Jeff Brown and I recently met with Wil Kilroy (NMSU Professor and Theatre Arts Department Head) at Temple to provide a tour of the Temple sanctuary and it symbols. Professor Kilroy is diligently preparing the script for the dramatic presentation of vignettes from
Temple Beth-El history which will be performed on October 7, 2018 at the ASNMSU-CFTA Theatre. Whenever I explain these symbols to visitors to Temple, I often mention, by name, the artists and designers who created the various items on and around the bimah. I point out, as well, that the memorial plaques, the leaves on the Tree of Life, and the bricks on our Brick Walkway and in the Biblical Garden area enshrine the names of congregants and relatives of our members whose lives and life events we have celebrated, and whose legacies we continue to remember.
In my recent travels to the Midwest, I visited the sites of the Jewish experiences that shaped my life’s path.
My first cousin, Barbara Katz, was my “musical cousin” who could play piano by ear and who wrote songs for children and musicals for adults. Her creativity touched many people in the Kansas City community. Her death on July 31 took me to Kansas City to be with family for her funeral. While I was there, I attended the Friday night service on August 3 at Congregation B’nai Jehudah in Overland Park, Kansas. My Confirmation class picture (which also includes the senior rabbi of the congregation, my rabbinic school classmate Arthur Nemitoff) is still there, as are leaves on the Tree of Life that recall the birth of our son Adam and niece Samantha and other family milestones. On Saturday, August 4, I attended the Sabbath morning service at Beth Shalom Synagogue, the large Conservative synagogue where my parents once belonged and where some of my cousins have been active members. I sat with one of my first cousins and his wife (who help prepare the kiddush after services every week), and I was called up to the Torah for an Aliyah both for remembrance of my cousin and as a “returning rabbi” to the community. Several other members of my extended family were there that morning. My brother arrived that evening. We attended the graveside funeral on Sunday, and stopped by Rose Hill Cemetery, where our parents are buried, to pay our respects. The willow tree by their markers continues to provide shade from the hot summer sun.
On August 17-19, Rhonda and I traveled to Topeka, Kansas for the 90th Anniversary Gala dinner for Temple Beth Sholom. We arrived in Topeka in June, 1984 and left in July, 2006. There are family milestones noted on their memorial boards, Tree of Life and Children’s Wall that span four generations of our family (as is the case with bricks and leaves on the Tree of Life at Temple
Beth-El). There is a “Rhonda Karol classroom,” a plaque noting my 22 years of service to the congregation, and photos of Confirmation classes from 1985 until now. I had been asked to present original songs as part of the entertainment for the evening and to join their current choir on guitar. It was an honor for us to be present for that congregational milestone. We enjoyed seeing former congregants and friends.
As we enter the new Jewish year of 5779, we have the opportunity to consider the nature of the Jewish legacies we have created until now, whether in physical features commemorating landmark events in our lives, in the learning or programming in which we have participated or which we have helped to develop and sustain, or in partnerships and friendships that we have maintained over the course of many years. There are many avenues through which we can give of ourselves to our congregation to build a stronger community. Whatever we do can reinforce the notion, and the truth, that we are part of something greater than ourselves when we take part in Temple life. May what we do as congregants enable us to strengthen ourselves and each other for yet another year. L’shanah Tovah Tikateivu - may you all be inscribed for a good year!
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