Rabbi's Teachings

Purim and Passover relates to the ever-important concept of renewal. Passover occurs in the first month of the year, in the spring season when all of nature is renewing itself. Purim likewise has an aspect of newness due to the fact that it is a holiday established by the Sages of the time, and in fact, was the first Rabbinic holiday added to the Jewish calendar. It took courageous and visionary insight to establish an entirely new holiday not originally included in the Torah. Passover allows us to reenact our newly found freedom.

Here at Bnai Israel we had our new version of Purim, one that combined the element of people of all ages and stages, which resulted in a fantastic, inter-generational extravaganza.

There are so many people to thank. So many, that it would be a large portion of our community.

Thank you to:

• Nancy Kraselsky for the creative and eye catching marketing campaign
• Linda Hanna for fearlessly holding down the fort in the office and balancing your many duties as well as managing this multifaceted program
• Barry Weiss, Laurel Westreich, and their full team of cooks for our amazing Green Eggs and Hamantaschen Breakfast 
• Rena Goldwasser, Chief Baker Garison Kaufman, Joelle Serot and all of the Hamantaschen bakers
• Carolyn Moskowitz and all of your Mishloach Manot helpers
• Liz Berger and the incredible Carnival Team of BIC and TOI helpers
• Laurel Westreich, Yves Sion, Shai Abisch, Liz Berger, and Jon Berger and many, many more people for being our set up and break down crew
• Sisterhood and Men’s Club for sponsoring and purchasing the supplies for our Hamantaschen and Mishloach Manot
• Everyone who sent Mishloach Manot to the congregation and purchased extra Hamantaschen
• Emily Jaeger, Jon Berger, and Norman Schain for beautifully chanting Megillah
• To all who attended!

We transition now to Passover where all of our hard work during Purim will come to fruition. During Passover, we say that each and every person must believe that they themselves had left Egypt. From this we learn that each one of us matters in our community. We saw this Purim how crucial each and every detail can be. Let’s use this as a benchmark for all of our programs–that each one can be even more open and inviting then we imagined.

You’re off to Great Places!

Today is your day!

Your mountain is waiting,

So… get on your way! 

Passover is coming,

Hip-hip-hooray!

Shabbat Shalom,

Pam Sender, President

Rabbi Chaya Bender