eblasts

Dear Congregation Habonim Members,

Last week at the Annual General Meeting, I passed the torch of President to Joanie Smith.

It represented the first time in about 10 years that I will not be on the Board of Habonim.

I wanted to share a few brief thoughts with you about Habonim today, and what the experience has meant to me.

I joined the Board back in 2007 for a few reasons:

1. I thought I had something to offer that could help.
2. I thought I might meet some people who could become clients.
3. I wanted to show my children that helping the Jewish Community is something that you are supposed to do.

To greater or lesser degrees, all three of these happened, but an unexpected thing turned out to be the highlight for me.

The greatest benefit was that getting involved with Habonim helped me and my family to find our Jewish community in Toronto – even though we have lived here our whole lives.

The more people I met, the more I was struck by a few things. We are a modest group of people at Habonim. We are not particularly ‘showy’. Having said that, the number of top Doctors, Lawyers, Businesspeople, Professors, Musicians, Judges, and Professionals of all sorts is simply incredible. There are so many people at Habonim who are greatly talented and successful, yet as a group we are modest. That is a really wonderful combination.

We also have many members who really want to do Tikkun Olam. They want to repair the world and do so in big and small ways. Whether through helping Immigrants, or building hospitals, or starting charities to help build homes in Africa, or simply trying to do the right thing on a daily basis. There is a wide range of good things that are done by members of this congregation…quietly but significantly.

We are truly fortunate at Habonim. We have stars in our midst. Eli Rubenstein is unique. He shapes the values of our organization and we learn from him in enjoyable ways, on an ongoing basis. Aviva Rajsky is a great talent. When she and Tom Bellman play, we are transformed. When Aviva is joined by Kim Doron and they sing together, these are wonderful moments. These stars have been joined by Robin Zionce-Garber, who is a one woman powerhouse who runs the office and makes so many things work well on a day to day basis. We also have a wonderful Sunday school that continues to grow as it teaches the joy of Judaism to children from age 5 to 12.

The Board and other volunteers at Habonim are a very strong group. One thing that I feel very good about is the quality of people around the table at the Board level. Led by Joanie Smith, I believe that in 2017-2018, we have among the best Boards ever at Habonim. There is not only specific expertise from Legal, Finance, Real Estate, and Construction fields, but they are unified in their purpose. That is to simply make Habonim a better place.

Then there is the next big thing for Habonim. I can’t wait for these special Habonim values and these strengths to be housed in a beautiful new building that will allow us to do more of the good things we are doing today. We received a new $18,000 donation this week, and we are now just $380,000 from our $9.5 million target. How great would it be for the entire congregation to see us surpass our goal in the next month or two. If you are able to help, now is a great time.

As a final thought, I would simply like to say thank you. We are a great community, and it has been an honour to serve as your President.

Shabbat Shalom,

Ted Rechtshaffen