Last Saturday morning Nigel Weiss was called to the Torah as Bar Mitzvah. Mazel Tov, Nigel. You did an amazing job under far less than ideal circumstances. Neither a pandemic delay nor pandemic uncertainty kept you from making our entire community proud.
In addition to all of his studies and preparations, Nigel, his family, Rabbi Dean, and Cantor Shayndel showed us how our new normal will most likely look. Nigel’s Bar Mitzvah was our first hybrid event. While members of Nigel’s family gathered with friends in person in the Weiss/Gilberg back yard, additional members of our community attended remotely. Rabbi Dean and Cantor Shayndel participated from Oregon and Colorado respectively and I presented Nigel’s Certificate of Bar Mitzvah and congregational gift from my home.
Even though online events have been a poor substitute for meeting in person and, as Rabbi Dean often reminds us, we cannot share food online, we owe a lot to the technology that has allowed us to continue to be a community through this pandemic. And we have learned a lot.
One thing that we learned is that Zoom meetings and services are very convenient. Personally, I love the commute. The only traffic I have to deal with is a cat or two on the stairway. Also, our online events have allowed people, who for reasons of health or geography, would not have been able to attend, to log into our Zoom meetings and participate.
We are eager to reopen our synagogue and restart in person events, but we also want to keep the accessibility of our online events. We want all who want to participate to be able do so, if not in person, then online. After a long work week maybe the option of participating online would be appealing.
We have been and are continuing to work on getting the technology needed to create our hybrid future. After a two plus year struggle our internet service has been upgraded to give us the bandwidth we need. Now we are working on procuring and setting up the necessary equipment. In our future we will be able to be together in person and virtually. I’m excited about both.
From the President – July 1, 2021
July 2, 2021 by tbhrich • president
Last Saturday morning Nigel Weiss was called to the Torah as Bar Mitzvah. Mazel Tov, Nigel. You did an amazing job under far less than ideal circumstances. Neither a pandemic delay nor pandemic uncertainty kept you from making our entire community proud.
In addition to all of his studies and preparations, Nigel, his family, Rabbi Dean, and Cantor Shayndel showed us how our new normal will most likely look. Nigel’s Bar Mitzvah was our first hybrid event. While members of Nigel’s family gathered with friends in person in the Weiss/Gilberg back yard, additional members of our community attended remotely. Rabbi Dean and Cantor Shayndel participated from Oregon and Colorado respectively and I presented Nigel’s Certificate of Bar Mitzvah and congregational gift from my home.
Even though online events have been a poor substitute for meeting in person and, as Rabbi Dean often reminds us, we cannot share food online, we owe a lot to the technology that has allowed us to continue to be a community through this pandemic. And we have learned a lot.
One thing that we learned is that Zoom meetings and services are very convenient. Personally, I love the commute. The only traffic I have to deal with is a cat or two on the stairway. Also, our online events have allowed people, who for reasons of health or geography, would not have been able to attend, to log into our Zoom meetings and participate.
We are eager to reopen our synagogue and restart in person events, but we also want to keep the accessibility of our online events. We want all who want to participate to be able do so, if not in person, then online. After a long work week maybe the option of participating online would be appealing.
We have been and are continuing to work on getting the technology needed to create our hybrid future. After a two plus year struggle our internet service has been upgraded to give us the bandwidth we need. Now we are working on procuring and setting up the necessary equipment. In our future we will be able to be together in person and virtually. I’m excited about both.
We are Temple Beth Hillel.
If I am not for myself, who will be for me?
If I am not for others, what am I?
And if not now, when? -Rabbi Hillel
~ Michael R Cohen, President, Temple Beth Hillel
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