Rabbi’s Message
Dear Friends,
As the calendar turns to September, I am thrilled and deeply honored to officially step into the role of your rabbi. This means I invite you for a coffee, a chat in my office, or to join us in the activities going on.
While it will be Friday when I first wake up physically in South Bend, my heart, energy, and excitement are already in Michiana.
Commenting on the preparation for the covenant at Sinai (Shemot 19:5), Rashi cites the Mekhilta and note that kol hathalot kashot, "all beginnings are difficult." Our sages understood that beginnings demand emotional friction. They ask us to step outside familiar routines, risk vulnerability, and pour our deliberate energy into building something new. Yet the Mekhilta there immediately follows that famous adage with an essential promise: if you try and succeed with one mitzvah, more will come your way.
The promise of success after success as we grow and develop is not merely relevant to me as I begin in the St Joseph valley, but for each of us. Not only as we build our relationships, but also as we each rethink where we are headed through the cycle of Tishrei. Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, and Simchat Torah/Shmini Atzeret give us chances to redirect ourselves to our true directions, to return, or as we say in Hebrew to do teshuva. That too is a new beginning. How can you be a better sibling, parent, child, partner, colleague, and friend? How can you do more mitzvot and build a better world?
The initial effort and intentionality of a beginning are the very vessels that hold the subsequent joy, familiarity, and depth of community life.
I look forward to meeting each of you in greater depth over the coming weeks and months, and to learning, praying, celebrating, and living together as a community.
Wishing you an early Shanah Tovah U'Metukah, and looking forward to all that lies ahead,
Rabbi Tyson
PS - I mean it, reach out and let's find time for a coffee, a beer, a walk, a board game, to plot new Sinai activities, or to study Torah together.