LESSONS - Congregation Agudas Achim

12
CONGREGATION
AGUDAS
ACHIM
Your Jewish Home
As this issue of Kolenu goes to press,
we are winding down our Kol Nidre
Appeal, preparing next year’s budget
for presentation to the board, tending
to a number of facility issues and
looking forward to an exciting new year
of services, as well as educational,
cultural and recreational programs and
activities. Kol Nidre, by any account, has
been a hudge success, and I would like to thank everyone
for participating in this campaign. We raised over $40,000
which will be used for Jewish education and for subsidizing
memberships of those in need of assistance. Our members’
generous contributions show that when the synagogue calls
upon you to support its endeavors you certainly respond.
Thank you for your generosity.
January, of course, is a month for making resolutions.
As I was making my own list, which consisted mainly of
resolutions to eat less and exercise more, I turned to Antoine
de Saint Exupery’s “The Little Prince” for further inspiration.
Exupery’s “Little Prince” lived alone on a tiny planet, which
had three volcanoes, several baobabs (giant weeds?) and
caterpillars, and a flower - a rose. He believed that his rose
grew only on his planet and was, therefore, unique in all
the universe. Because he was attracted to its great beauty
and uniqueness the prince loved his rose. He built a fence
around it to protect it from the caterpillars, and he watered it
faithfully. Since the fence would not protect the rose against
baobabs, which if neglected would overrun everything on
the planet, the prince would pull them up at the very first
moment he could distinguish them from rosebuds. And the
rose flourished and the prince took great pride in it.
During his interplanetary travels, the prince became
understandably perturbed and deeply saddened when, on
earth, he discovered a rose garden with five thousand roses,
all beautiful and indistinguishable from his rose. His unique
and special rose now seemed very common. A fox helped
the Little Prince to realize that he loved his rose, not for
its beauty or its singularity, but because he watered it and
because it was his.
Caring for something, as the prince had cared for his rose,
is precisely what makes it unique. The fox, you will recall,
implored the prince to “tame” him, so that each of them
would be distinguishable from others of their kind. “If
you tame me,” said the fox, “it will be as if the sun came
to shine on my life. I shall know the sound of a step that
will be different from all the others. Other steps send me
hurrying back underneath the ground. Yours,will call me,
like music, out of my burrow.” The prince tamed the fox, and
understood, by analogy, that because he had cared for his
rose he had, in effect, tamed it and made it unique. Thus he
was able to confront the thousands of roses in the garden
and say to them: “You are beautiful but you are empty.” “To
be sure,” the prince continued,
“ . . . an ordinary passerby would think that my rose looked
just like you . . . But in herself alone she is more important
than all the hundreds of you other roses: because it is she
that I have watered; because it is she that I have put under
the glass globe; because it is she that I have sheltered
behind the screen; because it is for her that I have killed
the caterpillars (except the two or three that we saved to
become butterflies); because it is she that I have listened to,
when she grumbled, or boasted, or even sometimes when
she said nothing. Because she is my rose.”
I believe there is an analogue in this story for synagogues.
Our love for our synagogue, just like the little prince’s love
for his rose, is defined by our caring for it, protecting it, and
making it ours. Thus we ought to ask and find answers to
such questions as: “How do we best water a synagogue?”
“How do we put her under a glass globe, or shelter
her behind a screen?” “How do we best make her our
synagogue, and cause the sun to shine upon her as she calls
to us like music?” Our individual and collective answers to
these questions, I would like to suggest, can be the basis of
our resolutions relating to our synagogue.
Have a Happy New Year!
Allan H. Glazerman
Executive Director
Scholarships Available
Students wishing to go on a recognized program to Israel,
including March of the Living and Birthright, or wishing
to attend Jewish camps, are encouraged to apply directly
to the synagogue for partial scholarships. To request an
application please call Karen Katims at the synagogue and
request a Scholarship Application Form. Applications must
be received in the office at least thirty days before your
chosen Israel or camp program requires a check.