Dear Members and Friends,

It was delightful seeing many of you during the High Holiday season. I hope you are beginning the new year with feelings of renewal, and that you are inspired to begin another year of individual and communal growth. As we were getting ready to begin the High Holidays, our congregation received a beautiful gift. His name is Isaac Karmel, born on the eve of Rosh Hashanah to shul members Joshua and Dawn Teyuca. The timing was impeccable. After all, the story of Rosh Hashanah is about Abraham and Sarah and their son Isaac, and how they were trying to keep the covenant with God.

Eight days after the birth, between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, little Isaac entered into the covenant at our sanctuary, and I was given the honor of becoming his Godfather. At that moment, I felt the responsibility of fatherhood, here at our sanctuary. I am now bound to Isaac, to the sanctuary, and to the new generation born in our synagogue family. It is an unbreakable agreement. A covenant. A brit. A brit mila. A covenant of circumcision. The unbroken link between the Jewish people and the one God. A covenant that passes ledor vador — generation to generation.

Now that we have finished reading the Torah and parted with Moses, Joshua continues on his way. Moses trusts him and instructs him: “Be strong and courageous.” With a new birth and a new brit, we continue the covenant.

I’m pleased to report that Ricky and Rabbi Myron Fenster received the Legacy Award at the 25th annual Tribute Dinner at the Holocaust Memorial & Tolerance Center of Nassau County. The elegant event, held at the Old Westbury Hebrew Congregation, was attended by Ambassador Dani Dayan, the Counsel General of Israel, who was the keynote speaker. In his remarks, he observed, “I think that Judaism goes beyond religion. Even in the observance of Mitzvot, important as that may be, I believe you can be a good Jew even if you are not observant. But there is something in Judaism that you must have in order to make you feel a Jew, and that one thing is remembrance. Think about it. Our culture is based on remembrance. Every year in the month of Av, Jews all over the world, for 2000 years — in Sana in Yemen; in Warsaw, Poland; in Baltimore, Maryland; in Santiago, Chile — all remember Jerusalem.”

According to legend, Napoleon asked about this observance. His people told him that the Jews are mourning the destruction of their Temple. Napoleon said he hadn’t heard about it. When did it happen? They told him 1,700 years ago. He said, if people remember this for 1,700 years, and still mourn it, they will eventually get to build it.

Rabbi Fenster commented: “In 1967, our people found themselves surrounded in the desert of Sinai. We were hoping for the best, and it came about. But out of that difficult and awesome time came a song, two lines of which I would like to share with you.  ‘Lo agada re’ai lo chalom o’ver.’ It is not a legend, my friends, it is not a passing dream. ‘Mul har Sinai.’ We are standing opposite the mountain of Sinai and the bush is still burning. The fire of God is still in the eyes of our people…in the eyes of our young ones, in the eyes of our older ones, in the eyes of all of our eyes. Let us hope we never lose that fire, and that we shall continue it into the future. Amen.”

May we have another blessed year,

—Rabbi Gadi Capela