President's Message
Dear Chavarim:
It’s great to finally note that it appears that we are getting over the peak of the pandemic as more of us are getting vaccinated and the numbers of cases and deaths are decreasing at least in our sanctuary of Brevard County. We have been blessed with having just a few cases in our Temple community and those who have had COVID have recovered thankfully without too much difficulty.
Ironically, we have recently celebrated two wonderful holidays, Purim and Passover, celebrating our freedom from those realities that would want to diminish our people or destroy us altogether. Our Zoom Purim celebration and our Zoom Passover Seder during these difficult times are testaments to our community’s desire and efforts to continue our traditions as well as celebrate our ancestors’ victories over tyranny. Our ancestors survived those times with the blessings of Hashem along the determination and conviction of their faith. And we too will continue to succeed over the new challenges of today. Our Temple community is strong and has wonderfully taken care of each other, as we mastered new communications tools that allowed us to “Zoom” through time, even as time seemed to stand still.
Over the past few months, we have been successful in having in house as well as online participation in our recent B’nai Mitzvah rehearsals and ceremonies by safely having between 25 to 65 attendees in house, all while observing all our safety protocols. While we still have not yet obtained our ‘herd immunity” such that we can open up everything without any protocols, your Temple leadership has decided that for the “short term,” we will continue to have our Friday night Shabbat Services both inhouse and online with RSVPs required but will continue to have our Saturday morning Shabbat service only online in order to keep the services to a reasonable time limit online while maintaining our safety. We will still have inhouse attendance with RSVPs required for the two Saturday B’nai Mitzvahs which we will be having this month. And we will try to have inhouse attendance for any special services and events over the next several months.
As for our successful online presentation of our services, we will be transitioning to an online service that will not require the PowerPoint presentation of the Siddurim pages to be presented. This is because the Perlman family is generously donating in honor of Neil and Peggy Perlman’s mother, a Lev Shalem prayer book to each family of TBS to have at home to use for our Friday and Saturday Shabbat services. Members will be given information to purchase additional Lev Shalem prayer books for their family if they wish. We will also be offering members the opportunity to borrow a copy of the Etz Hayim Chumash from TBS to use at home to follow the Torah and Haftorah readings or alternatively members may have access to an online copy of that week’s reading, if preferred. You will be receiving more information in the Temple weekly announcements on the process of obtaining your own Lev Shalem Prayer Book and/or the borrowing of the Etz Hayim Chumash. Please be assured that we will not remove the online presentation of the Siddurim until you all have the prayer books at home.
For those who may not be aware, it takes literally a ‘village” to produce our Shabbat Services for online and inhouse participation. While all our AV has been set up and established i.e. cameras, microphones and TV Monitors, it takes quite a bit of time for the Rabbi to create the online PowerPoint presentations of the services each week. Also, we have Loren Goldfarb and his AV committee supporting the AV equipment in the back of the Sanctuary for each non B’nai Mitzvah Service as well as Neil Perlman assisting in presenting the online PowerPoint presentation and Ilene Herr helping at home monitoring and selecting the online participants for our services. While they are all very delighted to continue to provide this essential service so we can continue to have participation for those of you who join us online for each Shabbat Service, we are working to decrease the people power for doing so. By providing each of you a copy of the Lev Shalem Prayer Books at home, we will be able to eliminate the need for the PowerPoint presentation of the Siddur for our Shabbat Services.
It is truly inspiring that notwithstanding the enormous challenges the pandemic has presented, our Temple community has truly come together and continue to offer caring, educational, and spiritual services to us all. As we move toward Spring, my family and I wish for us all to continue to be healthy and be able to celebrate the good times together and to easily weather the challenging times when they occur.
L’Shalom,
Bill Troner
President
It’s great to finally note that it appears that we are getting over the peak of the pandemic as more of us are getting vaccinated and the numbers of cases and deaths are decreasing at least in our sanctuary of Brevard County. We have been blessed with having just a few cases in our Temple community and those who have had COVID have recovered thankfully without too much difficulty.
Ironically, we have recently celebrated two wonderful holidays, Purim and Passover, celebrating our freedom from those realities that would want to diminish our people or destroy us altogether. Our Zoom Purim celebration and our Zoom Passover Seder during these difficult times are testaments to our community’s desire and efforts to continue our traditions as well as celebrate our ancestors’ victories over tyranny. Our ancestors survived those times with the blessings of Hashem along the determination and conviction of their faith. And we too will continue to succeed over the new challenges of today. Our Temple community is strong and has wonderfully taken care of each other, as we mastered new communications tools that allowed us to “Zoom” through time, even as time seemed to stand still.
Over the past few months, we have been successful in having in house as well as online participation in our recent B’nai Mitzvah rehearsals and ceremonies by safely having between 25 to 65 attendees in house, all while observing all our safety protocols. While we still have not yet obtained our ‘herd immunity” such that we can open up everything without any protocols, your Temple leadership has decided that for the “short term,” we will continue to have our Friday night Shabbat Services both inhouse and online with RSVPs required but will continue to have our Saturday morning Shabbat service only online in order to keep the services to a reasonable time limit online while maintaining our safety. We will still have inhouse attendance with RSVPs required for the two Saturday B’nai Mitzvahs which we will be having this month. And we will try to have inhouse attendance for any special services and events over the next several months.
As for our successful online presentation of our services, we will be transitioning to an online service that will not require the PowerPoint presentation of the Siddurim pages to be presented. This is because the Perlman family is generously donating in honor of Neil and Peggy Perlman’s mother, a Lev Shalem prayer book to each family of TBS to have at home to use for our Friday and Saturday Shabbat services. Members will be given information to purchase additional Lev Shalem prayer books for their family if they wish. We will also be offering members the opportunity to borrow a copy of the Etz Hayim Chumash from TBS to use at home to follow the Torah and Haftorah readings or alternatively members may have access to an online copy of that week’s reading, if preferred. You will be receiving more information in the Temple weekly announcements on the process of obtaining your own Lev Shalem Prayer Book and/or the borrowing of the Etz Hayim Chumash. Please be assured that we will not remove the online presentation of the Siddurim until you all have the prayer books at home.
For those who may not be aware, it takes literally a ‘village” to produce our Shabbat Services for online and inhouse participation. While all our AV has been set up and established i.e. cameras, microphones and TV Monitors, it takes quite a bit of time for the Rabbi to create the online PowerPoint presentations of the services each week. Also, we have Loren Goldfarb and his AV committee supporting the AV equipment in the back of the Sanctuary for each non B’nai Mitzvah Service as well as Neil Perlman assisting in presenting the online PowerPoint presentation and Ilene Herr helping at home monitoring and selecting the online participants for our services. While they are all very delighted to continue to provide this essential service so we can continue to have participation for those of you who join us online for each Shabbat Service, we are working to decrease the people power for doing so. By providing each of you a copy of the Lev Shalem Prayer Books at home, we will be able to eliminate the need for the PowerPoint presentation of the Siddur for our Shabbat Services.
It is truly inspiring that notwithstanding the enormous challenges the pandemic has presented, our Temple community has truly come together and continue to offer caring, educational, and spiritual services to us all. As we move toward Spring, my family and I wish for us all to continue to be healthy and be able to celebrate the good times together and to easily weather the challenging times when they occur.
L’Shalom,
Bill Troner
President