Dear members and friends,

Spring weather at last. The calendar kept telling me it was spring, so why was I feeling so chilled, still dragging out the corduroys and sweaters every morning? And then, I looked away, only for a moment, and Shazam! Spring.

            More than any other season of the year, spring holds promise — the promise of renewal, rebirth and the certainty that goodness will follow even the most difficult of times. Spring is a reminder that darkness, the winter of life, is temporary and that new life and growth are on the horizon.

            At our shul, we are preparing for new leadership to guide us spiritually and administratively. We are interviewing rabbis and inviting them here to meet you and to invite you to assess the skills and talents of each applicant as a good fit for our shul. We are planning to refresh the parsonage for the comfort of a new rabbi and his or her family.

            And, too, we are preparing for new administrative leadership. A new slate of officers and directors is being prepared, and you will have the opportunity to nominate others you feel have leadership qualities, who will choose advantageous and insightful pathways for the continuing growth of our shul and its membership.

            At the same time, I’m looking back — looking back on happy events that take place in our shul — the friends we make, the Shabbat observances and Passover Seders we share, the joy of our mitzvahs, the prayers and blessings we recite as a shul family, the songs we sing. And, too, the compassion we feel for each other in the darkest moments. Togetherness. This is what our shul is about. No matter the slings and arrows, as has been said, we must never lose sight of our past and our Jewishness. And we must never abandon our shul. Now, in spring, let us come together and move forward in harmony.

            With your indulgence, before the details of it fade into memory, I want to look back just a little bit, to a recent event, and share with you another spring ritual I experienced this year.

            Passover is, for me, a harbinger of spring, a ritual based on freedom, yes, but also new beginnings that, in time, will blossom into maturity. With those themes in mind, I attended a Second Seder here on the North Fork, a most welcome invitation to join with a family dear to me. The home was filled to overflowing with family, friends and many young children. When it came time in the service for the youngest among us to recite the Four Questions, the leader deviated a bit from ritual and invited each child — maybe a dozen or more — to recite that portion. Some had memorized it, some read in English, others in Hebrew. And we listened to each child, the 40 of us quiet and respectful, and we applauded each child in turn for the effort. Their voices were strong, confident, each of them proud of his or her accomplishment and, I have to believe, his or her part in a memorable Jewish event.

            I suspect that as those children grow and mature, they will keep with them memories of the Seders of their childhood, all the years they practiced and participated. And, perhaps even more than their performance, they will take with them always the Jewish learning that stems from that holiday ritual — the importance of family, the joy of togetherness and, overall, the annual spring observance of Passover with its reawakening of the natural world and its reminders that each of us — from the youngest to the family matriarchs and patriarchs — each of us is essential to the 5,000-year continuum that is Judaism.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             —Sara Bloom