My invocation at JCC's meeting

Good evening and welcome to the JCC’s meeting, held in its future home, Kol Yisrael.  If we have not yet met, my name is Rabbi Philip Weintraub, of Congregation Agudas Israel.

It is a blessing to be standing before you this evening, privileged with offering a blessing to you on the occasion of the JCC’s annual meeting and on the installation of its new board.

It is a blessing to be standing before you in a room that we will all share, in a building we will all share.  In the coming years, the JCC, TBJ, and CAI will be enacting a vision of Jewish community.  While in other cities and towns, our partner organizations frequently act as adversaries and do not see the opportunities of cooperation.  Here, in Newburgh, we stand together and apart.  We recognize the holy missions of each of our partner organizations, allowing them their own administrations and programming, yet we will work together, bringing Jewish values and Torah to all who enter these doors.  Together we will bring the Schechina, Gd’s presence into all we do.  Whether it is summer camps or Hebrew school, Torah study or athletic teams, Purim schpiels or JCC musicals, together we will be able to do more, to live more in community.

My blessing to us all is that we remember our vision.  I pray that we will stand together and not in the silos of our own JCC/TBJ/CAI communities.  I pray that we will see that every individual in this room, Jewish or not, is created in the image of Gd, b’tzelem E-lohim.  Every one of us has the capability to do great things.  Together we can do them, as long as we continue to treat each other with the respect we all deserve!

I could share with you any number of stories about brotherhood and sisterhood, but I want to be brief, so I will take one more moment to discuss the name we are calling this shared space.  We are calling it Kol Yisrael, All of Israel.  It comes from a phrase in Talmud, כל ישראל ערבים זה לזה Kol Yisrael Arevim zeh lazeh.  All Jews are responsible for one another.  While the original context is one of sin, that we, too, pay the price if we stand idly by the blood of our neighbor; we also interpret it positively.  When we work collectively, we can accomplish more.  When we see a place where our neighbor needs help, we help her.  At the times, when we need help, we can ask for help and receive it!

To me this value is clearly imbued in the Newburgh Jewish Community.  Whether through the services and programs of our synagogue communities, the work of Federation, or the amazing and dynamic programs created and sponsored by the JCC, the entire Newburgh Jewish community is a unique and holy place.  It is a community that works together across organizational and denominational lines.  I pray that it always continues that way!

Thank you!