Rosh HaShanah Message 5785

Originally shared with the SJCS community in September 2024 to mark Rosh HaShanah 5785

Can a year be both wondrous and unsettling?

Even as the SJCS Community surely approached last year with a conceptual understanding that the answer to this question must be yes, living through the next twelve months brought the message home in ways we could not fully have anticipated. This held true in a geopolitical sense, as the most murderous day for Jews since the 1940s shocked and outraged all of us. Our unsettled feelings magnified as the aftermath of October 7 quickly devolved into proliferation of anti-Semitism, with wide sweep, globally and locally too. Maybe we found that we could not exorcize the demons of our people’s history as easily as we had hoped we could.

And yet: arguably no day captured the spirit of the year so fully as SJCS’s Chanukah Celebration. We had shifted plans from a student performance during Green Lake Park’s Pathways of Light Festival to one sheltered on our own campus, lest our students face protesters. Our community gathered in our Mo’adon, in unprecedented numbers, spreading light, fostering resilience and determination in community, and sharing joy as well.

In an unsettled time, the mission of our school provided a beacon and SJCS shined, achieving successes that matched or exceeded our fondest hopes: recruiting a full new class of kindergartners, retaining our students and staff at rates well beyond national benchmarks, inspiring generous responses to calls for financial support—opening for us aspirations to greater heights, and providing our students with an exceptional educational program, one deeply rooted in bedrock values, timeless spirits of inquiry, and communal bonds.

5784 taught us a great deal. Some lessons stretched and strained us. Yet we thrived, and our children thrived. This, at its core, engenders hope, and we head to 5785 guided by just that: tikvah/תקווה (hope). This includes the hope that all families in our community will enter a new year generating joy and peace of mind. It includes the hope that, with commitment to mission, we will continue to prepare our students “to influence their world for the good.” And it includes the hope that, with the support of our community, SJCS will go MiChayil El Chayil/מחייל אל חייל (from strength to strength), withstanding the unsettling and drawing inspiration from the wondrous.

Shana Tova, U’Metuka, U’M’Leyah Tikvah/שנה טובה ומתוקה ומלאה תקווה

May this be a good year, a sweet year, and a year filled with hope.