PRESIDENT CONNIE HORNUNG’S MESSAGE:

We will all be working together to pull off another Super Bowl Sunday Corned Beef Carry-Out Fundraiser. Your participation this year will be the benchmark as to whether we can continue to do this type of labor-intensive fundraising in the future. We all committed to this project and we will need each and every member, your children over 13, and even your friends to help us make sandwiches on the weekend of February 4th and 5th! I am counting on you all to come through for us!

This month we will celebrate Tu Bish’vat together…the Jewish Arbor Day, in a Seder that resembles the Passover Seder. This is usually a well-attended and fun evening where we will sample the fruits and nuts of Israel’s trees and gardens. It’s hard to believe, but it is planting season now in Israel, and hopefully, we will get to our spring planting season soon in Ohio! Rabbi Brickner has decided not to have a potluck dinner preceding this Shabbat Service on Friday, February 17th so that we can enjoy the food samples of the Seder as we read the beautiful readings in our service packets. Please bring a dessert, such as carrot cake, carob brownies, pumpkin pie or zucchini bread - something made with fruits, vegetables, or nuts. The east side Ray’s Market is a good source for these types of cakes. Of course, homemade is even better! Our freezer is always in need of more fresh baked goods, so please plan to leave any extras for a future service!

If someone would like to host the rabbi for dinner before the Tu Bish’vat Seder, please let him or me know!

At our January Temple Board meeting, we accepted the resignation of Stephanie Patick, Secretary, from the Board, with deepest regrets, as she wishes to spend more time with Ken and her family. We are in need of someone to take notes at the Board meetings and to type them up after the meetings for the Board members. Anyone is welcome to join us! Remember, "Ask not what your temple can do for you, ask what you can do for your temple." I will be calling some people, if no one volunteers. It is not a huge time commitment - one meeting a month, plus the Annual Meeting in August.

I have been working with two people from the Maintenance of Temple Membership Dues (MUM) Office and, with our shrinking population, we are now considered paid in full to the Union for Reform Judaism (URJ) for 2011, with a credit surplus of $51 paid towards our 2012 dues. The Union expects over $1000 in annual dues from us this year, based on a per capita plus 2% rate (up from 1% last year). This required loads of paperwork last year from Anne Handley and Nancy Mayerson, and I received the same papers to fill out for this year.

At our Board meeting, we also voted to go back to our regular Tuesday night Board meetings, at 7:00 PM during the winter.

OUR ANGELS OF THE MONTH OF FEBRUARY 2012 are Aric & Randy Hersh for sponsoring the cost of the food for the Super Bowl Sunday Corned Beef Carry-Out! This incredibly generous offer allows the Sisterhood (and Temple) to make pure profit from our fundraising efforts, and we are very grateful to the Hersh’s and to all who have sent checks to help underwrite our expenses!

Think Spring!!!!

Connie

RABBI BARNEY BRICKNER MESSAGE:  

WHAT TU B’SHAVAT CAN MEAN:  

As the holiday of Tu b’Shevat approaches, congregations and families prepare to look at the natural world with wonder and celebrate the abundance of earth’s incredible resources. At many of our celebrations, we will read from Ecclesiastes 1:4: "One generation goes, another comes, but the earth remains the same forever."

Yet our generation is learning that this promise may not be ensured. The earth is changing before us, and the resources we enjoy today -- abundant food, a stable climate, and clean, breathable air -- may not be here forever.

This Tu b’Shevat, brings an awesome responsibility: We must act to save the very creation that we celebrate -- the planet that is ours in trust.

Tu b’Shevat, which began as a minor holiday marked by a festive meal, has grown into the modern Jewish Earth Day, linking traditional celebration with our growing sense of environmental responsibility. As we connect our tradition to these modern challenges, we deepen our sense of personal responsibility, by reminding ourselves that it’s a mitzvah to reduce, reuse and recycle.

This Tu b’Shevat, we have the opportunity to move beyond individual and communal celebratory activities to raise our voices in addressing broader challenges to our environment. To truly mark the holiday and meet its intent, we must do more than plant trees or attend a seder -- we must commit to advocacy on the polices that affect environmental integrity.

Scientists, economists and religious leaders agree on the need for comprehensive climate and energy change. We need to advocate for meaningful measures to minimize the impact of climate change and new energy policies on low-income communities and vulnerable populations in America and around the world, including sufficient funding for international adaptation programs that help communities confront the effects of climate change -- drought, flooding, changing agricultural patterns -- that some are already seeing. Industrial changes of this magnitude will have an enormous impact on the lives and livelihoods of millions of people. We must see to it that in our efforts to save the planet, we do not harm the people who live on it. In the aftershock of Haiti, we see vividly the horrifying damage of neglecting infrastructure among the poorest of the poor.

In Midrash Ecclesiastes Rabbah, we learn that the Creator led Adam around the Garden of Eden saying, "Look at My works. See how beautiful they are, how excellent. See to it that you do not spoil or destroy My world -- for if you do, there will be no one to repair it after you."

On Tu b’Shevat, it is our moral and spiritual duty as part of our celebration to join us in the task of "tikkun olam," repairing our broken world. The seasons are turning, and time is not on our side.