May 2025 - Looking Back and Looking Ahead

Dear Friends,

I want to thank you all for the lovely anniversary celebration on May 4.  It was beyond beautiful!

What follows is a shortened version of my message at the 2025 Annual Meeting, which took place earlier that morning:

It’s a time to look backward, and a time to look forward. We have had a very successful year, as you will hear, and thanks to all of you, we are poised for another. Many of my colleagues bemoan the fact they their congregations are shrinking and they are looking for ways to stay afloat, and I am proud to be here at Beth Samuel, where we continue to thrive!

Another look back takes me back to Passover, just a few weeks ago. At our congregational seder, after we recited the four questions, I proposed a fifth one: What can I possibly do in response to the deep challenges of these times? It was more of a rhetorical question, something to think about in the coming weeks and months as we march from Passover to Shavuot and beyond.

Our tradition responds to the question this way: Tend the fires of devotion to align yourself for healing, love, and liberation. What exactly does this mean? Fires of devotion? They represent God’s presence and God’s purifying power. They symbolize a yearning to be close to our Creator and to our traditions, as we learn in the Torah, and to be transformed by seeking that closeness.

For example, every time we approach each other with curiosity and interest rather than with judgment, we foster the ability to connect with one another. Every time we act with compassion rather than anger and fear, we stem the flow of aggression and pain. Each time we pause to appreciate beauty, to wonder at mystery, to give thanks, a new pathway opens. And finally, each time we ask for help and remember we are not alone, strength and guidance find us.

The season is calling, as we count the days of the Omer, 49 in all, from Passover to Shavuot, from liberation to revelation. May our own answers to the fifth question – what can WE do now – guide us to channels for healing and love. It can be contagious, in a good way, and the world certainly needs more of it.

As we say, with the words of the Shehechayanu, “Blessed are you Adonai, our Sovereign, who has given us life, sustained us, and enabled us to reach this day.”

B'shalom, Cantor Rena