Temple Beth El is dedicated, Interfaith community shares a Thanksgiving meal

See more photos of the dedication and feast in “Read more…” and in Photo Gallery.
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
by Christine Yeres

Last Sunday, Interfaith Council clergy and their congregants—men, women and children—assembled on the plaza in front of the two-story gleaming glass hall and entryway connecting Temple Beth El’s 1972 Louis Kahn temple sanctuary with the new addition of a social hall, kitchen and classrooms arranged around a center courtyard.  Rabbi Josh Davidson officially dedicated the new Temple Beth El campus. His remarks follow.

Rabbi Davidson welcomed Interfaith Council members and expressly voiced the Council’s support for members of the Upper Westchester Muslim Society in their efforts “to build their own house of worship in New Castle so that they, too, will have the space to learn and to celebrate the richness and beauty of their tradition.  As they helped us put shovels in the ground here eighteen months ago, I look forward to doing the same for them.”

A 4:00 p.m. service followed in the sanctuary, with song and prayers by members of each of the Interfaith Council congregations, and the opportunity for two charities—Hope’s Door and The Food Bank for Westchester—to speak briefly about their mission. As people left the sanctuary around 5:00 to make their way to the feast that waited, the Muslim congregation remained behind to set out prayer rugs in the sanctuary.  After their required prayers, they joined the others in the social hall where the feast was in progress.

Rabbi Davidson affixes a Mezuzah to the entryway of the new Campus of Living Judaism.

Dedication of Temple Beth El’s Campus of Living Judaism
Remarks by Rabbi Josh Davidson

How wonderful it is to welcome all of you: Temple members and members of our wider community. The words of the Psalmist ring true today: Hineh ma tov u’ma naim, shevet achim gmyachad, “Behold how good and how pleasant it is for us to be together!”

It means a great deal to all of us from Temple Beth El to hold this dedication ceremony as we gather for our annual Interfaith Thanksgiving service and celebration.  Though we have expanded our facility into this beautiful campus of living Judaism to meet the educational and spiritual needs of our temple members, our duty as Jews impels us always to be actively engaged in the wider world and to be partners with other faith communities in the transformation of that world into one of freedom, equality, compassion, justice and hope for all peoples.

At this season of the year, when we give t hanks for the blessings of our lives, certainly among them the people we love, the values we cherish, and the communities which sustain us—we commit ourselves to working toward that better time.  How else, then, would we dedicate this campus other than by welcoming the entire community to celebrate with us?  Who else would we want to share this moment with—other than our partners on the Chappaqua Interfaith Council: the Baha’is of New Castle, the Chappaqua Friends Meeting, the Church of St. John and St. Mary, the Church of St. Mary the Virgin, the First Congregational Church, the Lutheran Church of Our Redeemer, and the Upper Westchester Muslim Society?

Representatives from a number of these, our sister congregations, joined in our ground-breaking a year and a half ago.  I want to make special mention of our friends from the Upper Westchester Muslim Society with whom many from Temple Beth El have shared over the years in an ongoing dialogue and study program of deep meaning to us.  The members of the mosque are in the process of seeking town approval to build their own house of worship in New Castle so that they, too, will have the space to learn and to celebrate the richness and beauty of their tradition.  As they helped us put shovels in the ground here eighteen months ago, I look forward to doing the same for them.  And as we are blessed to be hosting this Interfaith Thanksgiving celebration today, I look forward to their hosting it very, very soon.

The name of this synagogue is, of course, Beth El.  That name harkens back to the Biblical story of our patriarch, Jacob, as illustrated by Marc Chagall on the cover of your program for our service.  You know the tale: Jacob lay down on the desert floor, placed a rock under his head and dreamed of a ladder reaching up to the heavens, with angels ascending and descending upon it.  In his dream, God spoke to him and said, “Behold I am with you and I will be with you.”  When Jacob awoke he turned the stone upright and annointed it as a monument to God and exclaimed, “Behold, how awesome is this place!  This is Beth El, the House of God and the Gate of Heaven.”

The rabbis, in their creative re-telling of the story, suggest that Beth El would become the site of the Temple in Jerusalem, and that Solomon would select Jacob’s Pillow as the Temple’s cornerstone.  They also imagined that while Jacob’s head lay on the foundation of that earthly temple, at the top of that ladder Jacob glimpsed a vision of the Temple as it will appear in the world to come—that time of peace and harmony for which we all yearn.

I believe our human task is to become the angels on Jacob’s Ladder, tending to the needs of the people around us and the communities we live in.  Rung by rung, we are called on to draw our earthly reality ever closer to that heavenly vision.

So we are here not simply to dedicate a building.  We are here to re-dedicate ourselves to that work which we undertake in partnership with our wider community.  In this moment of Thanksgiving, we give thanks for that partnership, that fellowship we share—a truly precious gift for all of us.

 

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