President's Column

PESACH 5768

At the beginning of May, the current Administration will complete its term, and the next Board and Executive will take over.
With that turnover, my term as President will also end, and so this will be my last opportunity to share thoughts with you in the President’s Column.
Being involved in the Shul, and certainly as President, brings with it its share of frustrations, disappointments and criticisms, but also a tremendous amount of satisfaction. It is this sense of satisfaction that I would like to speak of in this article - not personal satisfaction of things that I have done, but the satisfaction from what Adath Israel does for its Members each and every day.
A question asked over and over at Shul meetings is “What do our Members want from their Shul?” and “Are we providing it?”
In my opinion, the answer to the second question is “yes” and I will now try to address the first question, but I know that the answer to that question changes from generation to generation, from community to community, and from Shul to Shul.
I grew up in a small town with a small Jewish population of about 60 families. The Shul was the focal point of the Jewish community. All Jewish activities took place at the Shul, whether it was a Shabbat or Yom Tov service, a Shul meeting, a JNF meeting, a B’nai B’rith meeting, a youth group meeting, or Hebrew School. The Shul met all of those needs and provided all of those necessary services.
In Toronto, and certainly among the Conservative community, there are so many ways and locations in which to be involved in the broad Jewish community, that Shuls are not called upon to fill such a wide range of needs.
To the average Conservative Jew
(and I stress this is average – there are many who use the Shul much more), the Shul is something of a safety net - something to be there when needed to celebrate a Yom Tov or to celebrate or observe a life cycle event. The average Member probably attends Shul less than 10 times a year, but on these 10 days, that average Member needs Adath Israel to be there for them, and Adath Israel is there for them. With over 3,000 adult Members, that works out to 30,000 needs a year. That’s a lot! And I think that our professional staff and lay staff do a pretty good job of meeting those needs – 365 days a year.

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