Celebrate our Rededication

Thank you for all you have each given to make Temple Beth El such a successful, vibrant and warm congregation. The Rededication Weekend is a celebration of the end of our long journey through the rigors of construction and back to our newly renovated Temple home. There are many opportunities to celebrate our return to Temple Beth El in the inclusive spirit of the weekend…and of Temple Beth El as a whole.

Our intent was to create a weekend that embraces the entire community, speaks to different parts of our congregation, offers multiple opportunities for everyone to attend at least one major celebration that is absolutely free…and provides one major fundraising opportunity for the Temple. We hope everyone will join us Friday night as we celebrate on Shabbat with worship, song and a spectacular Oneg Shabbat. This is our chance to be together as one community and one congregation, to rejoice with the greater community as well. It is our central celebration.

While we would never want any Beth El member to feel excluded, we must have a fundraiser to remain good stewards of our Temple and we hope as many of you as possible will come. The party will be spectacular and the need for our Temple is great. So, here is the roundup of the weekend activities, and the thought behind each:

1. Friday is the primary celebration. It is Shabbat with a “Grand Oneg Shabbat” as a major party! It is open to all. It is free. Our service will include former clergy, current members, benefactors, clergy from our partner Christian and Islamic congregations in Charlotte and VIP’s from the community. This Shabbat evening will be the centerpiece of our Dedication Weekend.
2. Saturday morning will be the “L’dor V’dor Shabbat Morning Service – An Intergenerational Community Celebration” led by LIBERTY, our Senior Youth Group. That will also be an open and inclusive celebration of the community we are. Everyone is invited.
3. Sunday morning is a great celebration for families and our Religious School, although all are invited to come and watch the fun. The families will have a “scavenger hunt” to find the features of our new building and get to know our new congregational home in a celebratory way. This is also absolutely free and event you should really attend.

This leaves Saturday night. In order to meet this year’s budget, last year’s Board set an aggressive fundraising goal. Since we do not have a One For All Ball this year, Saturday night’s event will be our primary Temple fundraiser. In strategically planning this event, we determined that the Temple Rededication Weekend was the best time for drawing congregants and members of the broader community to a fundraiser.

The renovation project is coming in on-time (OK, a couple of weeks later than we wish) and on-budget. To be on-budget, we have “value engineered” and very responsibly cut some “wish we had’s”. We owe Jonathan Howard, Ben Benson, Sara and the entire Building Committee a huge debt of gratitude. They have been incredibly responsible and careful stewards to allow us to finish the project inside of our budget. However, we are still going to be missing some things you might expect to see…again, making an aggressive fundraiser all the more necessary. We will add those “wish we had’s” as we can.

There are many events we plan, such as the Purim Dance shortly and the April event to celebrate Susan Jacobs’ 10th Anniversary (with guest musician, Debbie Friedman) that are fun and open to all with very low ticket prices. Those events are NOT intended to raise money…they are intended to raise spirit.

Our Friday night, Saturday morning and Sunday morning events are also to raise spirit and community. We have a different mission with the Saturday event. It is our “One For All Ball” opportunity this year.

We know that the Dedication Weekend will be a positive and memorable event for all and appreciate all you’d done to make it happen. If you have any further concerns, please don’t hesitate to contact either Rabbi Schindler or me.

Welcome home!

Fellow members of Temple Beth El…imagine having an open house a few hours after you move into a new home. We did that on Friday night, January 7, in our new building. The Clergy and Staff did an incredible job of preparing the building…if you had seen it a few hours before the service, with ladders and boxes, you would have been stunned and incredibly impressed!

We needed a practice service before the MLK Shabbat. A surprising 550 people came to that service. Wow. Thank you for your willingness to be flexible as we figured out what worked and what didn’t! We punted with a temporary sound system, no stained glass in the ark…we punted, but it was our Temple home and our community. What a great spirit in the building; and how we have missed being there!!! We have been living in the building for a few weeks and have learned a few things.

Most comments have been so favorable…however, some comments made me realize I need to remind everyone what we did…and didn’t do…with the renovation.

We did not change the size of the sanctuary itself…but we did make it possible to expand the sanctuary size in increments. These changes will make our Temple home more flexible and will make it feel at times larger and at other times more intimate. These are the changes we made:

1. We made the sanctuary more flexible for different kinds of worship services we have…casual worship, Tot Shabbat, Teen Band and chorus and the more formal services including guest choirs and groups we will host including MLK Shabbat.
2. Added air walls to allow the sanctuary to be enlarged by stages, while keeping the social halls intact for parties or Onegs. You saw that Friday…although they can break down pretty quickly to accommodate bigger crowds.
3. Added a second social hall with a brand new kitchen for events and parties and to enlarge the sanctuary by opening the air walls and adding chairs.
4. We made the Bima accessible to all…the elderly and those who are infirm or in wheelchairs…now all can have honors.
5. We tremendously enlarged the community gathering space in the main foyer so we can gather as a community before and after services.
6. Added a second foyer near the education building for the same reason.
7. We added a new gift shop that will make great strides in funding our Religious School scholarships.
8. We built a new chapel.
9. We turned the old chapel into a Beit Midrash or a study hall for the B’Nei Mitzvah students and for Torah Study.
10. We built a wing for new offices for administrative staff.
11. We changed the offices and enlarged that wing for the clergy.
12. We added a wonderful room for families of the bereaved or for brides…either way…a family room.
13. We built outside spaces…gardens and great spaces in the front and back to create outside worship and event spaces.

We have a new sound system coming…the stained glass is in and is gorgeous. A LOT of things are being added every week. Every time you come, something new will be there. Take a look and let me know what you think.