everyone joining me on this journey as we continue to evolve as a community and as a synagogue.
Knowing who we are and what we want to be is a healthy and important process that must be done "together."
Kol Tuv, have a wonderful summer,
Rabbi Micah Caplan
